When your vacation rental business starts to pick up speed, branding may not be at the top of your priority list. The daily management of the properties and communication with guests takes up so much time that, unsurprisingly, brand names and logos get buried under dozens of daily to-dos.
However, once your operations have reached a certain size, you will want potential guests to quickly understand what sets your business and offering apart from the competition’s and make positive guest experiences easy to remember. Branding is vital to achieving these goals.
If coming up with a brand identity feels daunting or you need clarification on why this is important for business growth, this article has everything you need to know about effectively building a vacation rental brand. Read on to get started.
A vacation rental brand is a short-term rental business with a distinct identity in the eyes of guests and consumers. It is easily recognizable and can be distinguished from the competition. Different elements, such as a name, logo, font, and color scheme, create this identity.
Think of businesses such as Airbnb or Booking.com. Thanks to their logos, color palettes, and names, consumers can instantly recognize them. These businesses are also likely to be top of mind when consumers think of vacation rentals or accommodation booking platforms. You want to aim for this when you create your vacation rental brand.
There are several benefits of having a brand, including:
The vacation rental market is highly competitive. A distinct brand with a unique name, logo, or color palette will instantly set you apart from the competition. It will also make it easier for guests to pick you out from the industry crowd or effortlessly remember a positive experience they’ve had at one of your properties. With 71% of consumers saying they are more likely to buy from a brand they recognize, branding is a must to scale your vacation rental business.
Defining your brand’s identity early on helps your guests know what to expect from your business. Does your company specialize in pet-friendly accommodation? A logo with a cat or a dog will help guests realize this quickly and know your rentals are designed with animals in mind. Does your business focus on a particular country? Including its flag colors in your brand palette or mentioning it in the tagline will encourage potential guests to come to you if visiting the area.
Having a unique brand will be one of the main drivers of your business’s marketing push. Whether you are doing an email campaign or publishing ads on social media, when your company has a unique personality and is quickly recognizable, you don’t need to introduce your services or product every time. This will make selling your services a more straightforward, shorter process.
Trust is the basis of any successful business (especially in the vacation rental industry) and is one of the main building blocks of growth. Of course, trust is not simply down to branding––you need to provide consistently exceptional guest experiences and service to build it. However, having solid, unified branding that evokes these excellent guest experiences will be crucial to growing it and fostering loyalty. This translates into returning guests and repeat bookings, which equals increased revenue.
Consumers will likely pay more for brands they know have top-quality products. Ensure you work hard to offer outstanding guest experiences to make your brand synonymous with quality and first-class service. Guests will be happy to pay a heftier price tag.
Before any names, logos, or taglines, picking the niche you want your vacation rental brand to specialize in will help guide the process of building your brand and give you a clear idea of who the target customer is. Doing this will help maximize revenue.
A little research can be helpful to understand if there is a gap in your target market and whether you can fill it with your business. For example, your area might have few pet-friendly rentals or not enough family-oriented accommodation your company could offer.
Closely related to picking a niche, researching your target audience is essential in the early stages of the brand to understand your target consumers’ wants and needs. Knowing their expectations and preferences will give your brand (and sales team) direction to tailor your offering effectively and reach out to them with helpful information and relevant offers. Look at social media for travel trends among your intended guests and research competitors to see what they offer, what content they publish (and how followers react to it), and what your brand can provide that they don’t.
Picking the right name for your vacation rental brand is no small feat, as it will affect everything from your logo to your website. The name should ideally reflect the key aspects and principles of your business. For example, brands like Skyscanner or EasyJet are good at communicating what they do or how they do it. Your brand name must be memorable, unique, and easily distinguishable from your competitors. Likewise, check that the name you pick has no unfavorable connotations and works well in other languages if you are operating internationally or plan to.
A compelling tagline should be snappy, direct, and, most importantly, unforgettable. It needs to capture the essence and spirit of your brand with just a handful of catchy words. If you are struggling to come up with one, a range of tools, from thesauruses to AI, can help you explore the possibilities.
💡Pro tip: Try a tagline or slogan generator for inspiration.
Writing a brand statement early on will guide you as you grow your business. It should be short (think no more than four or five lines) and mention the brand's name, the target audience, the value proposition, and what sets it apart from competitors.
For example: “Sunny Rentals offers vacation rentals for families with small children to keep the little ones entertained while parents relax. Our rentals are equipped with toys and books for under-10s and include free access to top-rated kids clubs in the area”.
Think of your brand as a person: what adjectives would you use to describe it? What does your brand sound like and how does it talk to its audience? Is it formal and serious or more laid-back and relaxed? Defining your brand's tone of voice and personality sooner rather than later will help you remain consistent across all your communications, which will spark trust with your target audience and foster loyalty.
Once you’ve settled on your brand's name and personality, you must focus on developing its visual identity. Pick color schemes that capture the brand spirit and its value proposition. For example, green, brown, and neutral tones would suit vacation rentals focusing on sustainability. A touch of black or gray can help convey sophistication or elegance. You can also use the same colors for the interiors of the rentals to give guests a complete and seamless brand experience.
Choosing a font is also crucial to your brand’s visual identity, as it will be present in everything from your website to your welcome emails. This choice must also reflect the brand's personality to help create a consistent user experience. Sleek, clean styles, for instance, can help convey the idea of understated luxury or elegant minimalism, and script fonts are good at transmitting happiness and whimsy, making them a good choice to indicate a more laid-back or playful message.
Another primary component of branding, your logo needs to be memorable, recognizable, and unique—just like your brand name. Ideally, it will capture an essential aspect of your brand, such as the value proposition, target audience, or name. It can be anything from an image to a mere letter, but remember: it will appear across your website, social channels, and communications, so it needs to be easy to scale to fit these contexts.
💡Pro tip: If you’re struggling to develop a good logo, you can use plenty of tools to create one.
If you haven’t got one already, make sure you set up your website with a booking platform so that you can drive direct bookings.
Your website is your shop window: this is your brand’s home and the place to let guests know why they should pick you over your competitors. Make it attractive, eye-catching, and, most of all, an extension of your brand’s identity, with messaging and design carefully aligned with it. Likewise, ensure it is reliable and easy to navigate, so potential guests don’t become frustrated and give up on booking.
Don’t rely on stock photos or your phone’s camera to take pictures for your website and marketing collateral––high quality and professional is what you are looking for to inspire trust and evoke positive experiences. You want potential guests to fall in love with your rentals before they’ve set foot in one, so invest in this area. Imagery is another component of your brand’s identity, so make sure photos are consistent with the other brand elements.
Social media is an excellent tool for engaging and connecting with potential guests and showing them your brand and business. It is also a place for consumers to discover new trends, products, or services, so being active on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or X with images, promotions, and valuable content such as guides will attract more attention from potential (or returning) guests. According to a survey by SproutSocial, social platforms are the channel that gives brands the most opportunities to connect with customers. And when customers feel connected to a brand, they are 76% more likely to purchase with it over a competitor.
While it may be tempting to try to cover all platforms, focus your efforts on the ones your target audience prefers. And remember: while social media can be more relaxed and informal, always keep things professional when posting.
Use social media, search, or display ads to reach target audiences with content tailored to their needs and preferences. As with all your other communications, ensure you consistently utilize your brand’s tone of voice and image style while using eye-catching visuals and copy.
💡Pro tip: Online advertising can be complex and time-consuming, so partnering with an agency or a specialist can help free up your time for other tasks. If you want to do it yourself, you can explore joining a short course or masterclass.
Excellent customer service is one of the main contributors to your business’s success. More than half of consumers will switch to a competitor after only one bad experience, and just under three quarters will switch after multiple negative experiences. So, aiming for outstanding customer care at all times will help to separate yourself from the competition and keep your business booming.
Effective and attentive communication with guests will help you achieve service excellence. These communications must be consistent with your brand’s identity and tone of voice every time—even when you need to contact a guest over unruly behavior. For example, when a Minut sensor picks up a hike in noise levels, it will automatically send a message to guests asking them to keep the volume down. This automated message is fully customizable to guarantee alignment with your brand’s tone of voice.
While creativity is vital when building a brand, consistency is the true hero of effective branding. Businesses with consistent branding can experience up to 20% greater overall growth and 33% higher revenue compared to others that struggle with off-brand content, according to Marq. So, once you are happy with all the brand elements, ensure you use them across all your real estate. This means keeping everything from your website to the guest books at your properties consistent in style, visuals, and tone of voice. This approach will create a seamlessly unified brand experience and, more importantly, make your brand easier to remember.
Branding is hard work, so while you focus on getting the name, tagline, and color palette right, having the peace of mind that your properties are being looked after is priceless. With Minut’s real-time alerts, you can get instant notifications on noise levels, occupancy, and cigarette smoke, so you can act quickly if any issue arises and stop any disturbances before they become complaints.
Discover why over 50,000 property managers pick Minut to protect their vacation rentals worldwide. Book a demo today.
