In this episode, Anna and Diamond mine marketing jewels as they discuss filling up the gaps on booking calendars.

They are joined by Vanessa Humes, ICND's Director of Sales.

Together they discuss the evolving landscape and the need for businesses to take control of their marketing efforts. They emphasize the importance of shifting away from the "auto drive" mentality and conducting a thorough marketing tune-up to ensure optimal performance.

The conversation starts with the significance of email marketing and how it often gets overlooked as a valuable tool. They stress the need to leverage your email list, highlighting its potential to engage with both existing guests and potential leads. By sending regular guest history emails and utilizing the database effectively, businesses can stay at the forefront of their guests' minds.

Vanessa and Diamond also address the growing challenge of increased supply and competition across different platforms, affecting both standalone booking websites and OTA sites. They discuss the critical role of marketing strategy in overcoming this challenge, emphasizing the need for a strong online presence and investing in SEO and pay-per-click advertising.

The hosts touch upon the importance of continuously improving your website and highlight the benefits of a modern platform like Axis. They explore various features, such as dedicated landing pages, availability at a glance, cart abandonment recovery, and automated emails for extending stays. These tools can effectively fill gaps in bookings and enhance the guest experience.

Join Anna and Diamond as they provide practical insights and actionable strategies to empower businesses in driving their marketing efforts and staying ahead of the competition. Take control of your marketing strategy and steer your business towards success.

Find out Anna's tool of the day and her hottest tip on social media catalog ads.

Did you listen to the end? Send us your questions and best guesses on what will be ICND's newest feature. Correct answers will receive an ICND t-shirt.

Don't miss out on the latest insights and expert tips in the vacation rental industry - follow Vacation Rental Ninjas today!

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Feel free to send in your questions to podcast@icoastalnet.com. The ladies would love to hear from you and answer your questions on future episodes.

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The Vacation Rental Ninja’s discuss the big news from Meta - Meta Verified expanding its testing to US users. Both Anna and Diamond have requested access for their personal accounts to be blue-check verified. While Anna's account has been invited, Diamond is still waiting to be asked. Will Diamond ever get off all the wait lists she is on?
The Ninja’s share their thoughts on how and when Meta verified will soon come to business accounts giving their vacation rental manager listeners a heads up.

Lots of other Meta updates have popped up this Spring.
From Instagram-

• Two new ad options are coming for Instagram ad placements: Reminder Ads and Ads in Search Results.
• Tests are underway to watch a full 60 seconds of Reels in Stories.
• Shared Reel List - this update allows users to view a list of thumbnails with the most recent Reels that they shared. This is exciting news for marketing teams and clients to collaborate on trends and share inspiration. Anna & Diamond share how these Instagram updates can be utilized in the vacation rental industry.

From Facebook-

• Facebook Reels are regaining popularity, and Meta is extending the video length, adding trending templates, and ways to integrate Facebook memories into content.

Anna & Diamond lay out a few more updates across various social platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube, & Meta Business Suite explaining why & how they picked these ones to highlight and most importantly how VRM's can leverage them.

The duo tackles the controversial topic of hashtag reach and why it is down on Instagram. You’ll want to hear what they have to say about this one.

Diamond & Anna reflect on previous predictions they have made like the Notes Feature on Instagram.

They also make some new predictions for the future. Let’s see how many of these new predictions come to light. 🔮 Anna & Diamond are not mind readers but they have their thumbs on the pulse of the ever changing social media landscape and are happy to share their experiences with these updates both professionally & personally.

Finally, to wrap up this episode the hosts express their excitement about the potential rollout of Instagram's Birthday Effect, share their favorite emoji (see below) and answer listener questions.

Show Mentions:

The Emoji Keyboard - https://emojikeyboard.org/

🥴- woozy face

😉- winky face

Don't miss out on the latest insights and expert tips in the vacation rental industry - follow Vacation Rental Ninjas today!

Click the notification bell to stay up-to-date with the newest episodes, featuring interviews with top industry professionals, exciting destination spotlights, & digital marketing updates.

Enjoying the show? Help us spread the word by leaving a 5-star review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to produce more content like this.

Feel free to send in your questions to podcast@icoastalnet.com. The ladies would love to hear from you and answer your questions on future episodes.

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Anna and Diamond are joined by someone familiar to the show, Paul Hanak - Director of ICND’s digital marketing team.

Paul stops by to chat about ChatGPT or as they affectionately call it Grand Party Time! What a grand party it is…everyone shares their recent interactions with this hot new AI tool. From the good to the bad and all the funny (or not) in-between they tackle audience questions about the how's and whys when using ChatGPT

Diamond, Paul, & Anna decide if CHatGPT can land a job after an internship in the marketing department.

Paul takes us back in time before there were duplicate filters, penalties for backlinks from unrelated websites, and algorithms that defect poor written content. He shares the findings from a recent experiment he conducted with a property detail page and image.

The team wraps up the episode with a few predictions (some that have already come true) and final thoughts on how AI is influencing our daily lives.

To see that amazing sunset photo they described and to see how ChatGPT describes “itself” to Diamond click here.

Don't miss out on the latest insights and expert tips in the vacation rental industry - follow Vacation Rental Ninjas today!

Click the notification bell to stay up-to-date with the newest episodes, featuring interviews with top industry professionals, exciting destination spotlights, & digital marketing updates.

Enjoying the show? Help us spread the word by leaving a 5-star review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to produce more content like this.

Whether you're a seasoned vacation rental manager or just getting started in the industry, Vacation Rental Ninjas has something for everyone. Subscribe now and join our community of savvy VRM’s.

Send in your audience questions to podcast@icoastalnet.com

Don't miss out on the latest insights and expert tips in the vacation rental industry - follow Vacation Rental Ninjas today!

Click the notification bell to stay up-to-date with the newest episodes, featuring interviews with top industry professionals, exciting destination spotlights, & digital marketing updates.

Enjoying the show? Help us spread the word by leaving a 5-star review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to produce more content like this.

Feel free to send in your questions to podcast@icoastalnet.com. The ladies would love to hear from you and answer your questions on future episodes.

Connect with us on our socials:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube