We had a great time at the Fall Cottage Life Show this weekend. I was there on Friday and Saturday and spoke to lots of people about cottage rental – both owners and prospective renters. There were a lot of owners who are thinking of renting out their cottages because they have not been able to sell and have decided to rent for a couple of years until the market picks up. Others are feeling the economic pinch in other areas, but don’t want to be forced into selling the cottage so are turning to rental to create some additional income.
What this all means is a big increase in cottages coming onto the rental market in 2009. Since we don’t really know what effect the credit crunch will have on our renters, this could be a big deal and now is the time to take action to make sure we are ready for more intense competition. I’ll be posting later on this week about creating a solid marketing plan and getting the advertising right and on budget, but before then, I wanted to mention that Cottage Life launched their rentals web site at the Show.
Cottage Life Rentals is a brand new web site so has not yet been launched to the rental public yet. As with any new site they need inventory and to do that, they are offering a free listing to the first 250 to sign up. I have already done this and added Osprey Cottage so will review the process in the next few days.
The glut of listing sites makes it all the more difficult for owners to plan their advertising strategy and I’ll be touching on that as well. Listing on several sites is an administrative challenge particularly when each site has a different calendar to be updated. I’ve always been in favour of owners having their own web site, and linking to it from their listings, but this is not allowable from many sites. We’ll be watching this with interest.
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I guess we’re gonna get another one. The home page looks nice tho.
It appears the site was built with mambo or Joomla CMS, could be wrong tho.
They have a plugin to create rental sites quite easily.
Not sure they will get this message but I have one word of advice, get the Search Engine Friendly URL’s addon for the plugin they are using and fix the meta tags…
Good luck guys – the competition is fierce…
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Hi VRW,
Thanks for the advice – the to-do list keeps growing!
It was terrific being at the show on the weekend and talking directly to cottagers. We got some really good suggestions and will be implementing some of them over the next two weeks.
Our site will be backed by the Cottage Life brand and promoted in our magazine (a million readers per issue), at our Shows (40,000 visitors each year), and through our email newsletter (34,000 subscribers and counting). So we’re hoping to stand out from the crowd and connect renters and owners. A year from now, when we ask our freebie listers to pay for a listing ($100 a year) we’ll soon know if they got their value out of being part of our directory.
Of course if you’re looking for a good property management firm to offer the total package, there’s some great ones out there, including our friend Heather here at CottageBlogger.
Sharon
Manager of CottageLifeRentals.com
Agreed! There are so many sites coming online for listing vacation rentals. We’re one of them and because the competition is so fierce we give owners and managers a link to their personal website, a link to any calendar, guest reviews, gigantic pictures and it’s free for 6 months. Renewals are $39. The amazing thing about the internet and vacation rental advertising is that there are sooo many players that it is a challenge to not only charge but to give it away free. I do like the look of Cottage Life Rentals and wish them the best. Branding any company takes time and developing a following is an uphill battle. This is why larger sites that have revenue gobble up players that already have a toe-hold in the market. Always nice to read your latest posts and keep up the good work Cottageguru! Thanks John @ http://www.Furnishedhomes.com – The Place to Find Furnished Rentals.