5 Considerations for a Smart Channel Strategy

By Joel Inman, Founder/CEO  
 
I'd like to share some channel strategy insights for property managers to consider as they build the best channel strategy for their business and distribute their listings across those channels.  
 
Let me start by declaring that PMS direct connects do provide value. They are low cost alternatives that seem to work best when connecting to a native vacation rental channel like Vrbo and HomeAway. Because these channels were purpose-built for vacation rentals, their technical architecture more closely matches that of vacation rental property management systems. This makes it easier to pass along rich data sets to generate good listings. 
 
A more robust channel strategy calls for expanding beyond the existing vacation rental  audience by connecting to hotel-style OTAs like Expedia and Booking.com. With millions of monthly guests booking lodging, these sites are a required part of every modern distribution plan, particularly if you’re interested in going after millennials. Travel Daily News reports a majority of them are brand loyal and book exclusively on these well-advertised sites. 
 
Successfully reaching Expedia’s and Booking.com’s millions of guests each month and driving bookings takes special skills. Translating the complexities of vacation rental inventory into hotel-like listings is far more complex than most property management systems are set up to handle. Clients switching to Lexicon tell us errors happen more frequently when you leave it to technology alone, often creating listings that look bad or contain incorrect information. This leads to upset guests.  
 
These all-too-common challenges are the reason Lexicon’s services are valued by our clients.  
 
As businesses craft their channel marketing strategies and think about the best way to distribute their listings online, we have a few things for everyone to consider. These will help you make the best decision — one that will ultimately impact your profitability, workload, sanity, and booking success.  
 
1. How many properties should you list? 
The larger the number, the more time-consuming managing listings via a PMS direct connection becomes. Most, if not all, PMSs require one listing per property, meaning you’ll spend far more time creating and quality checking listings on each channel as you add listings.  
 
If there’s one universal truth, it’s that there’s already not enough time in each day to get it all done. Sure, you can throw a bunch of additional staff at the problem, but every property manager I know works hard to control labor costs and protect thin margins.  

2. Do you have or need listing support?
A common complaint I hear from property managers is the response time from their property management partners or channel managers when they need help. If you anticipate you’ll need help with your listings, please consider the first priority of a PMS is supporting their core functionality. They’re not focused on best practices to optimize Expedia and Booking.com listings. Generally, they are technology companies and not staffed to be strategists.   
 
If a property manager is anything short of an expert in listing on these channels, they are going to need support at some point to make the listings perform at the highest levels. Choosing someone to partner with who is there when they are needed is key. Done right, these channels can generate a volume of bookings that will make every owner happy. 
 
3. Do you have similar Inventory? 
One of the best ways to improve booking success on Expedia and Booking.com is to cluster similar inventory into a single listing. The channels reward clustered listings with better page placement because the revenue they can drive from a single listing on two inches of page space dramatically rises.  
 
If your portfolio includes condos or apartment units that are similar, Lexicon’s “Customized Clustering” is a powerful strategy to improve listing and booking success. PMS direct connects don’t offer this option to their users, and this is a don’t-want-to-miss revenue-producing strategy. 
 
4. Is Listing Placement Important to You? 
Content scores are crucial in determining placement of each listing in search results. Just like Google protects their user experience by scoring a listing’s ability to answer searchers’ questions, Expedia and Booking.com do the same by scoring property listings. 
 
Earning the highest content scores on these channels requires human intervention. There is not a technology-only solution that can compete. That’s because Expedia and Booking.com’s technical connections (APIs) are limited. For example, things like promotions and ‘what’s nearby’ attractions cannot be sent automatically through an API, but must be manually built.  
 
This experiential knowledge and additional detail are important to listing scores and must be manually added. If you have 75 units on two channels, that is 150 listings to manage with a PMS direct connection. Someone has to manage this, which means logging into two channels and making changes to every listing on each channel. Lexicon does this for our clients at no additional cost.  
 
5. Are you a Leader or Follower? 
Expedia and Booking.com are dynamic marketplaces. Listing content information, like photos and policies, change all the time, but also behind-the-scenes things like the data passed across the various APIs. Is it important for your business to stay on top of all these changes? Or are you okay getting there eventually? A dedicated team of watchful eyes and ears can help ensure you stay ahead of the curve.  
 
As an example, both Expedia and Booking.com have changed their websites in ways that lowered content scores for existing listings over 15 times in 2019. Like Google, they don’t advertise these changes, so it’s the property managers' responsibility to remain vigilant. Because Lexicon monitors our clients’ listings constantly, we were able to jump in and help our clients quickly make the necessary changes that returned their listing scores to previous highs. Having a dedicated team monitoring the channel performance is the best way to stay on top of all the pieces that drive booking success. I don't know any PMS company that provides this level of channel monitoring to help clients strategically increase online booking success.  
 
Summary 
Companies have several options for listing their properties across the online channels that consumers use to book vacation rentals but having the right tools for the job is essential for doing it well.  
 
Consider where you want to promote your properties, then take the time to evaluate your options for executing your channel marketing strategy. Relying on low cost or basic solutions for more complex situations is risky and can end up setting you up for failure. Not only will you miss valuable opportunities and underperform, but you’ll likely incur unexpected costs as well.  
 
If you’re ready to maximize your channel distribution strategy, call me. I’d love to discuss your options and answer any questions about the best ways to drive more channel bookings.