If you're hiring a manager you probably want them to manage, right? Well that's how we work best! Some owners do like to be more involved and we make every attempt to be as flexible with every homeowner's preference as we possible can, but in order to operate uniformly across our homes some aspects do need to standardized.

If you have questions about this, please ask! If you are more of the mindset that you want to communicate directly with every guest, we would love to have a conversation with you to see if we can make it work and if not we would be happy to recommend a separate partner.

This is how we both make our money, so having a specific and proactive booking strategy is what sets us apart! This can be broken into two components:

(1) Listing Optimization (2) Repeat Renters

Listing Optimization

In short, when someone is searching for a rental home in the Poconos we want to show up as high in the search results as we can! And while companies like Airbnb do not specifically detail how they rank homes, much of it can be inferred.

Think about it - Airbnb (and other STR websites) wants guests to come back to their platform, and they're more confident that guest will book on Airbnb again if they have an A+ stay! This is the ethos behind how Airbnb shows their homes - show the best first! So how can we be the best and use this to our advantage?

• Positive Reviews - this is a biggie. Get 5-star reviews from the guest. Airbnb loves this
• Response Times - respond quickly! This is why we have a Guest Relations team on standby to handle incoming inquiries
• Low Cancellations - don't cancel on guests! If we have a reservation, keep it! Big penalties for cancellations (both financially and ranking-based).
• Listing History - has the listing been active a while, or is it new? Airbnb tends to give an initial boost in rankings when a listing is first set live (to keep hosts on the platform), but after that first 3 months Airbnb prefers to favor listings that have been on the platform for a while
• Established Hosts - Airbnb would rather have guests stay with a host that knows what they're doing, and for this reason they tend to prefer hosts will multiple homes (we know what we're doing!)
• Click-thru-rates - when potential guests see your home in the search results, do they click it? If they do, Airbnb knows this is a more enticing stay!
• Click-to-book-rates - after they click on your listing, do they book? Airbnb wants to see this

All in all, it is a blackbox where Airbnb doesn't specifically say what they take into consideration (and they do change it as well...) but we know by following industry best practices we can put our listings in an advantageous position! And then comes the positive feedback loop!

- With better ranking we get more bookings - With more bookings, we get the chance to get more positive reviews - With more positive reviews, we rank even better

This is the positive momentum we're looking to foster! Let's host guests, have them be happy so they leave positive reviews and we can host more guests! So in order to jump-start this process, we typically like to under-price your home out of the gate to allow us to begin welcoming in guests. We will increase our rates with time (learn more about that here ) but you're the new kid on the block, now is not the time to be greedy!

Repeat Renters

The 2nd prong to the strategy is to also get guests to come back! This might be hosting the same guests again or perhaps previous PRM guests that are looking to stay at your home next! Either way, guests are starting to wisen-up to the fact that if they book direct they can save 10-15% (hudreds of dollars!).

So in order for us to maximize our impact here, we have partnered with StayFi . This allows us to capture all the guests' information so we can re-engage them at strategic moments in the future (think: you've stayed with us in the Winter, check us out in the Summer!). We are also launching a SuperGuest program to give our best guests discounts for future stays and making your home their home away from home!

But We're Not Done!

We're full of ideas, and can't wait to make future partnerships and integrations to help our clients and portfolio of homes. We're not one to rest on our laurels and will continue to be tech-forward to ensure we're getting the best possible performance out of all of our homes :)