Airbnb Marketing Strategy: 8 Effective Airbnb Marketing Tactics

Did you know that a strong marketing strategy can be the key to turning a profit with Airbnb?

According to data from HomeAway, vacation rental companies earn around $44 for every $1 spent on email marketing alone — imagine the potential revenue from a full-blown marketing strategy!

For many Airbnb owners, renting out a property on Airbnb can feel like a semi-passive way to generate income, making them resistant to change that requires additional work. With just a little effort, however, building an Airbnb marketing strategy can be a piece of cake and boost profits immensely. 

In this article, we discuss what an Airbnb marketing strategy is, what the advantages of having such a strategy are, and eight of the best marketing tactics for your Airbnb marketing strategy.

Keep reading as we dive into everything you need to know about Airbnb marketing!

What is an Airbnb Marketing Strategy?

An Airbnb marketing strategy is a detailed plan for attracting new and returning guests to an Airbnb rental property. The overall purpose of this type of strategy generally aims to achieve three key goals:

1. Bring new awareness to an Airbnb listing
2. Ensure an Airbnb is reserved as often as possible
3. Increase profits by winning more bookings

Without a strong marketing strategy in place, it can be difficult to grow your Airbnb business — especially if your property is in an area with a high level of competition. 

While there are many different types of marketing strategies to use today, some of the most effective marketing strategies of today’s tech-centric world include: 

• Email & Mobile Marketing: Almost everyone these days has a smartphone with email notifications enabled. This makes reaching potential guests a breeze, as you can send a marketing email that will pop up directly on their home screen for easy viewing. Plus, email is one of the best ways to stay in touch with marketing leads long-term. 
• Social Media & Influencer Marketing: Social media has grown to be one of the most powerful marketing tools of the modern day. For vacation rentals, the best social media platforms are those that can showcase photos and videos of a property, such as Instagram or Facebook. As social media has grown, so has the prevalence of influencers. Influencer marketing goes hand-in-hand with social media marketing, allowing you to reach much larger audiences than you can alone. 
• Search Engine Marketing: Search engine marketing refers to how well your listing ranks on public search engines, like Google, and on platform-specific search engine features, such as the listing search on Airbnb. Knowing how to optimize your listings for optimal visibility on search engines is crucial for getting your rental shown to your ideal guests. 
• Content Marketing: Finally, we have content marketing — the bread and butter of many modern marketing agencies. Content marketing can include all sorts of content, with blogs and video content generally performing the best when working toward marketing goals. 

A truly strong Airbnb marketing strategy should take advantage of several types of marketing. As a result, your Airbnb audience can grow and become a customer base you can rely on. 

What are the Advantages of Marketing Your Airbnb

As discussed above, Airbnb marketing can help you to achieve many of your core business goals as an Airbnb host and property owner. Knowing what the possible advantages are is essential for building a marketing strategy that fits both your wants and needs. 

Here is a breakdown of three key advantages of an excellent Airbnb marketing strategy: 

• Boosted Visibility: Visibility is everything when it comes to getting the word out about your Airbnb. Not only will a strong marketing strategy help you to make your listing more visible on the Airbnb platform itself, but it can also boost your visibility further by attracting more guests who end up recommending your rental to friends and family.
• Community Connections: Marketing a rental property often leads to building new connections within your local community. For instance, as part of your marketing strategy, you could go around to local restaurants and hand out business cards with QR codes that lead to your Airbnb listing. In return for providing these cards to restaurant guests looking for a place to stay, you could feature these restaurants in a local restaurant guide you keep in your rental. 
• More Reservations: The biggest advantage by far of a strong marketing strategy is simply receiving more bookings and reservations for your Airbnb. Keeping your property booked and busy is the key to running a profitable Airbnb business, regardless of whether you are using the property as a side hustle or as a main source of income. 

8 Effective Airbnb Marketing Techniques

When it comes to creating your own Airbnb marketing strategy, the key is to know which tactics and techniques to prioritize. All marketing efforts can be useful but some are especially important when trying to increase visibility and brand awareness for an Airbnb.

Here are eight of the most effective Airbnb marketing techniques: 

1. Establish Your Airbnb Brand

You would be surprised how many Airbnb owners cannot define their own brand when asked. 

Having clear branding for your Airbnb is incredibly important, as it helps you attract guests that want what you have to offer. For example, let’s say you have a remote cabin in the mountains. If you fail to create a brand centered around this remoteness, you can end up failing to win reservations. 

To demonstrate this further, let’s consider two different marketing strategies for a remote cabin:

• Peaceful Seclusion: Your branding for this cabin highlights the peaceful quiet of the surrounding woods, encouraging guests to reconnect with nature and enjoy a relaxing stay away from the hustle and bustle of life. When marketing this cabin, you highlight it as an escape from city life.
• Exciting Nightlife: Nearby your cabin is a small town with a fun nightlife scene. Though this town is at least a 20-minute drive away, you choose to market your cabin around its proximity to nightlife, encouraging guests who want an exciting experience to reserve your property.

Clearly, the first of these two strategies is the more effective one. Though it can be important to highlight nearby attractions, such as local nightlife, you want your marketing strategy to focus on the strengths of the property itself — not just fun things in the surrounding area. 

2. Price Your Airbnb Fairly 

Pricing your Airbnb fairly can majorly influence how well your property performs on the platform.

Though you want to charge enough to make a good profit, it is crucial to price your Airbnb fairly according to the accommodations and amenities you are providing. 

There are a few ways you can determine a fair price:

• Airbnb Smart Pricing: Airbnb Smart Pricing is an automated tool built into the Airbnb platform. Enabling this tool allows it to automatically adjust the nightly price of your property based on a variety of factors, such as demand and time of year. As a result, you can achieve a pricing model that is competitive during the busy season and affordable during the slow season.
• Competitor Research: For a more hands-on approach to pricing, you can research competitors yourself and look at how each one prices their listings. An important factor to consider when completing this research is what a competitor’s guests are saying in the reviews — are they happy with their stay or are they remarking on the property being overpriced? 
• Guest Feedback: Along with looking at your competitors’ guest feedback, make sure to value the feedback of your own guests as well. If you are repeatedly being told by guests that you charge too much, this may indicate that you either need to reduce your nightly price or offer more amenities as part of your listing. 

For more information on how to price your Airbnb check out our recent blog post.

3. Invest in an Airbnb Photoshoot

The photos you include in your Airbnb listing and marketing materials are vital.

Great property pictures can make all the difference when a guest is deciding where to stay. By comparison, if your photos are grainy and low-quality, this can end up turning guests away.

When investing in an Airbnb photo shoot, try to find a professional photographer who is experienced in photographing homes and vacation rentals. This will ensure that they have the right equipment for the job and the skill to make your Airbnb photos look divine. 

One important consideration here is to not mislead your guests — your pictures should look great but they should also accurately convey what a guest can expect at your property. 

4. Add a Video to Airbnb Listing

With the photo-editing capabilities we all possess and can easily use thanks to smartphones, guests have grown weary of Airbnb listings that only showcase photos.

Adding a video to your Airbnb listing is a great way to verify what you are showing in the photos.

Plus, this can give guests a greater sense of comfort by showing them exactly what the rental looks like and how the layout is set up. Video content is as close as you can get to an actual tour of your property. 

5. Set Up Airbnb Facebook Ads

Facebook ads can reach more than 2 billion people — that’s quite significant for rentals. 

Given Facebook’s widespread popularity as a social media platform, incorporating Facebook ads into your social media marketing strategy is essential. Not only does it allow you to reach potential customers through targeted advertising, but you can also tailor your ad settings to precisely reach your desired audience.

6. Promote Your Airbnb On Instagram

Facebook’s sister platform, Instagram, is an equally important social media platform to embrace.

Primarily intended for photo-sharing, Instagram has proven time and time again how powerful it is when it comes to marketing. Instagram users tend to use this platform more than most others for shopping and hunting for vacation rentals, making it highly important for you to establish an Instagram presence.

In your Instagram posts, key qualities to highlight include your Airbnb’s location, amenities, and anything that makes your property unique or special. 

7. Social Media Influencer Collaboration

As we touched on earlier, social media marketing goes hand-in-hand with influencer marketing.

For an Airbnb owner, influencer marketing can go something like this:

• First, you invite a social media influencer to have either a free or discounted stay at your property. Depending on your marketing budget, you may also offer the influencer extra payment to ensure the promotion they provide is positive.
• Once you have contacted an influencer, schedule their stay and create a contract that clearly outlines what types of content they will post in exchange for their stay. 
• Welcome the influencer and provide them with a top-notch experience.
• Tag the influencer and share their posts across your social media platforms.

Using influencer marketing in this way can help you to reach larger audiences and receive a reputable review within your target community. 

8. Utilize Airbnb SEO

The eighth and final Airbnb marketing technique we have for you today is SEO marketing.

As we covered earlier, search engine marketing affects how visible your listing is on public search engines (Google) and platform-specific search features (Airbnb’s listing search). 

Your SEO strategy should ensure that your listing has all the right keywords and structural elements to get it seen and highly ranked on search engines. On Airbnb’s platform specifically, including all of the amenities you offer and giving your listing an effective, eye-catching name is key. 

Final Thoughts: Start Marketing Your Airbnb Today

Effective Airbnb marketing can make or break the success of your rental property.

With the right marketing approach, you can enhance your brand awareness, reach your target audiences, and boost the number of nightly bookings your Airbnb receives. 

To make the most out of your marketing efforts, make sure you are regularly measuring the effectiveness of your tactics and have clear goals to work toward. This will make it easier for you to determine the success of your marketing strategy and what changes need to be made. 

If you simply do not have enough time to devote to marketing your Airbnb, you might want to consider working with an Airbnb property management company. Often marking is included in their services. If this is something you would be interested in check out our site today at stproperties.com

As a final takeaway, remember to be accurate and honest in your Airbnb marketing — while it can be tempting to oversell what you have to offer to win more reservations, you may ultimately end up with more bad reviews due to misrepresenting the truth of the matter. 

With that said, have fun! A fun and joyful Airbnb listing is sure to attract guests to your stay.