Vacation VillagesIdyllic Vacation Villages For Your Perfect Holiday Getaway

Among today’s many forms of marketing media, the postcard is often overlooked by new-age entrepreneurs. The smart vacation rental owner knows this form of direct-mail communication can be very effective. Below are a few ways to put postcards to good use.

Use a pen

Though not entirely practical for the large scale vacation rental owner, the most personal form of communication – and possibly the most appreciated – is mailing a handwritten note on a postcard or greeting card.

Use the calendar

Take advantage of yearly holidays to send a card – occasions like the New Year, national holidays, national independence days, etc. All that is required is a brief hello, best wishes for the season/summer/holiday weekend, etc, and a reminder to check out your website (or blog, online listings, etc) where they’ll find property updates and can subscribe to your newsletter, or what have you. Don’t forget to include the URLs for all of these in your message.

Use the area

Purchase postcards of a property’s nearby attractions and send with a note with the dates of local fairs and festivals for the next year, or updates the customer can expect to find on their next visit to the property.

Use desktop publishing software

Printing your own postcards not only saves money, it allows you to completely customize the entire card. Just be sure to choose flattering images and phrases. Avoid cluttering up the postcard with bulleted lists of features. Instead, speak volumes with the chosen image, choose the top three features/attractions to showcase and include the URLs to any online listings, blogs, etc.

Many desktop publishing titles include postcard templates. Some, like Microsoft Publisher, have “sets” with coordinating postcard, letterhead, business card, and newsletter templates all-in-one.

Use Mail Merge

The larger-scale vacation rental owner can save time and money by doing a Mail Merge from a database of clients. This means customer names and addresses are pulled from a pre-created list or spreadsheet and “merged” into the postcard document. A new postcard is created for every single customer on the list. The address is printed along with all other layers and elements on the page making for a professional-looking postcard. Plus time and money is saved by not needing to purchase, print, peel, and stick address labels onto already printed postcards.

Use usefulness

One last option for a vacation rental owner to consider is to have your logo, URL and contact info printed onto a magnetic calendar postcard. Adding usefulness to direct-mail pieces will keep your name in front of the customer longer, upping the chances that your property will immediately come to mind when the customer contemplates their next vacation accommodation decision.

Check the ” Manual For Vacation Rental Owners – 100 Tips for Successful Renting” or just visit Vacation Rentals. Let me help you maximize your Bookings!

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