Timeshare Leads and Marketing Technology Blog

ARDA recently published it’s 2009 Timeshare Owners Report and divulged some interesting findings.  The research points to a growing trend of a younger generation purchasing timeshare.

Overall, the biggest portion of timeshare property buyers are still 45 and older.  However, a whopping 58% of recent timeshare purchasers were under the age of 45.   The report divulges that these new, younger timeshare owners purchased due to the flexibility and long term cost-saving abilities of vacation ownership.

This trending flux in the timeshare owner demographic has big implications in regards to the way timeshare needs to be marketed.  Some traditional methods of timeshare marketing through publications, advertisements and giveaways may no longer make the cut to reach every possible buyer demographic.

The younger generation of potential buyers is also a generation that spends a huge amount of time online, either for work or recreation.  This makes online timeshare marketing that much more valuable.  Whitecap’s innovative online marketing program presents the ability to target the younger generation, while at the same time ensuring incoming tours are fully qualified.

Timeshare is entering a new era, and needs to find ways to adapt to a younger, internet savvy generation of buyers.  Whitecap was developed for this purpose and has evolved to cater online marketing towards multiple generations.    Visit Whitecap’s website for more information on getting a free 30 day trial of Whitecap’s online marketing software.

One service that Whitecap offers as an addition to its SaaS timeshare tour software is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for resorts.  SEO is essentially implementing target keywords on a website that are relevant to the industry or site audience.  For example, if you run a ski resort out of New Hampshire, one likely target keyword would be ‘New Hampshire Ski Resort’.

Keywords like these are strategically implemented on site pages so that if a person were to Google ‘New Hampshire Ski Resort’ the listing would appear on the 1st page of search results.   Having a website listed on the 1st page can dramatically increase relevant site traffic as well as resort visitors.

Many companies charge thousands of dollars per month for Resort SEO services.  Whitecap however, has partnered with it’s sister company Insight Forge, to offer SEO to its resort clients free of charge as part of the monthly SaaS package.  This process involves keyword optimization on the portal Vacation-Offer.com for a resort’s specific mini-vacation page.  Utilizing this technique, a resort can gain tremendous visibility for their timeshare offerings.

The quality of the incoming resort tours generated by SEO efforts is also very high.  These are people who are specifically searching for keywords that are highly relevant to the resort.  SEO marketing for resorts can often be a superior and more cost-effective alternative to online advertising (such as using Adwords).

The majority of timeshare marketing companies price their services  ‘per tour’.  The prices per booked tour often range from $350 to $400.   If the marketing company generates 1 tour the resort pays for it.  If the company generates 50 tours the resort pays the sum.

Whitecap takes a totally different approach in pricing our booked timeshare tours.  We charge a monthly ‘Software as a Service’ fee of $499.  This includes utilizing our full marketing efforts to generate tours for a resort, including access to our online vacation portal Vacation-Offer.com, as well as off-site search engine optimization for target destination keywords.  The difference is, no matter how many tours we generate during a month, we charge the same monthly fee.  The resort could have 50 booked tours and still only pay $499.

Why do we price this way?  Our SaaS pricing structure is based on our expertise in the timeshare industry and ability to easily deploy new resorts utilizing our timeshare marketing software.   It isn’t a hassle for us to upload a new resort and start generating booked tours, so we figure it shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg for the resort every time we land a potential sale.

Whitecap has also been developed to be extremely flexible for resort administrators, including phone room operators and mangers.  This means we don’t need to concentrate on adapting our software per new resort customer and can instead concentrate on timeshare marketing.

We believe it is a new day for marketing timeshare tours.  Utilizing the full potential of the Internet, Whitecap makes the process dead simple while also retaining the necessary tour quality for resorts across the country.

Very often software design companies claim to have designed the perfect interface for a specific industry.  Once the software reaches the hands of the target users however, its design fails to live up to expectations.   The reason this occurs is because the software designers and developers are not usually a part of that industry.  Although there is a feedback loop with industry users, much is lost in translation and the final product ends up reflecting that.

Whitecap displays a different breed of targeted software design.  Our team is made up of the best of both worlds:  first-hand experience in the timeshare industry combined with cutting edge Web 2.0 design and marketing credentials.

Whitecap realizes what the needs of resort developers are.  We know why it’s integral to have an easy-to-use interface for administrators to sift between mini vacations within resorts.  We know why it is important for resort administrators to be able to set qualifications for their timeshare tours, such as minimum income and geographic requirements.   We realize a lead or tour needs to be able to be ‘flagged’ for review if it has a bogus phone number or name.

Whitecap has a multitude of other features targeted specifically for timeshare sales, carefully planned to create an efficient and simple administration process.

The Whitecap team also has a deep experience base in internet marketing, allowing us to effectively target potential qualified timeshare leads with accuracy and efficiency.  Our experience in Web 2.0 has enabled us to create a modern vacation portal that allows consumers to browse and book mini-vacation packages with ease.   Our search engine optimization expertise lets us target the vacation specific keywords that consumers are searching for.

All in all, Whitecap has been targeted specifically and only for timeshare industry users.  We don’t have an umbrella software package that spans several industries like many other companies do.  Our single goal is to satisfy the tour and lead generation needs of the timeshare industry.

The 1960’s represented times of radical change. The brittle status-quo exoskeleton was shed, making way for spongy new ideologies to be soaked up by the populous. While counter-culture youth lashed out against the establishment and the cold war ignited a race to the moon, an equally profound change began to simmer in a small ski-town in the French Alps.

The story goes: a French family who loved to ski wanted to fulfill their lifelong dream of owning a beautiful Alps Chalet. Unfortunately, such an expensive purchase was well beyond the modest means of this family. Their dream would not be denied: the father brilliantly concocted the strategy of petitioning their large extended family to split the Chalet’s ownership based on calendar months. This way, each part of the extended family could enjoy ownership of the Chalet for a different portion of the year. This event marked the conception of timeshare ownership, soon to be promoted and popularized by nearby resort developers Hapimag of Switzerland and SuperDevuloy of France.

This original premise of the father reaching out to his ‘extended family’ is what peaks my interest. It must have been quite easy for the father to convince his extended family to buy- after all, he probably knew a bit about them. Elise, the old matron of the Boulangers, was notorious for her love of soaking in hot tubs. Therefore, the Chalet had two luxurious, state-of-the art jacuzzis. The Petain family were known as food-connoisseurs (snobs), and so one of France’s great eateries conveniently resided at the foot of the Ski slopes. This must have been how the father sold them, based on each family’s personal desires and preferences.

In today’s world of timeshare sales, the ‘extended family’ is getting harder and harder to come by. A phone room operator doesn’t know that Marcy from Topeka loves golf or Bill from Cleveland has a sweet spot for back massages. This is why the internet has become so important.

Using the newest lead generation technology a timeshare developer can collect vital geographic, psychographic, and demographic information about prospective buyers. This valuable data can be directed through mini-vacation packages that are adeptly marketed to the right people. The times of picking a needle (or prospect) out of a haystack are gone.  Timeshare leads need to be honed and on-point as if  directed towards an old friend or family member. The web provides the tools to bridge this gap and make all sales prospects a part of your ‘extended family’.

Eco-friendly travel has been a hot trend over the past few years.  Due to a growing consciousness of global warming and our impact on the environment, the travel industry has quickly adapted with a campaign of ‘Eco-Tourism’ to promote responsible vacationing.  From eating out at sustainable restaurants to staying away from fuel guzzling airplanes, there are quite a few ways to lessen your carbon footprint.

One often overlooked green vacation ’strategy’ is timeshare ownership.  There are a few reasons why timeshare owners are among the most environmentally friendly travelers around.

1.  Timeshare Owners are at Home on Vacation.

Timeshare ownership gives a vacationer the opportunity to familiarize themselves with a destination over multiple occasions.  Anyone who has a ‘favorite spot’- whether it be a travel destination, restaurant, local pub or park, knows that places like these eventually can feel like a second home.

People who treat a destination as their home are more likely to take care of the environment around them.  Timeshare owners are likely to recycle, pick up after themselves, fight for local environmental causes and generally act like a local would.

2.  Timeshare Owners Often Drive.

Many people purchase timeshare in a location that isn’t too off the beaten path, and can provide a suitable mix of convenience and comfort away from home.  This trend leads to many timeshare owners hitting the roads, instead of flying, to reach their vacation destination.   Very often a timeshare owner can be found with their family packed into the car, ready to go to their favorite family vacation destination.

3.  Timeshare Owners Eat and Buy Local.

Because many owners are visiting a vacation spot they’ve been to on several occasions, they are familiar with the businesses and restaurants around them.  This can often translate to a timeshare owner mainly buying at local businesses and restaurants, as opposed to national chains.  This habit not only supports a local economy, but enforces consuming locally produced goods that don’t have to travel as far.

Bloomberg.com reports that Timeshare sales may be at their lowest since the industry’s inception in the 1970’s.  Experts attribute this steep decline in sales (30% since 2008)  to the recession and consumer reluctance to make a commitment to regular vacationing.

Timeshare is an industry  built around the simple concept that if you go on vacation regularly, it makes sense to invest in vacation ownership.  Vacation ownership can save a customer money, hassles spent on booking trips, and also provide a wide array of exchange programs to travel anywhere in the world.  Now that the timeshare industry is currently feeling the burden of the economic downturn, they need to seek new ways to generate potential buyers.

The Internet is an incredible marketing tool that the vacation industry is just beginning to fully realize.   Using the Internet, resort developers can pin-point target their marketing towards any specific demographic, age range or geography.  Whitecap Lead Generation is leading the charge as a timeshare tool that takes full advantage of the web’s marketing potential.

Whitecap’s innovative and user-friendly interface allows a resort to generate leads based on any specific qualifications.  Utilizing a front end marketing portal, Vacation-Offer.com, Whitecap is able to attract potential buyers at a fraction of the cost of 1st generation lead generation solutions.  Not only is the Whitecap platform affordable for resort developers in a time of trim budgets, it also is extremely flexible in terms of supporting existing marketing infrastructure like phone rooms and online advertising content.

Whitecap provides a free 30 day trial of their software as a service product in order to allow resort developers to test drive the solution before making a commitment.