How COVID-19 is Changing the Way Property Management Companies Use Technology
The Guesty Team
When coronavirus first hit the headlines, we couldn’t predict the dramatic effect it would have on the world as a whole and on the short-term rental industry in particular. Now, more than a couple months in, with countries around the world in varying degrees of lockdown, the short-term rental community has simply had to adapt. For many property management companies, adapting to the new normal has resulted in increased tech adoption — from implementing home automation tools to reduce human contact to utilizing task management tools to optimize the remote work experience and more.
This post will cover three key areas where technology can help you adjust and better equip your business for this challenging time.
Become a Savvier Digital Marketer
There’s never enough time to focus on acing your listings, marketing materials or social media presence — day-to-day operations always take precedence. With a slowdown in reservations due to travel restrictions, you may find yourself with more downtime than usual. This is a good opportunity to master the ins and outs of digital marketing. To start, there are two areas you should focus on:
Your Online Community
Your network of past guests and your relationships with local businesses are particularly important right now. As travel slowly recovers, tourists will be looking for places they can trust — word-of-mouth marketing will count for more and you may see a surge in repeat guests who know that your properties are clean and well-cared for.
Now is the time to leverage that network — upgrade your email marketing strategy (if you’re looking for some inspiration, check out Really Good Emails). Learn how to segment your list into domestic and international guests, so you can create targeted campaigns with the most relevant content and invest your efforts where they’re likely to have the best return. Maybe even create an email flow targeted at the families who have stayed with you previously.
Additionally, if you’re not yet well-versed in social media, use this time to learn how to create and promote engaging content. With so many people at home daydreaming about their next getaway, sharing aspirational content on Instagram is a great way to expand your community and start building a pipeline of potential guests for the future. There are tons of tools you can use, such as Buffer or Hootsuite, to schedule social posts in advance, so you can put your new strategy on autopilot for when business picks up again. You may also want to reach out to local influencers and media outlets to create more buzz among domestic travelers as well as develop strong connections for the future.
Your Listings
Given the shift towards domestic travel and the ever-changing limitations on what guests can see and do when they stay in your properties, it’s likely that your existing listing descriptions are no longer as relevant as they were pre-coronavirus. Whereas you previously boasted about your urban rentals’ great location near major tourist attractions, you may instead now want to highlight your high-end, in-property amenities, stringent cleaning procedures and the restaurants nearby that deliver.
With guests spending more time indoors, the interior of your properties is also more important than ever. If you’re already creating new content about your properties for social media, spend some extra time filming apartment tours and taking new photos for your listings. With more time, you might even consider taking an online photography course and doing some simple DIY redecoration to make your properties appear even more enticing.
Maximize Efficiency
With many teams downsizing in the wake of the pandemic, every opportunity you have to automate processes and tasks will allow you to accomplish more in your day-to-day. For example, instead of calling up your cleaning staff to share new protocols, you can simply implement a new checklist via an automated task tool.
Similarly, if members of your team had previously been communicating with guests to coordinate check-in or answer questions, now is your opportunity to automate those message flows and spend the extra time focusing on your business. Be sure to craft personal messages so that guests won’t feel they are missing that “human touch.”
Prepare for the Return of Travel
More than anything, coronavirus has shown our industry the pain of unpredictability. No one can say just yet when travel will return to normal (though there seem to be early signs of recovery in time for the holiday season) — and as a result, pricing has become difficult to determine. If bookings are still coming in for the fall and winter, should you be discounting your listings to encourage anxious travelers or, alternately, pricing higher to recoup losses from the spring? Instead of spending the time to come up with educated guesses, you’d be better served by relying on a pricing solution like Wheelhouse to make sure that your numbers are optimal for your specific properties, your area and how the virus has affected it.
While pricing software is particularly helpful at a time when there’s no rulebook or easy reference to follow, investing in it now will also ensure that your revenue will be maximized as travel returns to normal. Wheelhouse is offering a free 30 day trial to give you the extra time you need to fine tune your pricing strategy and ensure you’re best positioned against your competition as bookings start to pick back up.
More Resources
To learn more about how to navigate your business during this time, check out Guesty’s Coronavirus Infocenter for guides, articles and data curated especially for property management companies.
About Guesty
Guesty is the leading end-to-end short-term rental property management platform that streamlines and automates the complex operational needs property managers face on a daily basis — from guest communication to task assignment to payment processing. With Guesty, property managers save time so they can focus on what matters most: growing their business.
