How Channel Managers Boost Property Rental Success

The business of owning rental or vacation properties involves a lot more than home and yard maintenance and local tax payments. Attracting renters undoubtedly takes up most of your time and energy, but there is a way to simplify the process without risking any of its efficacy.

Channel managers help holiday rental owners sync their marketing efforts with booking. They automate one of the most important and potentially problematic aspects of running this type of business. Every industry faces digitalization these days, and this one is no different. Why not increase efficiency, record keeping, and profits?

What Does a Channel Manager Do?

Listing and booking properties on your own website, AirBnB, Expedia, and other popular platforms gives you a higher chance of getting rentals all year round. Even with two listings, however, the complexity of managing them increases. If someone books for the second week in June, you have to immediately make changes to the listing to reflect that. If they book at 2:00 AM your time, another person may make the same booking before you even get out of bed.

A channel manager is an automated system that keeps all listings completely accurate and up to date.This will happen simultaneously across all marketing channels. Once you set the system up, a person booking in the middle of the night for June 10th will claim that date and your availability calendar will reflect that right away even if you are still dreaming of future property management profits.

From a marketing perspective, property management software that handles multiple channels gives you the help you need to list each rental home more broadly. After all, you hardly need to keep track of all of them yourself anymore. You have a reliable, efficient, and powerful system that does it for you.

The Technical Side of Channel Management

A CM system connects your availability data and booking system to the places online where you market the properties for rent. When a property gets rented for certain dates, it automatically updates the listing with an "Unavailable" during those times. Without a channel manager, you would have to update listings manually, and who has time for that?

Why a Channel Manager Is the Right Choice

Whether you own just two vacation rentals or 20, keeping track of who rents what, when, and where they found out about the property is a cumbersome task. Your advertising efforts and marketing strategy spreads the rental out across the internet in hopes of catching attention. When it does, you need to know what site worked so you can tweak future marketing efforts more effectively.

Automating this process provides benefits far beyond convenience. Yes, you save time and a lot of paperwork, digital or otherwise. You also negate the chance of overbooking and letting down potential renters. The last thing you want to do is tell someone, "Sorry! You can't come here on vacation after all." A channel manager just might save your property management business from the worst type of review possible.