Connecting with a specific community.
The thing about going all in on a niche is that you become connected to something bigger, you become connected to a community of people who share that same interest. And communities are super valuable in lowering your costs. They lower your costs because you can take advantage of the network effect.
Humans don’t really see the world very clearly at all. We have evolved to see only a fraction of what is going on. And despite global tools like the Internet, we mostly still live inside tightly defined bubbles of awareness.
Sites like Facebook make this more evident. With the vast majority of people still only connecting with less than 250 other human beings. And even within these small groups, we form tighter bubbles of the people who most reflect our own beliefs.
When you tap into the power of these bubbles or niche’s, it becomes a huge advantage. Simply put, people are connected and people talk. And the more interesting you are, the more relevant to their beliefs, the more they will talk about you to their friends and family members.
Inside and outside of Florida, there are already communities who share a deep interest in music, motorcycles, mobility, or almost anything else you might want to choose. Each of those communities has an energy that will help spread the uniqueness of your venue, without charge. But only when you make it unique. Until you find a unique position, there’s very little to remember and very little to talk about. The only avenue left open then is the most expensive paid advertising.
Lowering the cost of advertising.
Here’s an interesting thing. With the simple insertion of a piano into a generic property, I now appeal to a community of piano players. And with the addition of that one word, “piano”, I also have a more specific list of places where I might want to advertise to find like-minded travellers.
Or, with the word “mobility” or “wheelchair” or “accessible shower” or “dog-friendly”, I have a whole new set of SEO rules I can apply. And I have a new set of keywords for my paid advertising headlines. Even if people aren’t specifically searching for my niche, I’m likely to stand out in a list of the other 100,000 properties I’m competing with. The fact is, everyone around you has the same sunsets and palms and dolphins. But they don’t necessarily have a piano. Or motorbike facilities. Or a pool lift. Or a fun dinosaur theme.
The more accurately you can define your customers’ needs, the more you can tailor your message to fit their needs like a glove, the less it will cost for all your paid advertising. Why? Because your 100,000 competitors are all fighting over the same generic terms and pushing the prices through the roof. “Orlando rental” is not the same as “wheelchair friendly orlando rental”.
Increasing the value of free content.
Once you have a niche, it makes content creation a whole lot more interesting, fun and profitable.
As it stands, I see the standard 16 or so blog posts (most people don’t make it past 12) covering generic holiday topics, in no real depth. I’m sure it feels like you put a lot of effort into those posts and you didn’t get much back in return. But the truth is, rather than making 16 average blog posts and doing very little promotion of those blog posts, you’d be far better doing just One very good blog post. The best blog post in the world, on just One subject. Then promoting that one blog post for a whole year, or two or even three.
For most people this is a psychological issue, rather than a practical one. We want to dip our toe in the water of writing and promoting our content. So we do a little and wait for the world to reward us before expending too much effort. And we don’t really promote the work we’ve done because we know deep down it’s not that special, and we’re afraid that someone will criticise it.
But this approach never works. The world doesn’t care. The world is busy reading the one blog post someone else spent months researching and promoting. So we try that same thing a dozen times, then we give up.
Now, revisit the idea of free content with a specific niche in mind. A niche we’re passionate about. All of a sudden we can tailor our “local guides” to be a whole lot more interesting. We can write a blog post where we review each and every live music venue for those music lovers. We can write a blog post where we discuss the area, with mobility as a priority. What are those crowds like, in that weather, if you’re in a wheelchair? Or what’s that venue like if you’re hard of hearing. Or have sight issues. Where are the dog-friendly restaurants, parks or attractions? etc. etc.
Not only do you now have the opportunity to write a post which hasn’t already been written 100,000 times by the other 100,000 rental owners in your area. But you also have a much clearer plan on how to promote that post when you’ve made it the best post ever.
A good general rule is to invest 10 times more in the promotion and seeding of any post than you do in its creation. And I’ve already mentioned, you’re better spending a few months to create something great, than a few hours to create something mediocre.
With that in mind, once you have a really valuable blog post, go out and manually tell people about it in the community who it most appeals to. Go share it with the music community. Or the mobility community. Go find the people who are already asking about mobility issues at Disney World. Or enquiring about live music in Orlando. Go tap into those communities with your unique perspective. Go contact all the relevant bloggers and magazines and forum owners.
The more you tap into that unique community, that loose network of businesses and individuals who all share a common interest, the more opportunities and alliances will emerge. The more referrals you will experience, the more return visits, the more lifelong customers who don’t cost another cent in advertising fees.
Use your niche to make your human story more compelling.
Another couple of things that are lacking from the current site are well integrated and compelling testimonials; and relevant images of real families enjoying your property.
Together with your background story, these help to create the overall human narrative that is so important to us. Humans are far more interested in human stories than they are in concrete and square footage.
I did eventually find the existing testimonials on your site. But they were badly headlined and generic in nature. Invisible, in plain sight. They contained no images, they weren’t styled as quotes, and they didn’t support the sales message as you’re building your pitch.
Apart from the single “child in pool” image on the home page, and the single image of your family, all the other images are of the “abandoned building” type. These can be somewhat useful for painting a clear picture of the building. But all this talk of family fun times is really communicated much more clearly in images (of actual families having actual fun).
In your existing copy, you ask your customer to “imagine” their perfect holiday several times. When in fact it’s your job as a marketer to paint that picture for them. You have to give them the raw material so that they can see other people having a fun time, in your property.
This task is made easier when the imagined “dream holiday” is more specific. If it’s musical fun times around the piano – show it. If it’s motorcycle themed – show it. If it’s mobility freedom – show it. Human beings want to buy things from other human beings, just like them.
Summary
Good isn’t good enough in a massively crowded market of commodities. Pick a niche, then become the number one choice for people in that niche. Use the network effect to communicate more meaningfully within that group. Do your advertising just to that group. Use the power of people who like to talk and share, to stretch your marketing dollar and avoid having to compete in a bidding war with the uninformed (and often desperate) mass market. If you can offer deeper value to a smaller group, they’ll come back time and time again. Stay the course. See it through. Make your mark!