Use Gorgeous Photos To Increase Vacation Rental Property Bookings
Stunning vacation rental listing photos get more prospective guests to book - especially when they create an emotional connection between prospects and your property. This photo of a Roosevelt Elk above Tomales Bay, CA, is used by a local rental property owner to highlight the incredible wildlife and outdoor adventures nearby.
Where Have All My Bookings Gone?
Recently, we’ve been fielding a huge volume of inquiries from new and seasoned short-term vacation rental (STR) owners alike, and they share a universal theme: how can I generate more bookings – FAST?
What’s striking is the growing chorus of hosts, owners, and property managers reaching out to us - and posting in online STR host forums - detailing their sudden struggle to acquire bookings. It’s not just newbies or owners with underwhelming / under-marketed properties in highly competitive areas; owners with years of experience and rental properties that are typically booked 85-95% during spring and summer are barely reaching the 50% mark.
We’re also seeing a smaller but growing fraternity of owners who are suddenly unable to generate enough bookings to break even, despite years of past success. I know how concerning it is when that monthly revenue sheet shows a negative result – and how frightening it can become when you’re at risk of back-to-back red ink months during high season.
Reboot And Refresh
With that in mind, my next few blogs will offer a roadmap for short-term rental property success. Regardless of how profitable a rental may be, we always recommend strengthening the foundational areas as the first step in our proven process. In fact, we work with our clients to refresh every listing quarterly (at least) to stay aligned with local aspects of seasonal and traveler shifts. Today’s blog focuses on easy ways to update your photography to make your listing more compelling and competitive, and to help boost your bookings.
Make It Emotional With Outstanding Photos
Think about how prospective guests search for a STR once they settle on a location. They’re on a listing platform like Airbnb, and they begin their search with number of guests, beds, baths, price, and dates. Maybe a few features like hot tub, pool, or lake access. Your property either matches the search parameters or it doesn’t. It’s data. It’s unemotional. Now, say your property is a match and it comes up in the search result rollcall with dozens of other similar properties. You need to immediately stand out from the crowd, reach prospects on an emotional level, and begin selling the experience. So, how do you grab a prospect’s attention, get them to click on your listing, and ultimately convince them to book?
It starts with a gorgeous, compelling opening photograph. We call it the Hero Shot.
Hero Shots like this Hawaii stunner excite and delight prospective guests, and get them to click on your property listing to find out more.
HERO SHOT. If you’re using a photo of your property, make it the most beautiful, captivating, emotionally intense shot you can. What’s unique about your place – the core differentiation between you and all other rentals? What’s something that will make your prospective guest say, “Wow!” when they see it alongside photos of your competitors’ offerings? Stunning views and adjacent water features (hot tub, pool, river, beach, dock over lake) are great subjects for hero shots. They’re grabbers – they grab attention. Go for vivid colors and an uncluttered image – remember: your photo will be shrunk down to fit in the search results, so a “busy” photo with too much detail will be counterproductive.
The front of the dwelling isn’t the best feature of your property nor the main reason someone would book it, so resist the temptation to use a photo of it as your hero (most owners make this mistake). Showing something other than your front door will immediately separate you from the majority of your competitors. When the property itself is mundane, or there is an opportunity to highlight something more compelling about the area experience, we use a gorgeous stock image as the hero, showcasing a major local attraction which dovetails with guest interests. Vineyards for wine country; beaches, sea lions, or whales in coastal areas; two people in lounge chairs sipping drinks lakeside; hikers in the mountains; whitewater rafting to highlight adventure; a close-up of a saxophonist in a cozy bar to convey “New Orleans” in a single image. Put the REASON for a visit front and center.
THE BIG 5 For the remaining photos in your listing, tell a compelling visual story. Take great care to choose the best of the best for photos two through five, which typically show up together in your listing’s opening photo collage when viewers click through from search results. Prospects respond most strongly to the kitchen, master bedroom, and the best features of the home (hot tub, view) or local attractions. Use one photo of each so viewers get an immediate sense of the experience at your rental when they click your listing. Remember to adjust them seasonally and when otherwise appropriate for your location. Then take prospects on a tour of the property with multiple shots of each room from different angles, key exterior areas, and fold in stock photos to further highlight the best elements and attractions around your property.
Sell the experience with inexpensive, professional stock photos of the nearby attractions and lifestyle elements your guests crave.
STOCK PHOTOS ARE YOUR FRIENDS There’s an odd resistance among some vacation rental owners when it comes to using stock photos. I don’t get it. Property listings are your 24 hour a day salesperson, and they need to be spectacular. Let’s be honest: photos of a house can only do so much to compel a viewer to short list and (hopefully) book your rental. Guests are usually motivated first by local attractions, then by individual properties, so showing those attractions in your photo carousel helps to drive both their rational and emotional decision-making processes. It directly connects your property to their reason(s) for visiting the area, and that’s crucial to boosting your bookings.
Stock photos are inexpensive, high quality, and you can use them in your external marketing efforts (we’ll get to that in upcoming blogs) if you purchase the appropriate license. We typically use 10-15 stock shots for each listing, and more when the property itself isn’t on par with competitors or when it makes sense to highlight additional attractions. It’s absolutely worth it.
Hire a skilled pro photographer who has deep experience shooting interiors, and knows that they need to blend separate shots exposed for the interior and exterior to get a perfectly composed - and compelling - final image of your room.
HIRE A PRO You’re running a business, and your photos should reflect that. They all MUST look professional, with correct lighting, focus, uniform color temperatures, and more. If your current photos haven’t been taken and retouched by a pro, you should make this a priority. Dark, underlit shots, poor angles, and lack of proper room staging make you less attractive to prospective guests, and put you at a competitive disadvantage. Typically, a GOOD shooter will run in the $800 to $1500 range. For the cost of a few nights at your location, you will have all the photos you’ll need to successfully market your property for years. It’s one of the best (and least expensive) investments you can make, especially since they become key members of your 24 hour sales and marketing team.
Make sure your photographer is shooting with a DSLR camera, tripod, and lighting, and review online portfolios carefully. Skip photographers who don’t have LOTS of client work inside buildings to show you. I’m a widely published pro photographer, and have personally shot interiors for Marriott Hotels and managed hundreds of shoots across the country for major real estate companies. I can tell you from experience that shooting indoors correctly takes a skillset most photographers don’t have, so you have to be diligent in your search. In fact, here’s a great way to test a prospective photographer’s knowledge: ask them how they balance interior light with the exteriors showing through glass doors and windows. You’re looking for someone who says they take 2 sets of photos - one that is correctly exposed for the interior, and another that is correctly exposed for the exterior - and then blends them so you get a perfect inside-out view in each shot. Anything else and you get a subpar result.
Until Next Time,
Mick