Revenue That Lies Hidden in Your Listing Photos
Empty calendar dates are money down the drain.
Just like airline seats, once the flight takes off, those empty seats cannot bring in any revenue.
Hosts have experienced the ebbs and flows of a pandemic, then post-pandemic booking trends, shortening booking lead times, interface changes, rates changes, and more. Patterns are no longer as predictable as they were.
Seeing the forest for the trees.
The day-to-day running of a rental or setting one up takes a lot of time and effort. Hosts are attacked by checklists, automations, communications, requests, policies, and procedures that focus on the operations once the listing is live and bookings come flooding in.
But what if they don’t?
There’s no flood, no rush, just empty dates and a handful of requests.
Your coffee bar doesn’t matter if no one clicks on your listing.
Your thumbnail, the first photo, is not your “job interview” but that first smile, the “hello”, a handshake, that sets the tone for the interview.
To convince a stranger to hand their vacation (and their money!) to you, they need to have been sold by the entire listing; to have looked through the photos, read the description, to like your place, to trust that they’ll be taken care of.
You need to create a sense of yearning - “I can see myself there”, “That looks lovely”, “The kids are going to love that”, “I can’t wait to go”, “These guys know what they’re doing”.
A stranger needs to stop at your thumbnail, want to see more, and kind of be sold by the landing page already, with those first five photos.
Now they’re just looking for more reasons to book, with no red flags.
“Pictures don’t do it justice!”
People tend to take this as a compliment and sure, it is. We know that yes, nothing will compare to the live, in-person experience of an epic ocean view, brisk mountain air, a crackling fireplace and a hot drink, a luxuriously soft bed, the sound of kids having the time of their life -
the pride of delivering an awesome experience. The relief in realizing that you’ll be safe and sound and taken care of.
But your listing should come close to showing those things. What our team of professional sees there is “this listing could be better”.
And that’s the challenge - taking what makes your place great and creating a compelling listing, your number one marketing tool, while handling the daily tasks of hosting.
The Listing Assessment:
This is where Overlooked 2 Overbooked comes in - we, Brian and Kati, started in this business to help great hosts create listings they can be proud of, that create bookings and make hosting worth while.
What started as a desire to travel and work remotely in 2014 turned into an online course teaching photo basics to hosts and grew into a team of photographers, stagers, copywriters, and more, who craft listing overhauls both remotely and onsite.
The Listing Assessment is the beginning point for most of our client work and we’ve designed it to be immediately helpful to host - with competition research, concrete examples, and actionable tips.
Since 2021 we’ve sold over 350 assessments (Kati checked Gumroad for this, it’s actually 368) and delivered dozens and dozens more through partners and affiliates - mostly with no marketing at all, just word of mouth.
Usually we’ve scheduled a call to go over the results together but these calls are no pressure, because they serve both of us - you get to share your story, tell us your hosting trials and triumphs, and walk away with the results. We can evaluate if we’re a good fit, if you would benefit from further help.
We do not sell services to hosts who don’t need them, that’s a waste of our time too.
We are now launching the Assessment to non-partner hosts - you can sign up here and learn about us below.
Whether you want to hit the ground running with your listing, are struggling with slow bookings, or just want to go from A to A+, this is a great place to start.
About us:
Overlooked 2 Overbooked started as an idea by Brian in 2014 and launched with an online course in 2016. We wanted to merge our skills, Brian’s sales and marketing and Kati’s post-production from Hollywood, and apply them to the short-term rental industry.
We looked at 100s of listings, stayed in Airbnbs around the world, from New Zealand to Italy, and our instincts were confirmed - a lot of great hosts just didn’t know what to do with their listing. They did not approach it from the guest perspective.
