You scouted out a great location. Bought the rental—or onboarded it to your management business—and maybe even renovated it. Furnished it with loving care. Equipped it with amenities you know travelers will enjoy. And now you want to feature all the highlights of your home in your listing description. We’re here to stop you. At Guest Hook, we’ve written thousands of listing descriptions for properties ranging from city condos to sprawling country manors. And one thing holds true across the board: less is more. Here’s our advice on what to include in your listing description, and what to leave for [...]

Writing Airbnb guest reviews is your duty to the hosting community. Where would you be today if hosts before you hadn’t given your guests rave reviews—or warned you of guests that gave them problems? Beyond that, writing Airbnb guest reviews is simply good business. For good guests, it shows you care. For problem guests, it offers a chance to tell your side of the story. And for those in between, it’s a matter of being thorough. But gosh, can they get exhausting. So whether you’re writing your very first review or looking for a way to make your thousandth [...]

All good marketing has a plan behind it. But you know that already—that’s why you’re here! So how can you create a vacation rental marketing plan that builds your business and lands you guests? We’ve created a list of five questions that will help you get started. Set aside some time to answer them. Then set aside more time to look at your answers again. Creating a vacation rental marketing plan takes some deep thinking and soul searching. Take your time with these questions and you’ll build yourself a strong foundation on which to base months (or more) of marketing [...]

So you’ve listed your property on Airbnb. Contrary to popular belief, that doesn’t mark the end of your Airbnb marketing journey—it’s really just the beginning. To that end, we are going to take a controversial position: you shouldn’t rely on Airbnb’s platform to do the marketing for you. At least not all of it. Airbnb’s algorithm voodoo only goes so far in delivering guests to your doorstep, and, as you may have noticed, Airbnb is young enough that it can (and does!) change on a dime, leaving you fumbling to catch up. And worst case: what if they disappeared [...]

What’s the best marketing strategy for vacation rentals? The question is straightforward, but the answer is… well, not. So much depends on individual factors—like the size of your business, your goals, and your ideal guest. We’d do you a disservice if we pretend there’s a one-size-fits-all answer. But we will give you the lay of the land. Below, we’ve broken down the six most popular marketing strategies for vacation rentals. For each, you’ll find a brief overview followed by its pros and cons. Use this background info to help you make an educated decision on which approach is best for [...]

B&B marketing is a tricky business. You don’t want to appear sterile and impersonal, like the dime-a-dozen chains that are the same no matter where you go. But at the same time, you need to be professional to convince potential guests that they’re in good hands. And on top of all that, you want to make sure your hard efforts work. Between rapid turnovers, surprise repairs, and demanding guests, there’s no time to play around when it comes to marketing your bed and breakfast. So how do you strike that personal/professional balance and create marketing that books more guests? It’s [...]

Turnovers, tricky guests, unexpected crises…we know there’s plenty of chaos to keep you busy during peak season. Even the most put-together hosts and managers can feel like they barely have time to breathe, let alone take on marketing projects. What are you, a magician?! Though it’s stressful to watch your revenue trend downwards during slow season, it’s also the perfect time to take a breath and take on some overlooked marketing tasks. Use it to your advantage! Once peak season’s behind you… inhale. Exhale. And then choose a marketing goal (or two) to accomplish. Here are some of our [...]

Are the best Airbnb descriptions full of humor or emotional language? Descriptive and poetic, or short and to the point? The answer is: it depends! On the host, on the home, on the location, and on the target audience. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer for how to craft the best Airbnb description. So we’ve scoured Airbnb and rounded up some of our favorite listings, then zoomed in on what makes them so special. Check them out! A Pirate's Life For Me - Houseboat! Humor in Charleston. What grabbed our attention on this one was the headline, what kept [...]

From your inbox to your social media feeds, there are a lot of companies out there competing for your attention. In all that noise, you may often feel like you’re wading past ads and content that you have no interest in. But have you ever had the experience of opening a newsletter, or seeing a sponsored post on Facebook, that feels like it’s speaking directly to you? Often, that feeling is the result of a personalized content campaign—and it’s entirely intentional. So what exactly is personalized content? Our friends at GatherContent tell us it “starts when you use what you know [...]