With over five million vacation rentals around the globe, and only three seconds to capture the attention of potential guests, the importance of creating a dialed brand is critical. A brand should quickly and clearly define the experience or product, with the actual name being very much central. For example:
- Apple: Think Different
- De Beers: A Diamond is Forever
- Nike: Just Do It
There are a lot of great blog posts online providing clear tutorials on naming your vacation rental business and the subsequent impact on bookings. In short, a name should be memorable, unique and representative of what you offer. It should be easy to connect with.
“Coral House", for example, is much more appealing than “5 bedroom, 5 bath Caribbean beachfront rental".
Recent property branding and naming exercises got me thinking about some words of wisdom from a particular client. He built a fortune (billions) creating and branding products for his many diverse companies and also happens to own $500M+ in vacation rental real estate globally.
He's absurdly brilliant, humble, and arguably “the most interesting man in the world". So naturally I asked him how he does it. His reply was to simply consider everything. Everything? Okay.
He's not joking. He's created success by paying attention to (and researching) consumers idiosyncratic habits and desires throughout the product purchasing and consuming cycle. Every behavior, from holding, smelling and sipping a beverage, for example, to every word and punctuation on a label. Everything matters.
Consider Property Type When Naming Your Vacation Rental
Heeding his advice when devising clever vacation rental names, I started considering the importance of the property “type". Often used in the actual property name, types can range from a loft, castle, to cabin. Are these just catchy naming additions or can one be strategically used increase your bookings by way of more search yields? According to Tripping.com's data, I'd say so.
Villa is remarkably the most searched property type. By definition, a Villa is a large and luxurious country home, particularly in Europe, but the term is often used for beach homes as well which may account for the large volume difference.
Of course, just because villa is the most searched property type doesn't mean you should call your home one when it is clearly a mobile home. Your business name needs to be an honest representation of what you offer.
When we look at more data, however, it does make sense to tweak the type, when fitting. For example, you should brand a mountain property simply as a “cabin" instead of “log cabin" or “mountain home" to yield more views.
Perhaps the most difficult feats for owners, particularly those dependent on listing sites, is to be reasonably ranked in search results. Putting aside premium packages and featured listings, property type could be the biggest factor in helping owners overcome the 'searchability' barrier.
From here, you just need to ensure the rest of your listing ad is dialed (and on-brand) to drive conversion!
This guest post was written by Kris Getzie, Founder & Principal Consultant at Volo. She is a vacation rental expert and author of the recently published Vacation Rentals For Newbies.