How to Spend $1,000/mo. on Marketing

The first step to marketing is deciding on a budget.

Most business owners just stick with a number that sounds good.

This leads to stressful financial strain.

The best practice for a short term rental company is to invest 10% of revenue into marketing.

This should be money you are okay losing when starting out.

Why? It takes time and money to gather marketing insights and find the credit card swipers.

In the short-term it's a gamble. But unlike Vegas,

And that 10% turns into a lot more.

In this article, I'm going to share exactly how I would spend a $1,000/mo. marketing budget for a $120,000 rental business.

Let's dive in, shall we?

Month 1-2: Build a Foundation

A jimmy rigged marketing foundation is super expensive later on. Lay the roots now. This is the foundation for your marketing tree.

Here's how it works:

1. Build a direct booking website ($1,000).

2. Hire a photographer ($500).

3. SEO Spot Check ($500).

Build a Direct Booking Website

Hire a contractor or someone on Fiverr to build a 1-3 page website to:

• Make booking easy.

• Play the SEO game.

• Ditch the revenue share later.

Hire a Professional Photographer

These photos will be used in every marketing channel from listings to social media.

Professional photos have proven their return on investment. So we want to place them everywhere.

SEO Spot Check

Hire a search engine optimizer to make sure your new site will appear to people looking for stays like yours.

I recommend doing keyword research before hiring someone so they don't have to guess. Then just outsource this.

When people are ready to buy, they're ready now. We don't want:

• A cluttered website.

• Bad photos.

• You not appearing Google.

To send guests looking somewhere else.

Month 2-8: Attract

Now we want to spend 6 months building an audience. Here’s how it works:

• Hire a social media manager ($500/mo.)

• Influencer marketing ($450/mo.)

• Build an email list ($50/mo.)

Hire a Social Media Manager

Staying consistent and making posts better is the social media game.

Hire someone who's sole job is that.

You'll still need to capture the content. AI can help with that.

Quick note: Don't hire your niece who "knows how to Instagram." Hire someone who has a track record of successfully doing this.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing in the short term rental space is great for 3 reasons:

• They know what makes your audience tick.

• Because they have your audience already.

• People like hearing about brands from folks they trust.

My cost associated with influencer marketing is a mix between comping stays (lost revenue) and actually paying for a spotlight on their page.

Those are really the two ways to work with them:

• Pay for them to show the stay.

• Let them stay and play to show the stay.

Find influencers using this website:

Build an Email List

Building an email list early on is a marketing hack because:

• Email is the only marketing medium where you can control distribution.

• Conversion rates are 100-400% higher than other platforms.

• Lists can be used for remarketing in months 8-12.

The monthly cost associated with email marketing is just the cost of the tool. You don't need to put any work into this now. Just add to the list every month.

The best tools for now are:

• MailChimp

• Hubspot Marketing Starter

• ConvertKit

Building an audience is the greatest way to create sustainable bookings. That's why were spending so much time on it.

People buy from people they know.

Month 8-12: Push The Offer

At this point you just spent the last 8 months:

• Finding the credit card swipers.

• Attracting an audience.

• Making your brand known.

Now we're going to pay Meta to place your ad at the top of your audiences feed with an offer.

The offer should ask people to book.

Overtime you'll want to rotate through 3 different ad campaigns:

• Instagram followers lookalike.

• Email subscriber lookalike.

• Brand awareness.

Give each campaign type 4-6 weeks to prove their pudding. Then rotate.

After all three have been rotated through. Eliminate one and begin the brawl again until you have a winner.

Then stick with the winner.

The only goal here is bookings.

My $1,000/mo. Marketing Budget Breakdown

Here's my recap on how I would spent 10% of my revenue to grow my short term rental business.

Month 1-2: Build a foundation for all future marketing to make booking easy.

Month 2-8: Attract an audience of future guests while also collecting marketing data.

Month 8-12: Advertise to your audience and folks alike to get more bookings.

Month 12+? Complete the poll below so I know you want to see this series continue.

Set a marketing budget and stick with it for at least a year. It will be an investment at first but so long as you:

1. Build

2. Attract

3. Ask

You'll become the house and know when you'll win.

That's all for today. I'll see you in the next article.