Timeshare Leads and Marketing Technology Blog

The American Resort Development Association will hold its upcoming annual convention and exposition from March 14-18 in Las Vegas. The convention will take place at the luxurious Venetian Hotel and Casino.

In past years, the ARDA convention has had an impressive turnout with more than 3,500 participants from a variety of resort development professions.    This includes industry insiders from over 20 countries that are ready to share their expertise on subjects like the evolving timeshare marketplace, resort branding, timeshare marketing and more.

The convention will feature a variety of exhibitors who are showcasing the resort industry’s newest products and services as well as several keynote speakers.   This conference is an important mainstay for anyone in the resort industry for several reasons.   Those launching  a new resort industry product or service can gain face time and important business leads on the exposition floor.  Property managers and developers also have a chance to check out these services and see how they can benefit their resorts in 2010.

Here are a few of the highlights from ARDA’s 2010 Convention:

• Sunday, March 14 – RCI/AIF Open Golf Tournament
• Monday, March 15 – Principles of Timeshare I: Building Blocks of the Industry
• Tuesday, March 16 – Sales and Marketing Forum: Branding and Selling through Electronic Media
• Wednesday, March 17 – Awards Gala Dinner and Entertainment
• Thursday, March 18 – Interactive Workshop: What it Takes to be a Market Leader in Today’s Dynamic Global Marketplace

Whitecap LG is one service that can help resorts in 2010 using a cutting edge timeshare tour generation product that brings in qualified tour prospects at a fraction of the standard cost.  Feel free to Contact Whitecap for more information.

Get more information on ARDA’s 2010 Convention, including full schedules and registration information.

Marketing your resort’s timeshare offerings can often be a difficult process because there are so many different directions you could take.  Whitecap’s cutting edge timeshare marketing software minimizes the difficulty by harnessing the advantages of several options and applying them in a simple, straightforward way.

One of the advantages to leveraging Whitecap’s timeshare tour generation technology is its ability to utilize several on-site mechanisms for generating tours.   We believe in optimizing our mini-vacation landing pages to target a span of potential customers.  After Whitecap hones in on a potential tour  by directing them to a resort’s mini-vacation page, it provides the customer several options to book:

1.  Call In Tours: This option is the least ‘invasive,’ allowing a potential tour to  call in to an easily accessible 1-800 number that re-routes the person to the resort’s phone room.  This potential tour has already had access to a variety of information about the package, including prices, rooms, pictures, and terms of use; giving the phone operator a good head start in booking the customer.

2. Pay Later Tours: This option allows for a potential tour to submit their contact information, booking dates, and sign off on the resort’s tour requirements.  The customer info is then entered into the Whitecap database, where a phone operator or administrator can access and process the submission.   Automated emails will notify any designated resort administrators about freshly generated tours.

3.  Complete Bookings: Whitecap provides a third option for those potential tours that prefer to handle everything online, allowing them to select dates, sign off on tour requirements, enter payment information, and fully commit to a mini-vacation. This option mimics modern day vacation booking sites like Expedia and Orbitz so that potential tours feel comfortable throughout the process.

After a booking is completed, an automated confirmation email is forwarded to the customer, reminding them of their tour date and location, as well as providing receipt of payment. Depending on the resort’s available inventory, the customer’s vacation dates are then automatically blacked out to prevent another person from overbooking those days.

Not only does Whitecap provide a resort several ways to book potential tours, it also provides several monthly pricing plans to accommodate the budgets of small to large resorts.

If you are a fan of the travel channel or any destination related TV programming, you should check out RCI TV.  RCI TV is a new online video service that was just launched by RCI, the global leader in vacation exchange.  The company’s new web TV platform allows anybody interested in owning timeshare to check out videos of many of RCI’s resort partner destinations around the world.

These videos aren’t your standard old-school timeshare marketing materials.  RCI’s cutting-edge timeshare video network allows viewers to select from various categories of resort videos, including beach, casino, city and spa.  When a viewer has selected a desired video they can then view a wide screen, high quality and informative video that details a resort’s various amenities, rooms, as well as local hot spots.

RCI TV even has it’s own travel host – “Dan, The RCI Guy,” who can help guide visitors through the many benefits of vacation ownership.  This online TV network is a great move by RCI to reach out to a younger generation of web-savvy potential timeshare owners.  This generation works and plays online, and is more than familiar with online video viewing through sites like YouTube and Hulu.  RCI TV is a great addition to the world on online video and is sure to only get better as RCI add more resort destinations to their content roster.

One of the services that Whitecap provides hand-in-hand with it’s timeshare tour generation software is social media marketing.  ‘Social Media’ has been a recent buzz word that is getting thrown around a lot, but how do you actually use it to promote resorts and timeshares?  I’d like to review what exactly Social Media Marketing is, and in particular how it can give a healthy boost to a timeshare marketing campaign.

Social Media basically refers to a new generation of internet community.   Social media websites allow people to connect with each other through relevant topics and interests.  Social media marketing allows you to target these niches, including people, groups and locations that are relevant to your field.

One of the biggest social networking sites is Facebook.  Facebook has a multitude of location specific groups and pages that are formed around common interests.  For example if there was a ‘I Love Las Vegas Group,’  this would be a great place to tell people about your Las Vegas mini-vacation special, or some new amenities that were recently added to your resort.

Twitter is another social media site that allows you to target specific people through various conventions.  Hashtags (#) are one tool within Twitter that allow you to micro-target specific discussions based on keywords.  For example, Twitter users could be ‘tweeting’ about Las Vegas, using the hashtag #LasVegas.  This would be a great place for you to tweet about some fresh resort news:  “Our Las Vegas Resort just added a state of the art indoor pool, be sure to check it out at www.vegasresort.com #LasVegas ”

Social Aggregators like Digg and Redditt are another great way to get out the breaking news on your resort.  If you have a resort blog and frequently update it, submitting your articles to these aggregators will allow more people to find and access them.   Not only can social aggregators increase traffic to your resort or timeshare blog, but they also enable you to categorize your articles to specific topics like ‘travel.’

One of the reasons why Whitecap’s tour generation software is successful is through the use of social media marketing.  These services are fully inclusive within our monthly pricing packages.

ARDA (The American Resort Developer’s Association) will create a time capsule to be opened in 2019, 10 years from now.  This capsule will contain the thoughts, opinions and predictions of industry folk on where timeshare will be in the future.  This time encapsulating event is in celebration of ARDA’s 40th anniversary, as well as in preparation for their 50th anniversary ten years down the line.

I know we still have a way to go, but I’d like to give my two cents on the Timeshare Industry in 2019:

• Independent Resorts become more Independent: Many independent resorts currently rely on third party marketers to generate tours for them.  I believe  that because of downturns in the market and third party suppliers going out of business, independents will need to become more ‘independent’ and begin to generate their own tours.  This is a good time to start, as services like Whitecap can be utilized by independent resorts to easily and efficiently generate timeshare tours on their own.

• Timeshare Marketing Improvements: Timeshare marketing is on the cusp of a new generation of hyper targeted, cost effective technological improvement.   New timeshare marketing software like Whitecap provides a resort the ability to leverage online marketing channels to find the perfect potential buyers.   Our ability to target potential qualified tours will continue to improve as we expand within these online marketing channels.

• Timeshare Management Software Improvements: Timeshare Management packages such as Quick Merlin will continue to improve and take advantage of Web 2.0 software structures.  Social networking phenomenons like Facebook are big for a reason, they provide millions of users the ability to easily keep track of their social groups.  Timeshare management software is going the same direction as social networking – easy online access and to-the-point updates.

If you would like to contribute your own opinion to the time capsule, visit the ARDA site and email the representative.

Also, to celebrate ARDA’s 40th anniversary here is a video promo:

It all comes down to return on investment.  Each marketing program has a measurable contribution to your bottom line; some programs flop and some succeed.  As a business metric for timeshare marketing, Value per Guest is a solid starting point to understand the success or failure of your sales efforts.  Each program will generate sales tours and each program will exhibit varying closing rates.  The average sales price per a tour will also vary from source to source.  While VPG is a good evaluation tool, it does not take into consideration the underlying cost associated with each program.   When investigating sales efficiencies, make sure you take into account your cost of marketing.

Generally Value per Guest is measured by taking the dollar volume of your sales for a specific tour source and dividing it by the total number of guests toured.  For example, suppose Resort X is running a drop box program and they want to measure their VPG for the month of October.  Let’s say this specific drop box program has generated $49,000 in sales while showing 28 tours in the month of October.  The Value per Guest for the drop box program for the month of October would be $49,000 divided by 28 tours or $1,750.  This effectively means that each tour generates $1750 in gross sales for that program for the month of October.

Could a program have a solid VPG with a bad Return on Investment?  The answer is yes.  Value per a Guest is based on a measurement of gross revenue per a guest.  Resorts and marketing companies need to keep in mind that while metrics like VPG are a helpful indicator of sales success, they do not necessarily shed light on the bottom line profits.  Imagine a marketing program that generates tours based on telemarketing leads that cost 3 dollars a piece.   In this imaginary program, the phone room is only able to convert 1 out of every 200 leads they call into actual onsite tours.  Let’s pretend that the premium associated with each tour is a 3 night stay at a discounted rate of $100 per a night and includes a gift certificate that costs the resort $50.  If the program has a VPG of $1300 then and the cost of marketing is $950 per tour, then the net revenue before sales commissions and taxes is only $350.  Now obviously, those numbers are exaggerated, but it is easy to see how a program with an apparently healthy VPG might actually be under performing a program with a smaller VPG but a healthier cost of marketing.

At Whitecap we focus on providing your team with software and marketing capabilities that can generate high-quality tours with an extremely low cost of marketing.  All of our plans have a low fixed monthly rate.  With a fixed rate you can cut down your associated variable marketing costs and spread your fixed cost over the total number of tours that your generate.  Currently the Select plan starts at just $499 a month.  If you generate 20 tours over the course of that month your promotional cost of marketing drops to less that $25 per tour.  At those numbers your low cost of marketing will prop up your return on investment.  Apples to apples, it hard to find a better deal and with our 30 day free trial, it is definitely worth checking us out.

From VacationBetter.org

Sally Lessig was one of the 2009 winners of  ARDAs ‘Bring Your Vacation to Life’ timeshare story contest.  The goal of the contest was for timeshare owners to share a particular story about a vacation that touched their lives.

This is an excerpt from Sally’s winning entry:

“It has been such a joy to watch our children grow up, marry, have their own children and this year our Great-Grandson came for his first visit. That makes four generations sharing fun at the Beach House.”

Although it may just seem like some well placed Timeshare Marketing from ARDA, the ‘Bring Your Vacation to Life’ contest really  did highlight why vacation ownership can be a great option for some people.  Timeshare isn’t right for everyone.  However, for a percentage of vacationers, timeshare is the perfect solution: providing long term savings, accessibility, and exchange options that have the potential to change lives.

There are vacationers out there who have the potential to fall in love with Timeshare, but just don’t know enough about it yet.  They haven’t heard about that fantastic  resort destination, incredible amenities, and long term savings that are waiting for them.  Whitecap’s technology has the ability to reach out to those specific people through targeted Timeshare Marketing and deliver them to a specific resort.

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.

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.