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How To Expose Your Vacation Rental to Thousands Of Online Visitors

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article|Online Marketing|How To Expose Your Vacation Rental to Thousands Of Online VisitorsIf you have a holiday home or if you are looking to lease a room in your house or even lease your house then this is a must read strategy guide to help you grow your vacation rental business no matter how small or large your operation.

Vacation rentals are in their prime at this time. There are plenty of websites available on which you can list your property for free and expose your vacation rental to thousands of people seeking to rent a holiday home for their vacation.

For those that are looking to get into the vacation rental business, the first question they usually ask is “Which website should I list my property on?”. Well, the answer is, in fact, an easy one if you are willing to part with a small monthly fee every month.

List Your Vacation Renal on All the Websites That Will Allow You To

You should list your property or properties on every vacation rental website that is available. That means Airbnb, HomeAway, FlipKey, Booking.com, and so on. You can find some recommendations for vacation rental listing sites here.

Why List My Properties on All Vacation Rental Websites?

There are two key reasons why you should use every available website at your disposal to list your vacation rental.

Free to list your property

This is the most obvious point we’d like to make is that on nearly all of these websites it is free to list your property. The only time you will pay any fees to the website is if someone books your property. Read about Airbnb service fees applied here for a better understanding of what you will pay when someone does book your vacation rental.

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Take advantage of all the free internet traffic your website will gain from being listed on multiple websites

People looking to rent a holiday home find these vacation rental websites on social media as well as internet searches using Yahoo, Google, and Bing. The reason people searching for holiday homes are able to find these websites online is that every vacation rental website out there has a dedicated digital marketing team and budget to bring traffic to their website.

When people find the vacation rental site they like, they will search for holiday homes in the area they plan to visit. Your property, if listed correctly, will appear in these filtered searches for the area the holidaymaker wants to visit. That is free exposure for you because it cost you nothing to list your property on the website.

Now picture this. If someone chooses HomeAway to search for a holiday home over Airbnb, it doesn’t matter. That is because you will have listed your property (for free) on both these websites. Therefore, anyone searching for a vacation rental in the area your property is listed on either the Airbnb or HomeAway website will see your property as an option to book for accommodation om both of these websites.

Think about it. All that traffic on the internet coming to your vacation rental home no matter which website people choose when searching for ‘vacation rentals’.Plus, if someone sees your property on both websites, they are more inclined to trust and book your place – especially if you have already built up an established profile with plenty of positive feedback.

For more information about positive feedback for vacation rentals, check out this HomeAway vacation rental success guide.

How Do You Manage Multiple Websites?

Obviously one of the key issues here is that you need to manage multiple listing across multiple websites. Now, this used to be a headache for people that already use the strategy mentioned here. However, now you can use vacation rental website builders to manage all these websites centrally.

You can have your own branded website with a booking system or a WordPress appointment booking plugin built in. You will have a channel manager that centralizes all the calendars by syncing your main calendar with all your vacation rental website listings on sites like HomeAway, VRBO, and Airbnb so there is no risk of double bookings. Plus, you will have a central website where all your photos and listings can be stored.

Check out the Lodgify vacation rental resources page where there is a wealth of information covering how to market your website, how to optimize your website for local SEO as well as actionable SEO tips, how to increase your bookings via Airbnb, optimizing your HomeAway website listings, and how to write your own business plan.

One of the best articles here we recommend if you do decide to take our advice given in this article is to read the article titled: “Increase Direct Bookings and Save Time with Vacation Rental Software” on the Lodgify resources page. The software is actually provided by Lodgify, which is the website that provides all the resources you need to take your vacation rental business to the next level.

Top 5 Facebook ads strategies for ecom or dropshipping

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | Top 5 Facebook ads strategies for ecom or dropshipping | Facebook Ads | EntrepreneurshipIf you are looking forward to boost the popularity of your dropshipping business and get more orders, you must take a look at Facebook marketing. In fact, Facebook paid advertisements are in a position to provide outstanding results to you. At Strategy Driven, our favourite course for ecommerce is Franklin Hatchett’s ecom elites course. The ecom elites review on aaronsreview.com goes into great detail as to why you should buy the course.  As an alternative, you can also work with Facebook advertising agencies.

As the first thing, you need to understand that Facebook advertising is completely different from Google advertising. If you are familiar with Google advertising, you will not be able to apply the same strategies in here to end up with positive outcomes. You must be aware about the specific strategies, which can help you gain positive results in Facebook.

Here is a list of 5 such effective Facebook ads strategies that you can follow for dropshipping or ecommerce. All these strategies can provide amazing returns to you and you will be able to go ahead with any out of them.

1. Make sure that you create a sense of exclusivity

Facebook is all about exclusivity. Therefore, you need to make sure that your advertisements on Facebook are also in a position to create a sense of exclusivity. This can provide you with a clear advantage by being on a social media network such as Facebook. You should always provide exclusive content via the Facebook ads. This can consume a lot of time and effort. But when you compare it with the returns that you get, you will be able to have a clear idea about the benefits that come on your way.

2. Highlight before and after

In the Facebook advertisements, you need to highlight the conditions that exist before a specific action and the conditions that exist after a specific action. No matter what kind of a product you are trying to promote with Facebook, you need to take it out of the box and snap a photo to be uploaded to Facebook. Then you need to snap another similar photo after you use the product. Both these photos should be combined and uploaded on Facebook.

For example, assume that you are going to sell running shoes through your ecommerce store. The first thing you need to do is to take out the running shoes, keep them along with the wrapping and then capture a photo. Then you need to take another photo, which indicates a person wearing the running shoes. This photo should be taken with a nice background behind it. If you can follow this strategy, you will be able to get the best possible results out of your Facebook advertisements.

3. Receive benefits from the fame of your competitors

When you are promoting a dropshipping or an ecommerce business on Facebook, you need to pay special attention towards the competition. However, you will be able to take advantage from the fame of your competitors.

Many people worry that having famous and reputed competitors is a disadvantage. That’s because people often tend to go ahead with the brands that they can easily recognize. However, you will be able to talk about those recognizing brands and then tell that there is something even more interesting and better. With that approach, you can promote your product. This will provide you with a better opportunity to grab the attention of your audience.

All you have to do is to upload a post with information related to the product offered by your competitor. Inside the post, you can promote your product according to the above-mentioned approach.

4. Highlight the contrast

You must be selling variant or customizable products through your ecommerce store. In such a situation, you need to make sure that you upload Facebook advertisements, which highlight the contrast between them and the ordinary products available in the market.

You can even do with the help of exact same shoes as well. All you have to do is to introduce the different colors and textures, when your customer keeps on scrolling through. This can give life to an outstanding advertisement in the long run. It can also highlight all the variants that you have got for sale under your store as well.

However, you need to understand that it is not possible to receive effective results by paying attention only towards the colors. You should also take a look at the fonts and background colors as well. That’s where you need to think about handing this over to a professional designer. Then you can completely focus on promoting your dropshipping or ecommerce store on Facebook.

5. Create excitement about products on the minds of customers

Through Facebook advertisements, it is also possible for you to create excitement about your products in the minds of customers. You just need to think the most exciting moment for your customer would be in the product lifecycle. In most of the products, unboxing is the most exciting part. For that, you need to select a product and then promote it via Facebook advertisements. Due to the excitement that you create among customers, they will be tempted to visit the ecommerce store. As a result, you will be able to generate a significant income out of it as well. That’s because you can get more people from Facebook to purchase the product that you offer. It can create a positive impact on the other products available for your purchase in the ecommerce store as well.

Any ecommerce or dropshipping store owner will be able to follow these strategies. Then you can easily end up with outstanding results. You will also fall in love with Facebook advertisements due to the amazing returns that are offered to you in the long run.

5 Ways to incorporate an explainer video to your marketing strategy

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | 5 Ways to incorporate an explainer video to your marketing strategyAmong the marketing strategies that you can find out there in the digital world, video marketing has received a lot of attention. As you already know, a picture can speak a thousand words. Likewise, a video can speak millions of words. Hence, it is always better for you to use videos for the marketing campaigns.

Many different types of videos are being used for digital marketing campaigns in today’s world. Among those different types of videos, you can find explainer videos as well. Most of the businesses prefer to use explainer videos due to the simplicity and effectiveness linked with them. On the other hand, it costs fewer resources and a lower number of time in order to create an explainer video as well. If you don’t like to appear in front of a camera, consider animated video production to create your explainer video.

Once you get an explainer video created for the business, you need to learn how to incorporate it to your marketing strategy. Here are 5 different approaches that you can follow to get the job done.

1. Use explainer videos to communicate efficiently

Efficient communications play a major role behind the success of marketing campaigns. If you want to get your message across, you need to make sure that communications take place via an efficient path. The explainer videos will be able to help you with that.

In general, the explainer videos are created to explain a process. Hence, it can create engagement, raise awareness and increase sales volume. On the other hand, using explainer videos can be considered as an excellent method to communicate efficiently with the customers. That’s because the customers will be able to understand what you are trying to say. They will be attracted towards you’re the products or services that you offer after the understanding they get. You will also be able to highlight the specific message you want to say with this kind of an explainer video. Animation Explainers are the best animation studio in Toronto Canada.

2. Use explainer videos to create brand awareness

Without enhancing the visibility and presence of your brand, it is quite difficult for you to attract new customers or retain the existing customers. Therefore, you must look at all possible options that are available for you to create brand awareness. Explainer videos can assist you with that as well. According to a recent study conducted by eMarketer, it has been identified that more than 56% of people say that they are interested spending their money on the brands that they are familiar with.
The explainer videos can help you to promote your brand via interesting visual content. You just need to think about incorporating your brand colors, brand logo or product and service specific visual content to the explainer video. You will also be provided with the chance to combine all the different branding efforts that you have into one single message. It will be a powerful message, which can provide outstanding results to you. Hence, you will be able to reach your brand awareness goals in an effective manner as well.

3. Use explainer videos to educate the visitors of your website

After getting the explainer videos created, you can think about adding them to your business website. When you add an explainer video, you will be able to allow the visitors to spend more time on it. In other words, you will be getting a better level of attention from the visitors of the website. Hence, you are provided with an ideal opportunity to educate the audience in an effective manner as well.

The explainer videos are packed with a lot of useful information. People are attracted towards the valuable content that they can receive out of an explainer video as well. This can help you to deliver the exact same message you want to give out as well.

You must also understand that most of the people in today’s world prefer to watch something, instead of reading. Hence, you should think about providing them with what they want. Explainer videos can help you with that. You shouldn’t load your website with unnecessary content. All you have to do is to replace them with the explainer videos. This strategy will help you with transforming the official business website into a lead generator as well.

4. Use explainer videos to attract new prospects

If you don’t put an extra effort to attract new prospects, you will find it as a difficult task to ensure the overall sustainability of your business in the long run. You can easily attract new people towards the business with the explainer videos. That’s because most of the people in today’s world tend to do a research before they select a company to work with.

Even if you take a look at the search engine algorithms, you will notice that videos are provided with a high priority when indexing on the results pages. Therefore. You must think about getting some effective explainer videos created for the business and published them online. Then you can see how they are generating new prospects, which can heavily contribute towards the future success of your business.

5. Use explainer videos to engage on social media

No business can survive without social media these days. After creating your social media profiles, you should also take appropriate steps in order to engage with the followers. Explainer videos can assist you with that. That’s because the explainer videos can easily provide you with the opportunity to grab the attention of the followers and keep them interested about your business.

You can add questions and other engaging elements to the explainer video in order to make it more appealing for your social media followers. Then they will interact with the videos and help you to further increase your brand visibility. Therefore, you will be able to cover up your investment within a short period of time.

How Social Media Can Grow Your Business

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Social Media | How Social Media Can Grow Your BusinessIf you’re a business owner, you have likely heard about how social media has a way of spreading the word about your business, even if you no clue on why or how it achieves results. Although it can take a lot of work to maintain a number of social media accounts, the overall benefits for your business are innumerable.

It is well within your reach to use social media if the correct strategies are implemented. If you’re standing at the side-line watching your competitors take center stage by using social media to boost consumer interest, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be jumping on the bandwagon too.

Here are a few top reasons as to why you should be using social media as a method to grow your business:

1. Gets the word out about your business

Firstly, social media helps spread the message about your business and gets potential new customers talking about your product or service. You will gain plenty of recognition for your business and gain a platform to talk to your target audience. This will build trusting relationships that are crucial for business success.

Your followers and fans are likely to spread the word to their own contacts about your business if you make a good impression, which should go on to grow your customer base considerably.

2. It’s cost-effective

Unlike other forms of marketing, social media offers great return on investment – which is an important characteristic for any business.

Due to the changes in algorithms on Facebook , which is now favoring personal posts, you will need to make low-cost advertising part of your financial plan. These adverts are designed to promote your product or service to reach a large quantity of your target audience.

Learning how to budget effectively for marketing campaigns can be difficult, as you don’t necessarily know how effective they will be in the long-term or whether your finances are being put to good use. Many business owners choose to enroll onto a finance course to learn how to succeed in a technology-based world and understand the impacts of financial decision making, by studying an online MBA in Finance.

Many businesses spend so much money on failed marketing techniques, that they aren’t left with many funds to grow their business in other departments. Rest assured, social media has been proven to have a winning combination of cost-effectiveness and success.

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3. It’s extremely popular

Social media is growing exponentially in popularity and users of every age have accounts across a variety of platforms as a way of connecting with friends and finding out the latest news. Facebook has an impressive 1.7 billion users active each month and is most often the starting platform for small businesses looking to grow their following.

However, other platforms such as Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram are all used to grow the interest of a business. Instagram for example, has 1 billion active users per month and tends to generate business interest with the use of influencers. These accounts are paid to promote certain products or services to their own follower base, with the intention of generating traffic to the business account and website.

How To Create A Website That Will Impress Your Target Audience

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | How To Create A Website That Will Impress Your Target AudienceA one-of-a-kind website is essential for impressing your target audience. Keep in mind that it is thanks to an audience that the goods and services your business offers are used.

Without an online presence, no one will know about your company’s mission, and nor will you stand to make any profit as a result of it. Thus, you need to have a website that allows you to market your brand properly, and leaves a strong impression on anyone that finds it.

The very first step is to hire individuals who are experts in web design and development. Moreover, you want to guarantee that it is user-friendly so that people can easily navigate it, and lastly remain consistent with the branding you set up for it. All of these tips will be further explained below.

With professional assistance

There are expert web designers for a reason, and they know exactly how to help you put together the ultimate website for your brand. There is no need to spend countless hours learning how to do it yourself from scratch.

You should also keep in mind there are certain agencies and individuals who specialize in your niche company needs. After all, if you are looking to grow your charity’s website, you want the assistance of a reputable company such as Charity Box, that knows exactly how to grow your specific brand.

Everything from the development and up-keep assistance can be tied back to hiring the best professionals for the task. More so, given that they are already knowledgeable on the subject, they have a good understanding over what has and has not worked for other companies in the past, and can reduce the amount of trial and error that you have to go through.

Ensure it is user-friendly

Is your website user-friendly? This can include the following factors:

  • Easy to navigate
  • Clear layout
  • Readable text
  • Simple payment methods

Imagine that an individual starts to browse your website, but they have a hard time understanding what you do. It could be that the layout is jumbled and disorganized, the text itself isn’t clear, among many other factors. Company reputation is important, and if people can’t spend more than 5 seconds on your site, you need to re-evaluate everything you put together thus far.

Remain consistent with your branding

Remaining consistent is also crucial to build stronger relations with your audience. Once enough time and marketing effort have been put into growing your company, people will start to recognize you even by simply seeing your business logo.

It is incredibly important that you don’t change courses out of the blue with your branding, as this will only confuse people and further ruin the relationship you built with them. All in all, your brand will suffer if you are not careful.

Remember, when you impress your target audience, you are also strengthening the relationship with those individuals. They will be so impressed with your content, that they will continue visiting your website to check for updates. You also want them to spread the word about your company, and the only way you can do this is if you create an online presence that is buzz-worthy.