Listen to the podcast episode
Or listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Key Takeaways
Build personas around travel modes, not individual people: The same person books completely differently depending on the trip. Conrad’s couples getaway and his family beach trip go on the same credit card, but one trip needs a pack-and-play and the other doesn’t. Build messaging for each travel mode in your market – family trip, couples trip, group stay – instead of one imaginary average guest.
Owner personas come in three flavors, and each needs different messaging: The pitch that lands with one owner type falls flat with another, so know which one you’re talking to before you write a word.
- Investors: pure revenue play – prove a $20K hot tub returns $50K and they’ll write the check
- Personal users: it’s their vacation home first – they’ll block July 4th and happily eat the lost revenue
- Hybrids: want income and their own weeks – the gray area where most owners actually live
Guests will take a risk on you – owners won’t: A guest will book the $1,200 property over the $2,000 one on decent reviews alone. An owner is handing you a quarter-million to multi-million dollar asset and is terrified of choosing wrong – some hold a property manager’s postcard for eight months before they call. Guest marketing needs three or four things done well; owner marketing needs trust built across many touchpoints.
Stop promising revenue increases you can’t deliver: One property manager was sick of fielding calls from owners angry about their numbers – while his landing page, direct mail, and email all promised 20% more revenue. As Paul told him: you are feeding the beast. If your only pitch is revenue, you attract owners who only care about revenue, and they become your worst owners the moment the market softens.
Claims you can’t prove read as noise: Excellent returns, five-star experience, top rated – probably the right messaging points, but worthless if the reader doesn’t believe you. If you’re the best property manager in Texas and your site shows two units, the claim collapses. Sloppy photos, typos, or a promised crib that isn’t actually there do the same damage. Back every claim with reviews, photography, and property details that prove it.
Ask one question at email signup and segment from day one: One client with lodging on a golf course asks new subscribers a single question: golf and lodging, golf only, or lodging only. Each answer triggers radically different messaging – stay-and-play packages for the first group, tee times for the second, beach-proximity value for the third. It tests your assumptions about who actually books, and it keeps people on your list because the content fits them.
Target where your bookings already come from: Left to its defaults, Facebook will happily target 280 million people. If 78% of your traffic comes from four states, start there – sniper, not shotgun. On Google, layer in-market and affinity audiences as observations before you target them. Paul has watched obvious picks like avid investors get outperformed by segments like commercial real estate and luxury shoppers he never would have guessed.
Consistent inventory beats scattered variety: You can’t drive the same traffic to a $1,000-a-week condo and a $10,000-a-week home and expect either to convert – those are different people. Conrad’s best-converting client has nothing but luxury lakefront homes at a $7,000 to $8,000 average booking value, so anyone who lands on the site can book almost any property. Five of the same property in one market beats 12 scattered everywhere.
A persona you don’t use is a wasted exercise: Everything in the persona should show up somewhere: your website, ad targeting, email flows, guidebook, owner postcards. And it isn’t static – revisit it every year or two. The client who markets discounts to firefighters and nurses didn’t start there; he learned over time that they were his best guests and built the persona from experience.
What We Cover In This Episode
Conrad and Paul break down how to build guest and owner personas that actually drive your marketing: why personas map to travel modes rather than individuals, the three owner types and the trust gap between guests and owners, and how to turn personas into email segmentation, ad targeting, and inventory decisions.
