In marketing, cross-promotion refers to the technique of targeting the customers of one product or service with a promotion of a related product. In general, this approach is a fairly inexpensive yet highly effective method of generating more sales and increasing marketing reach – that’s why it’s an ideal strategy for vacation rental owners to adopt.

New businesses can truly thrive when they tap into an already established, local community, as it will help build brand recognition and affinity. There are plenty of other benefits of partnering with local companies and cross-promoting one another if you have a vacation rental business. Let’s find out what they are!

IT’S A LOW-RISK  STRATEGY
Companies who partner with one another can grow rapidly with little risk through cross-promotion campaigns. Through reciprocal campaigns via email and social media, for example, both partners can reach a huge target audience that they may not otherwise have connected with. Above all, in order to maintain this as a low-risk strategy, it’s important to build relevant partnerships – i.e. with complementary service providers that will interest your guests. Partnering with anyone and everyone “just because” is not the aim of the game.

INCREASE YOUR GUEST BASE
In the majority of cases, guests at vacation rentals are from out of town. Whether that’s the next city or a completely different country, it doesn’t matter. If local cafés, shops and other businesses can recommend your home as a place to stay (and in exchange, you recommend their services to guests) – there is a huge opportunity to obtain more qualified leads and consequently, more bookings.

GAIN MORE EXPOSURE
Partner marketing is a great way to achieve visibility for your brand name in the local community. In particular, if there are companies offering sports activities such as surfing, skiing, cycling, horseback riding and so on. It’s easy to set up a partnership with these services and offer travelers mutual discounts – such as 10% off the activity or 10% off rental booking total. These kinds of promotions can help visitors to notice your brand. When partnering with any company, be sure to place the provider’s logo on your website, and ask they do the same for you with their website and flyers.

INCREASE YOUR BOTTOM LINE
Unsurprisingly, increasing interest and generating more bookings for your business will bring you higher profits overall – even if you are offering special prices for your partners’ customers. Plus, as word of mouth recommendations are free – you aren’t having to actively invest in this type of marketing to see results!

CREATE MEANINGFUL AND STRONG RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS
Partnerships are a two-way street – meaning both sides of the agreement get to enjoy the benefits they bring. By reaching out and initiating them with other small businesses in your area, not only will you both see an increase in sales, but you will also help to create and promote a strong, unified sense of community in your neighborhood.

TAILORED & TANGIBLE EXPERIENCES
While most of the advantages of cross-promotion and partner marketing are related to increasing reach and getting your brand noticed, it’s also important to consider the positive impact it can have on the guest experience. Providing incoming travelers with an approved list of recommendations who you, the owner, have a professional relationship with will impress guests and help them feel confident in your abilities as a vacation rental business. Details like these can, in turn, also encourage them to leave glowing reviews upon departure.

Partnering with local businesses and running cross-promotions is a very fruitful and economical way of driving more traffic to your website and securing more bookings. Provided you pick relevant partners, it is also a reliable method of making your brand known in your area and helping you to stand out from the competition.

HOW IT CAN BE DONE WITH AIRRENTALZ

The AirRentalz platform is designed to foster collaboration. Other than just listing your property, hosts are able to use their landing page as a marketing platform. Hosts are free to partner with businesses of their choice. We then establish the forms, do follow links, reservation systems and much more for you. Hosts also share in the revenue from businesses advertising on your page.

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