Podcast I’m joined today by Jason Beaton of Airtight Marketing to talk about jargon in online marketing. As we build our vacation rental businesses, most owners realise that simply listing isn’t enough. We’re at a time in our industry when control over how we market and advertise has been wrestled from us, and without being overly dramatic, we’re at the mercy of a few behemoth listing sites. Don’t comply with Instant Booking and you’ll end up struggling at the bottom of the listing feed; comply, and you may rank higher, but take on the added risks of accepting reservations with no prior connection with guests. Many independent owners don’t want to go that route so in looking for alternatives, realise they need to learn about online marketing. This comes with a steep learning curve because there is a lot to take on board, not least of which is the jargon. The online marketing world has a language all of its own and we hear it every day. From funnels to landing pages, re-targeting to back-end automation, there’s a new vocabulary to learn, and it’s really worthwhile understanding what it all means and how it hangs together. Whether you want complete independence from listing sites – and many have achieved this and lived to tell the tale – to getting a broader understanding of how to get there eventually, we can all take away something from this episode with an online marketing expert. Besides having a lot of experience in the world of digital marketing, Jason is also immersing himself in our own niche of vacation rentals. He braved the full weekend of the Vacation Rental Success Summit (for the second year) , and co-presented a day training course with Mike Bayer as mentioned in VRS185. This means he’s in a perfect position to explain all the jargon and give us an insight into automation processes as they can impact us, and propel us forward to more autonomy. In this episode Jason talks about: What marketing automation means and how it can streamline our business Definitions of funnels, automation, opt-ins and Call to Action (CTA) How an investment of $9 per month in an email platform is worth every penny Landing pages and how to use them The difference between remarketing and retargeting What AB testing is used for Why the term ‘above the fold’ has less impact in the world of mobile marketing The importance of Google Analytics Sites mentioned in this episode: AirTight Marketing Thrive Themes Lead Pages Optin Monster Click Funnels Optimize Press Thrive Leads SumoMe Aweber Active Campaign Mailchimp Google Analytics
