Do you own a service apartment or villa?
If you have one or planning to have one read further to know how you can market the facility online and get decent bookings every month.
Looking for a marketing strategy to boost your service apartment rental sales?
Here i will explain and show you how you can get bookings for your property almost daily. Checkout how you can run your successful service apartment rental business.
The day has finally arrived… you’ve finished building your service apartment or villa! I hope it’s brand new if not it’s ok you can implement these marketing strategies for your old service apartment or service villa business as well.
It took several weeks (maybe even several months) to build it, but that’s okay. The important thing is that it is done, and after many long days and nights of busy schedule and run.
There’s just one problem. Your property is ready to move in, but nobody knows about it. And unfortunately, this isn’t the movie Field of Dreams where the “build it and they will come” approach works. This is the real world, where you have to hustle to showcase your apartment and promote to get some sales.
If you forgot to create a marketing strategy for your service apartment rental business don’t feel bad. You’re definitely not the first person to build a business before created a plan to market it. We’ve got you covered.
In this article, you’re going to learn different ways to market your service apartment rental business and increase your daily and monthly bookings.
Okay, let’s dive in… but wait before we begin marketing let’s check what is this business model and how relevant is this for Indian economy.
If you don’t want to read about serviced apartment business model you can skip to marketing part.
Why Service Apartment Business
There has been an increase in business travel over the last few years with India becoming more integrated with the global economy. Executives from India and abroad frequently travel to business hubs in various part of it and spend weeks and months working from different locations.
Given the duration of stay, they are likely to feel cramped inside a hotel room. Because of stay-length, They become dissatisfied with restaurant/hotel food and crave for homely food.
Sometimes, they wish to invite colleagues/friends over to hold a small party and hence need space. Then, there are families, which find it inconvenient to accommodate children in a hotel-room, who make demands in terms of food and recreation which cannot be met through the format of a conventional hotel.
It is in response to needs of long-stay customers, families and such other groups that the concept of providing apartment space, backed by many of the facilities which the hotels provide, has grown in recent years. The facility is called “service apartment” or “serviced villa”
Staying at hotels for such long periods is costly, and lacks in homely atmosphere. Service apartments are a cost-effective option to hotel accommodation. They provide homely comfort and is an ideal option for both longer-term stays as well as for short stays, with homely food and some facilities provide dedicated cooks as well.
For house owners, or who do it as a business they serve as an alternative to giving their premises on rent. This is a new income generation model (when you implement online booking system for your service apartment property).
“The concept of serviced apartments arrived in India in 2003-04. Starting from Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi, serviced apartments have extended their presence to smaller cities like Kochi, Kerala , driven by commercial activities,” Says a service apartment business owner Mr Danny Paramemeswar MD, Kalidasa Hotels. They have 20 service apartment units and several service villas in Kochi, Kerala.
Different Types of Service Apartments
These apartments are available in different sizes, and this is one of the best things about them – one can easily get the type of apartment according to the requirements.
Here’s the different types of serviced apartment available:
Studio Apartments
Studio apartments are normally between 400 sq. feet to 500 sq. feet and include all the facilities that are required for a comfort stay. These apartments include a Queen/King bed, couch seating and a fully loaded private kitchen so that guests can cook their meals if required. These are also equipped with their own attached, private bathroom. These apartments are perfect for a solo traveler or couple on a short break.
One Bedroom Apartments
The One Bedroom Serviced Apartment are most preferable among those who are looking for comfortable service rentals that provides space and privacy like home. These serviced residences are with an area of around 500 to 750 sq. feet. They consist of a bedroom containing Queen/King size Bed with an attached Bathroom and an individual kitchen fully loaded with all the cooking amenities. These apartments are ideal for family with two kids.
Two Bedroom Apartments
These are spread across 950 sq feet to 1250 sq feet and are ideal for small families and corporate groups. These comprises of two bedrooms along with en-suite bathrooms, spacious living room, fully loaded kitchen to provide a comfortable stay. These apartments are ideal for small families and corporate groups.
Three Bedroom Apartments
Three Bedroom Apartments are specifically designed for corporate teams or friends and families travelling together. These are spread across a minimum area of 1800 sq. feet. These consists of 3 bedrooms with King/ Queen/ Twin Bedding options and all bedrooms have attached bathrooms. It also consists of living room having sofa seating for 6 guests and dining area with 6 seat dining table. These apartments are specifically designed for corporate teams or friends and families travelling together.
Four Bedroom Apartments
Four Bedroom Apartments are specifically designed for large no of corporate teams or friends and families travelling together. These are spread across a minimum area of 2000 sq. feet to 2500 sq. feet. These consists of 4 bedrooms with King/ Queen/ Twin Bedding options and all bedrooms have attached bathrooms. It also consists of living room having sofa seating for 8 guests and dining area with 8 seat dining table.
Service Villa
Service villas are independent house constructed on private properties. With one to 5 bed rooms and other facilities, which you can rent to a group of people or to a group of family or to company executives looking for short or long stays.
Some service villa and apartment are now pet friendly too, so one can travel with their dear pet dogs, cats or any kind of pet of choice.
Pet friendly serviced apartments
Serviced Apartments – a great investment opportunity
Several mainstream hotel brands are doing good business, these days several small scale developers are offering these apartments to individual renters. Some of these are targeted at the ultra rich who want to stay during their leisure and business trips in different locations in India.
Several small to mid-size builders are marketing serviced apartments as an investment opportunity with returns in the range of 9-14% per annum. At present, investment in residential properties is more for capital appreciation than rental income. Annual yield via rental income from a residential property is generally 3-4% a year while capital appreciation is 10-15%.
As India’s economy expands, the demand for serviced apartments will increase along with the floating population. These apartments can also become a preferred choice for those seeking a luxurious lifestyle. With demand rising, more developers will start offering facility management services, either directly or in collaboration with hospitality firms.
If you want to invest in real estate, it may be a good idea to diversify your exposure to serviced apartments or service villas for a higher annuity income than what residential apartments can give.
Service Apartment Business Online Marketing Plan
Tools you need to market a service apartment business
- A website which is mobile friendly (responsive in nature to serve different screen sizes, these days people browse 60 to 80 percentage from mobile devices and tablets)
- A booking system for your property (a single property booking or multi location property booking system, capable of accepting bookings and option to pay online using internet banking or credit cards)
- Perfectly planned online marketing plan (When combined with content , social management and online ads this can do wonders in bringing in quality traffic to your property website and thus you can get maximum bookings for any given month )
A mobile friendly responsive website for service apartment or villa
Following are the things you must consider before building a website for your service apartment business.
- Website should be mobile friendly and responsive and easily manageable content management system
- Website should showcase all your property facilities available for your guest to enjoy during their stay
- A photo gallery
- A video gallery
- What is your unique selling point (like pet friendly, Smart home features with complete automated control systems with a tablet to operate every electrical and electronic devices)
- Show them why the guest love their stay show the previous guests experience and testimonials, with photos and videos if possible
A booking system for your property with payment system integrated
Now everyone have a mobile, tablet or laptop with them and every device is connected online and everyone has online payment options enabled with their bank accounts, and credit cards etc.
Everyone can book your service apartment online and pay for it online. (Which is a kind of eCommerce system where a customer books your property and pay for it online)
So, why not give them a system to book their next holiday home or business stay or a family vacation rental booking with convenience of selecting the property and rooms of their choice while checking the availability on particular date for which they planned.
Must have features of online booking system for service apartments
- Able to check the particular date the guest intent for is booked or not
- If not booked select the calendar date for booking
- Ability to select the number of guest occupancy
- Ability for guest to select the food preference
- Ability to request additional services like airport pickup and drop etc
A channel management feature would be an added advantage
A channel management system is a feature of property booking system, in which you can list your service apartment for daily rental in various online travel portals like;
- Airbnb
- Booking.com
- Expedia
- Hotels.com
- TravelGuru
- Agoda
- Makemy trip
- HolidayLettings
- And many more….
This system enables your website seamless Synchronization with vacation rental portals. You can link the channel management system with your existing website easily. Its a third party integration system where you can manage your property listing from single interface.
It’s a total time and resource saver. You should definitely try this. There is cost involved and which is per month basis.
If you are just starting up, you can run the service apartment booking with using your websites booking system, which attracts you only one time invest of developing the website and booking system.
Ahha wait; suppose someone came to your website to book the service apartment through a referrer, or a friend, they can check and book right.
Its’s not the case, so how can you get bookings and customer?
Now comes the marketing part to attract new customers to your service apartment website
A perfectly planned marketing plan for service apartment rentals
Here are the ways to market your property rental business, combine these to get maximum result.
Who is your ideal customer? let’s define them first.
- Families who are interested in renting/leasing serviced apartment on their visit to your city.
- Corporate organizations that are interested in renting/leasing serviced apartment for their employees.
- Medical tourists who will be staying in India for a period of time.
- Corporate executives who do not prefer hotels.
- The expatriate community.
Attract new rental customers
- Attract new rental customers with quality website content
- As i said before show then what you have for them, the facilities you have for their stay.
- Attract new customers by listing it in online directories and local listings.
- Attract new rental customers with social media
- Give the prospects offers and discounts delivered using social ads.
- Attract new rental customers who search in Google
- with targeted keywords; deliver and bring them to your website using Google ads.
Convert new customers
Convert new customers who visit your site with attractive content, and the facilities you provide for your guest.
Show them with videos how you treat them, show them your past guests enjoying your rental property facility.
Convert with Google and Facebook re-targeting ads for those who do not convert at the first visit to website.
Delight the new customer
Delight the new customer let them choose your property for the short or long stay during the re visit.
Give then coupon codes which can be redeemed within a year at your website booking system, or they can pass that online discount coupons to their friends and relatives. It’s the new word of mouth!
Offer some extra discounts when they share the moment the guest spend at your property and tag those photos with your online handles in their social media profiles. It will bring in a lot of people to your propriety.
Let them market your service apartment to their friends and relatives!
Service apartment business growth; Sustainability and expansion strategy
The future of a service rental business lies in the number of loyal customers that they have, the capacity and competence of their employees, their investment strategy and the business structure.
If all of these factors are missing from a business, then it won’t be too long before the business closes.
One of your major goals of starting rental business is to build a business that should survive off its own cash flow without injecting finance from external sources once the business is officially running.
We know that one of the ways of gaining prospects attention and winning customers over is to rent out standard, well – furnished and secured serviced apartments a little bit cheaper than what is obtainable in the market and are prepared to survive on lower profit margin for a while.
Expand to more luxurious properties and scale further
As the profits comes in its time for you to expand your rental business.
Build new luxurious villas and apartments; Reach to the corporate and vip wealthy clients with in country and abroad.
Reach out and increase the bookings of new rental property by implementing the digital marketing strategies i explained above.
Repeat it….
In case if you need any help and support in building a successful online platform to run your rental property and to build an effective property booking system contact us now. We will help you.
