Having a digital marketing strategy is essential for your agency to rank highly in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Thousands of dollars are spent every week to promote your short term holiday rentals on portals like Booking.com.au, Homeaway and many others. How much have you invested in promoting your own website and business?

For most people, Google is the go-to platform when they are looking for information about a business or service of any kind.

Our daily lives are centered around the internet and always being connected. We order meals online, book appointments and even do our grocery shopping, all from the comfort of our living room. People use to panic if the power went out, but now we panic if the internet goes down.

In the digital age customers expect Real Estate agents to have a digital presence. Your agency needs to be visible on a variety of platforms. If people cannot find anything about your agency it can have serious effects on your credibility and market reputation. Not to mention losing potential bookings.

Websites are the core of your digital presence

Having a website is essential to the long term success of a holiday management agency. Owners and guests predominately use the internet to find property managers and holiday rentals. It is very important for property managers to maintain a professional and highly visible presence online.

Your website is a major component of your marketing strategy and the core of your digital presence.

With a website, Holiday Property Managers can:

• build awareness
• generate quality leads
• increase credibility and brand recognition
• have full control over content as your website is owned media.

Investing in a website and marketing campaign is a small price to pay, however when it results in a good ROI it is well worth the price. ROI is a very important metric as it defines the success of your marketing campaigns and helps steer your marketing forward. Knowing your ROI places accountability on you to drive your agency towards growth without wasting money.

Social Media

Social media plays a big part in the tools utilised by property managers with Facebook leading at 80% followed by LinkedIn at 71%. Holiday Property Management agencies are using Facebook to effectively market holiday rentals. Twitter is very effective at driving traffic to your website, and LinkedIn allows you to connect with investment property owners.

The post The importance of a digital presence for you appeared first on Sherlock Holidays.

Sherlock Software offers innovative software solutions to manage your entire agency.  Our solutions include property management software for residential, commercial, sales and holiday management trust accounting, sales management CRM, document archiving, property management inspection app, Owner and Tenant portal and Real Estate websites that integrate with all major portals as a channel manager. Sherlock has a long history in the business and a proven track record, offering Real Estate businesses practical software solutions and extensive industry experience.

Holiday Management Solutions

SherlockPRO is a powerful Property Management and Trust Accounting Solution that operates in a desktop and/or a cloud environment. Our integrated solutions offer property managers an all-inclusive system to streamline your business processes allowing you more time to focus on your guests and owners. Our packages includes integration with SecureBOOKIT, channel management, branded website with online bookings, secure online payments, owners and cleaner portal and our guest communication templates.

Our Solutions include:

• Trust accounting and Property Management– compliant trust accounting with all your bookings in one place
• Channel Management– HomeAway, Stayz, Booking.com, Airbnb & trip advisor
• Tariff management – SecureBOOKIT- manage rates, seasons, special and guest templates.
• Branded Websites and Digital Marketing– stunning holiday websites with live pricing to increase conversion.

Sherlock Software acts like a channel manager, so you don’t need to pay hundreds of dollars extra for this service. We have full integration with HomeAway, Booking.com and calendar synchronisation with Airbnb.

Our partnerships with these portals offer two- way API integration directly from SherlockPRO with all your bookings in one software solution. When a guest books their preferred property with you on one channel, your calendars will update on all other channels to reduce double bookings.

Benefits of One provider for your Real Estate Software Solutions

Integration: Working with One Service provider will ensure that your business solutions are properly integrated laying a virtual framework for your business to grow.

One Support Network: Utlising One Support team to assist you when required offering the best client services, knowledge and tools to improve your day to day tasks.

Reduce Costs: One Software provider allows you to pay only one bill per month which can save you hundreds per year in licensing fees with our all inclusive packages.

Streamline Your Processes: Improved productivity and transparency within your agency, means you can streamline your day to day processes and manage all of your business needs.

Strong Relationships: Build and maintain a relationship with One Software company who understands your business and adapts to adding additional modules as required.

Intuitive usability and Training: Software from the same provider follows the same style of usability. Having similar controls and functionality makes the software intuitive reducing staff learning multiple technology.

Flexibility:  Software package inclusions can be scaled according to the changing needs of the company. Sherlock offers a range of products that are suitable for different types of property management as a single or split trust account offering your flexibility to adapt as you grow.

Sherlock takes responsibility: Any issues and problems that occur, Sherlock takes responsibility for their technology. We work together as a team to solve any issues you may have. In contrast, a multi-provider environment can have you going from one to the next to get a problem resolved, with each party blaming the next. Reduce delays with One support team to assist with your queries on the same day.

It’s just easier: With One phone number – it’s just easier and less time consuming dealing with One provider.

Why Choose Sherlock Software?

Managing a business with multiple departments and requirements can be complex at the best of times and so can the technology you implement. If you are using multiple service providers with minimal to no integration, the increased workload is frustrating, costly and time consuming.

Sherlock has developed technology that allows all users across various areas of the business to have One support team that will facilitate all enquiries. If you are using different service providers for different applications and something goes wrong, who should you call?

Agencies are looking to move away from multiple tier providers to avoid confusion and delay when you call someone; each service provider will blame the other and you will have to spend a lot of time and effort working with them to get your problem resolved.

As the leading One Service Provider in the industry, it’s far easier to resolve your issues with One support team, One development team and One vision for your business needs. Costs are reduced dramatically with One software provider.

Bundling services ultimately saves you money. There are many reasons for this including:

• The more solutions we provide, the best the bundle rates will be
• More freedom to customise your service to fit your business
• Ability to add new products or remove products if change of direction
• Your finance team will spend less time on billing and reconciling
• Easier to plan and budget
• Your employees will be more efficient and productive

The complexity of having more than One provider can be easily solved with using One company to provide all your software solutions. One software provider can be very beneficial to your business and we look forward to discussing your agency requirements.

For more information contact Phil 0418 441 304 or email sales@sherlock.com.au

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When consumers get online to book a holiday rental property, they generally want to know how other people enjoyed their stay, what activities are around the area, the best features of the property they stayed at and so on.

When it comes down to a guest making the decision to book a holiday property, showing positive holiday rental reviews on your website can be equally as powerful at increasing conversions as reducing prices or including special offers. These reviews can also double the browsing time on your site, which gives more chance for conversion. Reviews are so powerful these days they have become one of the most common forms of an online search. Guests are more likely to take notice of another guest review than other forms of marketing.

92% of consumers now read online reviews. This makes your reviews and the way your business handles them very important.

Does the Tourism industry really need online reviews?

The short answer is a resounding YES.

Customers want to know the types of places they should be visiting and what types of properties they should be staying at so they can plan their holiday. By having a lot of reviews online, visitors can get a feel for your business and what types of properties you have to offer. With so many holiday properties on the market and competition being higher than ever before, these reviews can set you apart from the competition and help the guest decide what property to book.

The same goes for other businesses in the tourism industry such as tourist attractions, local restaurants and shops. These reviews can help people make the final decision for their holiday.

Are good and bad reviews beneficial for my business?

YES. Creating trust with your guests is based on having a mixture of good and bad reviews. It is not always possible or realistic to have 100% satisfaction at all times. Consumers want to believe in authentic feedback and the mix of positive and negative reviews helps make this feedback more realistic. What consumers will look at with bad reviews is how you responded to the negative feedback.

How do I respond to a negative review?

Agencies can assist their business by responding with professionalism. This ensures that when others read these remarks you have been proactive in your approach to addressing any issues raised.

The most professional thing you can do when a customer leaves a negative review is to respond accordingly. This will show your guests that you validate and respect their opinions and are willing to work with them to resolve any issues. Doing this will avoid the situation escalating to a point that gets out of control and can damage your reputation.

In fact you should respond to as many reviews as possible, the good, the bad and even the ugly! This will be very favourable to future guests. Taking the professional route and offering a resolution is excellent for business.

How can I get guests to leave reviews?

It should be part of your business/ marketing strategy to get online reviews from guests.

Keep in touch with them once they have checked out and send them an email thanking them for their stay. Request feedback on the visit or ask them to leave a review on one of the noteworthy review sites such as Trip Advisor, Booking.com, AirBnb and so on.

There are many ways in which you can encourage the guest to leave a review. These reviews will help your popularity grow and can also make you easier to find online.

You can give your guests an incentive to leave a review such as an offer to enter a competition, a coupon code or a discount off their next stay.

Being proactive about how you get your reviews certainly helps.

Holiday Rental Reviews are extremely beneficial to your business.

As you now know, reviews should be at the forefront of your business strategy.

By taking your online reviews seriously, you will see improvements in your business and get a lot of repeat guests.

Reviews hold you accountable and that goes a long way to having an extremely successful holiday rental business. They will instantly boost your reputation and communicating with your customers helps you to build lasting relationships. Both important parts of having a successful business.

SecureBOOKIT Guest Review Templates

Making reviews simple for your holiday rental agency.

Coming Soon, the new SecureBOOKIT has guest review templates that are automatically generated and sent to the guest after they check out of their holiday rental. Once the guests sends the completed review back to the agent, the agent can approve or archive the review. If it is approved it is then published directly to that property on their website. Our guest review templates are essential for your holiday management agency and we are sure you will love how easy it is to get reviews from guests.

New communication templates are part of our Platinum package coming soon with the new SecureBOOKIT and SherlockPRO Holidays.

For more information on the new SecureBOOKIT, SherlockPRO Holidays or our guest review and communication templates Contact us today.

The post Holiday Rental Reviews and Your Business appeared first on Sherlock Holidays.

Our fully integrated software has been designed for property management, sales management, holiday management, Real Estate web design and digital marketing with systems that reduce duplication. 

Our integrated solutions include –

• Sherlock PRO – Trust accounting
• Inspector Sherlock- Property manager app
• ArchiveHUB- Document management system
• Rentalz OnDemand – Owner, tenant and creditor portal 
• SecureBOOKit- tariff management system for holidays
• SOLD- Sales CRM and Sales Trust
• OnCloud- Real Estate websites and marketing

Reasons for implementing System Integration

The main reasons for agencies to have fully integrated systems is to improve productivity and quality of their operations to speed up workflow and reduce operational costs to the business. Integration is not only used to connect a business’s internal operations, but also external sources such as channel managers and third party form providers that offer additional services. 

When your business grows, the importance of system integration grows with it. Unfortunately, system integration is often overlooked. Businesses take software from various providers to get the job done without thinking about how it will affect the business. Without system integration, you lose efficiency, productivity and opportunity.

Our holiday management solutions include SecureBOOKIT, SherlockPRO, OnCloud Websites and Rentalz OnDemand. These fully integrated solutions allow you to manage your short-term rentals seamlessly with the rest of your agency. Our websites are designed and built with integration in mind. Booking availability calendars and tariffs are fully integrated with our suite of solutions which reduces data entry duplication and the risk of double bookings. 

The benefits to having a fully integrated systems

Spend more time being proactive to help your customers and furthering your business reach, profits and growth.

Contact us today to discuss how we can help with your system integration for property management with our integrated suite of solutions.

sales@sherlock.com.au or contact Phil on 0418 441 304

The post System Integration for Property Management appeared first on Sherlock Holidays.

Sherlock Software has full integration with major channel managers such as Homeaway, Stayz, Tripadvisor (Flipkey) and Booking.com in addition to calendar synchronisation with AirBnb.

Full integration means that you have a single point of control for all your distribution channels which easily syncs to our property management software. We are one of the only Property Management software companies in Australia that has an online holiday booking system that is fully integrated with our trust accounting and property management software. Essentially you can manage all your residential and holiday property rental needs with the one provider, Sherlock Software. 

iCal & Channel Managers

With short term holiday bookings you want to avoid double bookings and increased workload. It is key to implement a technology that syncs all your calendars together.

iCal (iCalendar) and channel managers do a similar job. They save you time, reduce the chance of errors being made and allow you to run your property portfolio more efficiently. Channel managers, however, do this better.

Channel managers offer revenue management functions which allow you to easily manage your bookings and tariffs in real time. This is the main difference between iCal and a Channel Manager. When a guest makes a booking on one channel it is instantly updated on all calendars. A channel manager will also update the booking details.

Why you need Sherlock’s Holiday Solutions

As a busy property manager, it would be non- negotiable to have a powerful online calendar. As bookings are clearly essential, your business quite literally depends on it. Short term holiday rental management has a lot of complexity and variation from one property to the next and there is already a lot that can go wrong. iCal certainly does have limitations and for bigger property portfolios these limitations could be very challenging.

Our holiday solutions of Sherlock Trust Manager, SecureBOOKIT and OnCloud Websites include channel management which ensures all portals are updated to optimise your occupancy and booking opportunities. Our channel manager syncs in real- time, greatly decreasing the chance of double bookings. Save hours of labour updating portals with one provider to manage your entire holiday rental business.

SecureBOOKIT

SecureBookIt is Sherlock Software’s new online holiday management booking system that manages live availability calendars and accommodation pricing online. It automates the enquiry and booking process for your staff and guests. SecureBOOKIT is fully integrated with Sherlock trust management software and Sherlock developed holiday real estate websites.

SecureBOOKIT is an all in one cloud solution that is innovative to the holiday rental industry in Australia, offering simplified business processes. Our team are specialists within the tourism and hospitality industry and love creating guest experiences with an end to end software solution.  We design holiday management to grow your business by developing easy to use and affordable technology integrated with Sherlock Pro holidays and mobile responsive holiday websites.

Sherlock are specialising in holiday management software and offer the market a fully integrated software management system. Take the risk out of your booking calendar and daily operations by implementing Sherlock Software’s comprehensive range of solutions for all of your short- term holiday rental needs.

Contact us today or book a demo of our holiday management solutions.

The post Holiday Rental Management appeared first on Sherlock Holidays.

Due to COVID-19 Australian short-term rentals we were hit with quarantine restrictions that had immediate and devastating effects on Australian tourism and the short-term rental market.

Travel bans, social distancing and self-isolation caused overnight havoc. The tourism industry took one of the biggest hits the industry has ever seen with tours, flights and accommodation cancelled, Australian borders closed, restaurants and cafes shut down and many other businesses relying on tourism forced to close their doors. Many short-term rental owners as well as other businesses in the industry were left without any income at all.

One thing that became very apparent was a decline in short term rental bookings. This decline meant that owners were transferring their properties to permanent rentals and willing to take a cut in rental return for the stability of a longer- term rental agreement.

Data industry analyst, AirDNA indicated that in 3 months to March 31, 2020 there were 36,000 active short-term listings in Sydney compared with just 19,000 in the first half of June- 47% decrease since before COVID-19.

In an article from Accom News, they mentioned that AirDNA also indicated that short-term rentals in regional Australia are experiencing a promising rise in demand post coronavirus, showing a 189% increase in bookings as Australians were bi-passing cities.

Short-term Rental homes have an edge over hotels

With social distancing becoming “the norm”, it is clear that holiday home rentals have an advantage on hotels and Resorts. People are still on high alert with their surroundings and are looking for the space, safety and comfort that a holiday home offers.

There are a few reasons why holiday home rentals are more resistant to the impact of COVID-19 than cruises, hotels, resorts and airlines.
These include:
• Homes being in more remote locations or scattered through suburbia with less exposure to other holiday makers.
• Guests renting holiday homes generally visit destinations within driving distance of where they live. This allows them to bypass public transport and the potential risks that come with this form of travel.
• Holiday home rentals are generally booked in advance and more planning has gone into the trip which means trying to cancel can be harder so they stick to their plans.

Promoting your Short-term holiday rentals

Tourism recovery begins locally. With international travel out of the question for quite possibly the next 2 years, now is the perfect time to leverage the powers of digital marketing and increase your visibility within your more local area.
With State borders being closed again, a marketing campaign directed to the drive to destinations such as “stay local for a weekend getaway” may be extremely beneficial to your business.

How you can make the most of this current climate:

• Re-evaluate your business strategies
• Keep prices reasonable to attract your local market
• Show guests that you are following strict COVID-19 cleaning principles
• Actively market your properties and locations- to enhance the guest experience.

There are plenty of things you can do in your agency at the moment, but the number one thing is to be pro-active with your marketing.

Contact Sherlock Software’s digital marketing team for more information on how you can market your short-term rental agency.

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