Easy Tips for Marketing Your Houfy Vacation Rental Listing

Once you've completed your rates and synchronized calendars, it's time to get started on promoting Houfy! This is a step-by-step guide in the basics of marketing your vacation rental listing.

First Things First: Before marketing, be sure you are actually ready to accept a booking.  

1. Create a Rental agreement and upload it to your Houfy listing. It's not required, but strongly recommended.
2. If you accept credit cards on other sites, I suggest doing so on Houfy as well. Square and Stripe are integrated with Houfy. Sign up for one or test out both. Then connect one to your listing so guests can pay directly on Houfy. Don't forget to update your payment methods.

I no longer use PayPal for invoicing. Guests just book me directly on Houfy. You are free to invoice travelers however you wish though.

Market on facebook

Promote your Houfy listing instead of OTA (online travel agency) listings.

1. Connect your Houfy site to the Book Now or Learn More button on your facebook's business page, and replace all OTA references with your Houfy link. 
2. Promote your Houfy listing in yard sale, travel, and book direct groups. Be sure not to spam and always abide by the group rules.

Use Google's Free Tools

1. If you have a Google business listing, you can link it to your Houfy listing.  
2. Set up your Houfy connected Google Analytics and begin to track your site visitors.
3. Later, you can learn how to maximize Google My Business posts.

Add your Houfy listing to other sites

• Find local attraction and tourism sites that list accommodations for free. Some will require a reciprocal link agreement; you need to link back to them. To fulfill this requirement, write a Story about the attraction, and attach it to a guidebook.
• You can create more Stories and Guidebooks later. For now, try to find at least 3 sites that will allow you to link. This will benefit both you and Houfy in terms of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) inbound links. 

Introduce Your Guests to Houfy

1. Create an arrival guidebook for your guests. You're going to send this to ALL of your new guests, no matter the platform they used to book your property.  
2. The arrival guidebook introduces guests from other sites to the Houfy platform. Plus a digital format is just more visually appealing.  
3. Later when you have more local guidebooks, you can use this template to invite your guests to join Houfy to read them.

Don't forget to thank your guests for staying at your property.  And remind them the next time they travel, to use Houfy and book direct.

How Do I Tell My Guests to Start Using Houfy?

If you have any social media following, the quickest way to bring awareness about Houfy is to make a simple announcement. Your followers will pay attention when they read something like this: The Vermont Cottage Lake Amherst Plymouth is now listed on Houfy's free book direct market network.

https://www.houfy.com

*** Join the Book Direct University facebook group for the latest resources and tips on how to book direct ***