Social Media Marketing for Short-Term Rentals: Building a Brand That Books Directly with Emily Lethgo

Summary Highlights

👤 About Emily Lethgo

Emily Lethgo is the founder of Matchpoint Socials, a boutique social media marketing agency built exclusively for experience-led short-term rental brands. Based in Knoxville, Tennessee, Emily and her seven-person team serve as a full outsourced marketing department for vacation rental operators who want consistent visibility — without having to figure it all out themselves.

Her journey into this niche wasn’t planned. After purchasing a cabin in the Smoky Mountains in 2021, Emily started sharing the journey on social media the way she naturally knew how — through her marketing background. Within weeks, she had an email list of people asking to be notified when the cabin went live. That moment crystallized something important: hosts were building beautiful properties but leaving the demand-generation piece almost entirely to Airbnb.

She started with a bold move — posting in a Smoky Mountain STR Facebook group and offering free content creation to 10 hosts. Over 50 people responded. She handpicked her portfolio, spent the next month visiting properties, and the rest, as she puts it, just took off.

Today, Matchpoint Socials offers a full suite of services: organic social media management, paid ads, email marketing, and influencer coordination. Emily’s team structure is intentional — one graphic designer, one social media manager, one strategist, and specialists in each lane — so every client gets a focused team rather than a stretched-thin generalist.

You can connect with Emily at: 🔗 Instagram: @emilylethgo | @matchpointsocials 🌐 Website: www.matchpointsocials.com

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🔑 Key Takeaways from This Episode

🚫 Stop Chasing Virality — Start Building a System

One of Emily’s most grounding pieces of advice: virality is exciting, but it’s not a strategy. She’s watched clients go viral and still not see a meaningful uptick in bookings — because the foundation wasn’t there to capture it.

What actually works? Showing up consistently. Every week. With posts that have a clear hook, a clear call to action, and a specific person in mind. As Emily puts it, every post should have a purpose. If you can’t answer “who am I talking to right now and what do I want them to do?” before you hit publish — it’s not ready.

This connects directly to what so many hosts discover when they start working on social media content strategies that drive direct bookings: consistency compounds. A viral post is a spike. A system is a slope.

📐 Quality Over Quantity — Always

Emily pushes back hard on the idea that more content equals more results. She’d rather a host publish 12 intentional, well-crafted posts per month than 30 rushed ones. The goal isn’t volume — it’s impact per post.

This is especially important for hosts managing everything themselves. The pressure to post daily is real, but it often leads to content that doesn’t convert. Emily’s team evaluates every piece of content through a simple lens: does this make someone stop scrolling, feel something, and take action?

If the answer is no, it doesn’t go out.

🎯 Know Your Ideal Guest Before You Create Anything

Before you open your camera or type a caption, you need to know who you’re creating for. Emily makes this clear to every new client: the content strategy is only as strong as the clarity around the guest avatar.

This shapes everything — the hook, the format, the platform, the tone. A property targeting romantic couples in the mountains is going to look and sound completely different from one targeting large family reunions. When you write to everyone, you reach no one. Copywriting for direct booking sites follows the same principle — and so does every post that’s going to send traffic to that site.

📈 The Marketing Channels That Actually Compound

Emily’s agency has evolved well beyond posting. Over the past year, she’s expanded into three core add-ons that she now sees as essential pillars of a complete direct booking strategy:

Paid Ads: Organic is the foundation, but ads amplify what’s already working. Emily encourages hosts to get their organic content performing first — then layer in paid spend to accelerate reach.

Email Marketing: This is where the long game really pays off. Unlike social media, where reach is algorithm-dependent, an email list is owned. Every subscriber is someone who raised their hand. Emily’s team tracks click rates and engagement closely, making email one of the most measurable channels they manage. If you want to understand how email fits into a broader direct booking strategy, the complete guide to collecting guest emails is worth reading.

Influencer Coordination: What makes Matchpoint Socials’ approach different here is the Rolodex model. Instead of one-off partnerships, Emily’s team builds ongoing relationships with vetted influencers. When a new client needs one, she already knows who’s a fit, what they’ve delivered, and what to expect. Unique booking codes go with every collaboration so performance can actually be tracked — something that’s harder to do on organic social. This dovetails well with what’s been documented about what actually works in vacation rental influencer marketing.

🗓️ The Practical Consistency Blueprint

This is where Emily gets tactical, and it’s one of the most useful segments of the episode for hosts who keep starting and stopping.

Her framework:

Block the time. Put it in your calendar like an appointment. No distractions, no multitasking. One hour or two — just dedicated to content.

Record a slow walkthrough every time you’re at your property. Different lighting, different angles. A 10-minute video can yield weeks of short clips if you organize it properly.

Map out 10–15 posts per month. If that feels like too much, start with five. The number matters less than the commitment to repeat it.

Mix reels and carousels. Reels for reach, carousels for saves and deeper engagement. Both serve different purposes in the algorithm.

Use a scheduling tool. Emily’s team uses Metricool — the same tool the CraftedStays team relies on. Schedule a week or two in advance so you’re never scrambling.

Run monthly reports. Metricool’s analytics let you see what worked and what didn’t. Don’t skip this step. Even if the numbers aren’t where you want them yet, the habit of reviewing builds the instinct you need to improve.

This is the kind of rhythm that, over time, powers real direct booking growth through consistent content.

🪝 The Most Undervalued Fundamental: Your Hook

Emily spends a lot of time with her clients on hooks — and she says it’s the single most undervalued part of social media for most hosts.

The hook is the first second or two of a reel, or the first line of a caption. It determines whether someone keeps watching or scrolls past. Strong hooks create pattern interrupts: movement, a surprising text overlay, a question that makes someone think “wait, what?”

Her advice: don’t be afraid to take an existing piece of content and just retest it with a different hook. Same video. New opening. Often, that small change dramatically changes performance.

The hook isn’t just about getting views — it’s about getting the right views. When someone stops because your hook spoke directly to them, they’re already primed to take action. Pairing strong hooks with a clear call to action at the end is the full equation.

🌐 Traffic and Conversion Have to Work Together

One thing Emily is transparent about: social media can drive traffic, but if the destination doesn’t convert, the results will be frustrating for everyone. She’s seen it play out — a host’s Instagram presence growing steadily, content performing well, but the direct booking site creating friction at checkout.

This is why the infrastructure behind the website matters as much as the marketing in front of it. Getting traffic to your site is one half of the equation. The conversion side of direct booking sites — mobile optimization, fast load times, clean navigation — is the other. As Gil shared in the episode, a single CraftedStays customer with one property achieved 30% direct bookings within a year using nothing more than consistent social media and a well-converting site. No ads. No influencers. Just showing up — and having a site ready to close the deal.

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📚 Book Recommendation

Atomic Habits by James Clear — Emily’s go-to recommendation, and it maps directly onto everything she talks about in this episode. Small, repeatable habits compound. The same way two posts a week might feel insignificant in month one, those habits become the foundation that carries you to 30% direct bookings by month twelve. Habit stacking, systems thinking, and tiny gains over time — it all applies.

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⚡ Rapid-Fire Q&A with Emily Lethgo

📖 One book that has really inspired you and the work you do? Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s about building tiny habits that compound over time — and that’s exactly how we think about content. Small, consistent actions become the foundation for real results.

🧠 One piece of mindset advice for someone starting something completely new? Build something that fits your life. Don’t just model what success looks like to other people online. I’ve built Matchpoint Socials around what works for me — a mom of four running a business I genuinely love. Never be afraid to question the “supposed to” and instead build something that feels right for where you actually are.

🎯 One tactical takeaway for hosts trying to grow their direct bookings? Pick one platform and commit to it for 30 days. Write today’s date in your phone’s notes app, choose Instagram, Facebook, TikTok — wherever your ideal guest actually is — and decide on a posting cadence you can actually maintain. Two posts a week counts. At the end of 30 days, go back to that note and honestly evaluate: did you show up? What did you learn? That reflection is where real growth starts.

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🤝 Connect With Emily

Emily and the Matchpoint Socials team work with short-term rental operators who are ready to stop doing marketing alone. If you’re investing in a direct booking setup and want a team that handles the visibility side for you — from organic content to ads to influencer partnerships — they offer a 30-Day Agency Pilot so you can experience it before committing long-term.

🔗 Instagram: @emilylethgo | @matchpointsocials 🌐 Website: www.matchpointsocials.com

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🚀 Ready to Turn That Traffic Into Bookings?

Social media creates demand. Your direct booking site is where that demand converts. If your site isn’t built to handle it — fast, mobile-optimized, and frictionless — you’re leaving money on the table every time someone clicks through.

Start your free trial at CraftedStays.co — purpose-built for short-term rental operators who are serious about owning their guest journey.

Listen to the full episode with Emily on Spotify and YouTube and subscribe to the Booked Solid Show for weekly conversations with the operators and marketers shaping the future of direct bookings. 🎧

Transcription

Emily: We have a lot of clients that yes they have. We’ve had like a viral post, you know, and it’s always exciting, but it’s really, it’s so important that we’ve built this like foundation to collect on that. Um, and I would say even that, the viral post versus just the consistency of every week we’re posting that matters more than the one single viral post.

So I just try to kind of let people know, like, that’s not really what you should be after, is the virality as. You should be after just that consistency of showing up, um, having strong hooks, having strong call to actions in every single post. Um, really knowing who you’re speaking to and kind of every time you’re putting, hitting, publish, like ask yourself why, like, who am I talking to right now?

What is this gonna make them do action wise? Every post should have a purpose. Like we shouldn’t just post a post. Um, we are definitely more about quality over quantity.

Gil: Before we bring on my guest, I wanted to talk just a little bit about something that I’ve been hearing a lot from Host. I keep on hearing the same thing. I know my website isn’t converting, but I can’t afford $8,000 on an agency to rebuild it. Here’s the thing, you’re letting all these marketing strategies, you’re driving traffic and you’re putting it all to work.

But if your site isn’t really built to convert, you’re basically lighting your energy and money on fire. And even if you could afford an agency build, every time you want to test something or make a change, you’re having to pay them again. You can iterate, you can’t test, and you really can improve on things.

You don’t need a custom $10,000 website to get the conversion rates that really matter. You just need the right platform. That’s why I build CraftedStays. It’s purpose built for short term rentals and designed from the ground up to help you drive more direct bookings. You can finally turn that traffic into booking.

And you can keep on testing and improving. As you learn, you can make changes all on the platform. You don’t need to learn something new. So if you need some help or you wanna get started, go ahead and go to craftedstays.co and start your free trial. Now let’s bring on our guests and dive deep into hospitality and marketing.

 Gil: Hey folks. Welcome back to the Booked Solid Show. The show. We’re bringing top operators to discuss hospitality, operations and marketing. On today’s show, I have with me Emily Lethgo. She’s a short-term rental host herself. She’s the founder of Matchpoint Social. A marketing agency specifically in the vacation rental space.

She built her own social media for her own properties and she started helping others in the Great Smokey Mountains. And now she has built a full fledged marketing agency, a one-stop shop marketing team that you can hire today. She shares with us how she’s able to gain significant traction just through her own social medias, how she’s combined that with other things to compound together, and then also how to get consistency.

On posting on social media. So without further ado, let’s bring her on.

Gil : Hey Emily, welcome to the show.

Emily : Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Gil : I’m excited to have you on, you are one of the hardest person to get onto this show. I’ve been chasing you since we met at Level Up 2025 and 2020 Level Up. RA 2026 has already passed on that, so it’s been over a year since I’ve been wanting you on the show. Um, but I’m really excited now that we’re, we both had some time to, to get you on.

Emily : Yes. Thank you so much for your patience. Um, like we chatted earlier, I, I had a new baby in January and. Um, you know, just life happens and I’ve always had this on the back of my to-do list, and so I’m so excited to finally get to do this today.

Gil : Yeah, I am. I’m glad that our team was persistent in in getting on here because I think there’s so much. Knowledge that you have that I want to kind of, kind of peel back the onion and understand how you think and how you built this. Um, but maybe to kind of get us started, Emily, do you mind giving folks an introduction on who you are?

Emily : Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Emily and I am the founder of Matchpoint Socials, which is a social media marketing agency, um, for experience led brands. And so. We really help market. Uh, we, we kind of take over social media for businesses so that they don’t have to worry about it. We come in as their whole full service team.

Um, the way that I got started with it all is by purchasing a, a little cabin in the Smoky Mountains, and I became a host. And so, um, I immediately, my, my background is in marketing and so. Um, before I really dove into the short term rental industry and learning all the things, I just naturally started sharing that whole journey on social media.

Um, and before I know it, before I knew it, I started an email list, you know, and had people. Um, joining this email list and saying, let me know when it becomes live and I wanna book. And so then I immediately thought, well, I need, you know, a, a website and I need all these things. And so that’s how it all came together.

I saw a gap in the industry in the Smoky Mountains where. A lot of these owners were not using social media to market their properties, and I felt like their properties needed to be seen in a video format and an experience led way by, you know, watching people at their properties, not just swiping through photos on an Airbnb website listing.

So that’s kind of how it started. I started as a social media manager and then started getting clients and then started growing my team.

Gil : How, how long ago was this? When, when did you start? Yeah, when did you start the company?

Emily : yeah, so, so the, so the cabin I believe was in 2021, uh, or yeah, end of end of 2021, we closed. Um, and so that kind of, it started right then. Um. And I really, it was like a light bulb moment.

My husband and I are, I remember I was kind of in between, um, jobs at this time and my husband, we, we were talking and he’s like, if money didn’t matter, like what would you wanna do right now? And I was like. Well, I think I would wanna do social media marketing like for, for Airbnbs, you know, for properties.

And he was like, well just do that then. And I thought, okay, so I went to Facebook and I was in a short-term rental Facebook group and this Smoky Mountains, and I remember I made a post and I said. Um, I want to, you know, for the next 10 people that comment, I, I will come out to your property and I just wanna practice doing this and get content creation and start, um, starting a social media management business.

And I was blown away. I mean, I, I think it was over 50 people commented and like, they, they were like, yes, my property, you know, come out here. So I was able to go through and kind of hand select what I thought would do the best for me and what would kind of give me a, a portfolio basically to create. And so that’s how it got started.

I went out to 10 properties over the last, over that, that next month. And, um, really started honing in on like what I wanted to offer as a service and just kind of get that practice. And the rest was history. I mean, it just kind of took off from there.

Gil : That’s amazing. I, I see a lot of sim similarities in kind of the story arc between our two backgrounds, because I probably bought my, my property maybe just a little bit before, before you did, um, in, in the Smoky Mountains as well too. And I. I saw, and I had a D different background. You have a marketing background, you have social media background, and you kind of led that helping yourself and then finding out that there was a need in the market and positioning that out there and kinda like dogfooding and seeing like, oh, is this something viable?

It reminds me of kind of like the early days of I was creating my own website. I got frustrated. I coded the first version of Crafted Stays, but it was intentionally, it was made for myself first, and then I started to share around and I was like, oh, actually this is quite valuable. And people started to drive me towards making this a self-sustaining company of its own.

So it’s an, it’s amazing to hear, hear you kind of follow a very similar kind of trajectory of really, I, I find this quite a bit where. A lot of folks in the industry, maybe because we get into short-term rentals because we have the entrepreneurial spirit there, like the short-term rental is almost a seed to something much bigger that we never anticipated.

So that’s, it’s always amazing when I, when I, when I hear this type of story.

Emily : Yes. I, I love, like how it just naturally happened. I, I feel like, and same for you, I’m sure like, it, it just wasn’t something I had to force and I actually, in the process kind of realized. I don’t know that I love being a host, but I do love the marketing side of this. And so how can I, I, how can I still do this and be in this industry?

But maybe it’s gonna look totally different than what I originally thought.

Gil : Yeah. Have, so since then, have you bought more properties or have you just stuck to.

Emily : no. We, we went through a whole process. We were so close to, well, we put an offer in, on a, on a boutique hotel. Um. And that was right before I got, I got pregnant with my, my son. And I was really excited for all of that. But I think the timing all worked out. We didn’t get that property. And then, um, I had my son and now, you know, every time that’s my fourth child.

And so every time I have a child, I feel like. It just kind of resets things and like there’s new energy there and so who knows like what the future will hold with, with investing the side on that side of it. Um, but that was our only cabin and that kind of launched into this whole business and then,

Gil : Now this is your baby,

Emily : over.

So,

Gil : now, this is, now this is the new baby. That, on top of that, that the human one that you’re already, that you’re already giving life to.

Emily : Exactly.

Gil : So, so talk to me a little bit about, um, Matchpoint social today. What does it look like? What are the different things? So I’m guessing social media is a big part of it.

Um, tell me about kind of the, the team that you’ve kind of built over the years. Um, and then also kinda the services that you found yourself really wanting to really provide.

Emily : Yeah. So, um, the way that it, you know, with. Gaining new clients very quickly. I, I realized I’m gonna need some help and some support in this. And so my first hire was somebody, um, and she’s still with me, a video editor. And that allowed me at least the capacity to start to build out more content for the clients.

Um, and then I, after joining an agency mastermind, um, I started to realize the way that I wanted to create my agency. Was to have people in one position that, that they would kind of handle that one area for all our, all of our clients, or at least the clients that they could fulfill. So the way that that looks is we’ve got one graphic designer that handles it all.

We’ve got one social media, social media manager that she’s writing captions and she’s scheduling the content. That’s all that she’s focused on. So some agencies will build it out to where you’ve got an account manager that’s kind of doing four or five different things. Um, but the way that I see it is.

I feel like if we can kind of batch our tasks and we can get really clear on what we’re doing and just do one or two things really, really well, I would rather build out my team that way to where they can stay focused on their expertise. And then, um, basically each client now has five team members on their account that we all work together to, to manage that account.

Um, and so. The way that that happened was just one by one. I started hiring and so now we’re a team of seven. Uh, so we’re a boutique, you know, agency that we just really, we’re a tight knit group. We’re local, uh, to Knoxville, Tennessee. Um, we’ve got two, two women that are on the team that drive an hour and a half, but we meet in person quarterly, which I think is so special.

Um, and we. We just thrive on like really deep diving onto our clients. Like we all know everything that’s going on with our clients, but again, everybody has kind of their special zone of genius that they add to that client’s, you know, business.

Gil : Got it. Got it. I, I like the idea of having specialization for many, many reasons, like from economies of scale point of view. You have folks that really know that specific niche, so they’re able to do it phenomenally well. But also on like the knowledge sharing of things you can see across the board. So say for instance, you’re doing.

Your social media manager, for instance, that’s doing the scheduling captions, or maybe you have an analytics person, they’re now able to see kind of how the performance is across the board for different accounts and can determine like, oh, I tried this this week on this account. It worked phenomenally well.

Now I can spread this across all the other accounts that I’m working on as well too.

Emily : Exactly, yes. And we’ve seen that happen. Um, it’s really, especially like our strategist who’s looking out for trends and things like that, she can spot a trend and then she knows how to. Create that in different ways, but for our clients, and it’s not somebody trying to capture all these different trends.

Um, so it’s really worked out very well. Um, and, you know, our, my, my goal, my mission with our clients is I want them to be able to hire us. So they’re hiring one, one person, essentially one company. And now they have a full marketing team. You know, we come in and we handle it all for them. We already have the systems, we already have it all in place that we get to just bring them in and show them, okay, this is how it’s gonna work now.

Um, instead of them having to try to figure out how to hire all of these different roles and or hire one person and expect one person to try to do all these different things, they have a whole team at their fingertips now.

Gil : Yeah. You mentioned that you had a, the background in marketing. What, what was kind of the, the scope of work that you did in kind of the more corporate world of things prior to all

Emily : Yeah, so it’s funny, like I, I thought I wanted to go into the medical field all through my undergrad and, um, I, I don’t know why. I just thought maybe that was the clear path. Um, it was kind of. It, it just seemed safer, I think of you, you get this degree and then you get this job and then this is what this outcome is.

Um, but then finally it was actually when I, my husband and I, we got married and then two years later I, um, was pregnant with my, my first child. And everything shifted for me at that point. I mean, then I realized like, oh, like I, I really want flexibility. I want, you know, to. To stay home with her if I, if I want to, but I still want to work in some capacity.

And so I was always an entrepreneur. Like I’ve always had these little ideas, I mean. Even in the sixth grade, I remember making these flip flops and taking orders and, you know, all of that. So, so that was always in me, but I never wanted to like, it, it just felt unsafe, it felt unclear. Like how would I, what would I do exactly?

Would I actually make money and all of that? Um, but when I had my daughter, I’m like, okay, well now’s the time. Like, I wanna try to figure something out. Um, I actually did get my MBA, I went back to school and got my MBA. Um, and that opened up a lot of just ideas for me, and I think confidence too. It just gave me a little bit of confidence to know.

Okay. Like I struggled with all of these science classes trying to do medical field, but then the business classes, those were so easy, easy a’s you know, it just all clicked. And, and it gave me that confidence of like, I think I’m wired more this way. Like, and that’s, that, like, it, it made sense. And so I went after it.

You know, I, I did a few different things in the entrepreneurship world of, you know, I had a mobile boutique at one point. Um, it was this little like. Popup camper thing, and that lasted a little bit. And again, using social media to promote that. So. Social media was always interwoven in these little things that I tried.

And, and finally with the cabin, it clicked to me like, wait a minute. Why am I trying all these things like social media, market marketing is the thing that I like, love, and thrive at. Um, and so it was that light bulb moment, but it was also like just the right timing. That just, I think it, it all clicked.

Gil : Yeah. That’s, that’s so for, for me, my, my, my background, I also have an MBA. And when you mentioned like that you went kinda like back to business school and the differences between the science classes and your MBA and how much you enjoyed it. When I graduated my undergrad and business management, I felt like I hadn’t learned en enough in business school.

So I went back to business school and I just took. The classes that I wanted to take. I didn’t care about emphasis, I didn’t care about majors, none of that stuff. I just wanted to take the classes I wanted to take. And I think I went through multiple semesters and that when I was submitting my admissions for my graduation, they asked me what emphasis do I have or what do they want to put me on, on the diploma?

And you had to meet a certain level of requirements of classes in order to put whatever, um, whatever emphasis. And I realized that. I had overemphasized on the marketing side of things where inadvertently I had a MBA in marketing emphasis without knowing it because I just, I just gravitated ated towards a lot of those courses there.

Emily : Yeah. No, that’s so interesting. That’s, that’s same for me. Like, um, and you know, I didn’t even take a single business class in undergrad. That’s how like almost. Afraid I was to even open that door, I think, or some, I don’t know. But then with the, with the MBA, even to get into that program, I had to do something because I didn’t have any of the prerequisites.

And so I was a little nervous. And then once I got into those classes, I’m like, no, this, like, I, I enjoy this. This is, this is so different than organic chemistry.

Gil : I, I do like the math, but when it started getting to like calc three, I was like, uh, this is a little too technical. It’s a little too tech. I don’t know how I’m gonna ever apply this in my life. I’m,

Emily : Yep.

Gil : and I, I stopped doing the more advanced, advanced mathematics. Um. I felt like I stopped at a good point, but I definitely ended up enjoying kind of the business side of it and seeing like how businesses are put together, the organizational structure and all that stuff there.

Um, kind of going back to, um, Matchpoint, we were talking kind of before the show, you have a pretty big emphasis on social media. Things have evolved ever since. And now you’re starting to add additional services to kind of really help your clients gain as much direct, direct bookings. And you now started to get into ads.

Uh, talk, talk to me a little bit about kind of that shift and why I, why you’re now investing and helping your clients with running ads as well too.

Emily : Yeah. Um, it kind of just felt like the next natural step, like if we’re all ready. Doing all of this organic, this like heavy lifting of work of marketing for their properties or for their, their brand. Um, it kind of just felt like the natural next step of, wow, well let’s take a look at what’s working. We already have all of this data, you know, forming and let’s put some paid advertising behind it.

Um, and so it’s worked really. As a natural progression. And it’s always something that somebody can, they can start organic only and then eventually do paid ads if they want to. Um, and I actually encourage that of let’s get our organic go up and going and make sure that we’re consistent with that first before we even start, you know, doing paid ads.

Um, but yeah, that’s worked really well. We also offer email marketing. So I would say, I would say our three add-ons that we’ve really developed over the last year is paid ads, email marketing, and influencer, um, management. I would, I would call it coordination. Um, so that’s where we help. Pair an influencer to go stay at a property and we manage that entire coordination from deliverables, contract, all of that.

Um, and so we’ve seen those three add-ons really just help, help our entire package and our entire client get the best results possible.

Gil : Yeah, I, I, I, I say this a lot on, on this show, but I, the one thing that I’ve noticed. In specifically direct bookings, and I, I would say any, almost any form of marketing is that these are things that kind of compound over time. Um, it’s unlike Airbnb where you’re chasing kind of the next transaction, the next booking there with.

With direct bookings in any form of marketing. The more that you grow your email list, the easier it is to like, there’s stronger an ROI. And as you build that, as you build your social media, your follower accounts grows. That starts to build over time and that starts to compound. And when you start to layer these things together very shortly, like it may feel like.

The first six months, you have seen very little progress, but over time, after that first year, you’re hitting double healthy double digit growth. Um, in direct booking rate. So like I can kind of see why specific, specifically these three, um, areas are, are such a big focus for you guys.

Emily : Yeah. Yeah, we definitely, and I always try to tell, you know, and prepare clients for that same thing of, this is a long, long-term game, you know, but it’s something that if you can see the vision of like where your portfolio is headed and how you wanna have more control over it, um, it’s definitely worth just starting from the beginning, building those, those consistent habits.

Over time, and then before you know it, it, it does compound and you’ll, you’ll be so glad that you started earlier.

Gil : Yeah. Yeah. Like even like kind of to that consistency and the time I remember. I at craft estates, we hired an SEO expert and they don’t specialize. They specialize in SaaS, not specifically vacation rentals. Um, but we’re trying to kind of grow, uh, our SEO and for a long while it wasn’t picking up steam, and this is probably like almost two years ago, maybe a year and a half ago.

And we were looking at the metrics and we see like very, very small growth. It’s now been about two years, and if you do a search for direct booking website builder, like we are the number one slot in there. And it was one, it’s a long, long game, but it’s also like consistently pouring energy into it. We, every week we publish blogs on it, all the content, all the keywords, all those things kind of reinforce each other, but it took a long time.

But now that we do. We rank really highly on, like if someone’s searching now in Perplexity or Claude and they’re asking for solutions, like we’re oftentimes the result that kind of comes up on top. But it, it took a long while and we didn’t see results for a long time, and you’re like, uh, did I just wish a whole bunch of money with this agency that. I, I don’t know whether or not it was worth it. Um, but if you put in the time and energy, and this kind goes for a lot of different things. If you put the time and energy into it, you’re focused on the right strategies there. It’s, it’s hard to do wrong with, with really enough commitment to it.

Emily : Yes. Yeah, a hundred percent. I couldn’t agree more.

Gil : Yeah. I, I would kind of like, I would love to kind of go dive deeper into.

The consistency and kind of like how you see that playing out in social media, but be kind of be, before we do that, I would love to kinda hear how, like maybe talk to me about some of the successes that you’ve seen with some of your clients and what have you seen, like worked really, really well. Um, when you’re managing social media, managing all the marketing for your clients, what are some kind of like some, some wins and case studies?

Emily : So I’ve seen just over time that, back to that consistency aspect of it, um, we have a lot of clients that yes, they have. We’ve had like a viral post, you know, and it’s always exciting, but it’s really, um. It’s so important that we’ve built this like foundation to collect on that. Um, and I would say even that, the viral post versus just the consistency of we, we, every week we’re posting that matters more than the one single viral post.

So I just try to kind of let people know, like, that’s not really what you should be after is the virality aspect. You should be after just that consistency of showing up. Um. Having strong hooks, having strong call to actions in every single post. Um, really knowing who you’re speaking to and kind of every time you’re putting, hitting, publish, like ask yourself why, like, who, who am I talking to right now?

What is this gonna make them do action wise? Um. Every post should have a purpose. Like we shouldn’t just post a post. Um, we are definitely more about quality over quantity. Um, I would rather you post 12 really great thought out pieces, intentional pieces of content per month, rather than try to just post whatever you can, you know, 30 times in the month.

Um, and I think that relieves a lot of people too. Like, let’s just make really, really good content and stay consistent with it. Um, and then, you know. Track it, measure it, like really analyze every single month what’s happening and how we can tweak month to month, quarter to quarter. Um, and I think that’s gone a long way.

So success wise, you know, a lot of my clients, some of them were like actually logged into their PMS account. So we’re always, if we have an influencer, we do a code. And so we’ll go in and track and see like how that code performed for our clients. Um, sometimes we’re, we’re just tracking their direct bookings versus.

What, what’s coming in from Airbnb, vrbo, from month to month or quarter to quarter. Um, we always wanna see that number increasing. Obviously like our goal is to help them increase their direct bookings ’cause that’s more money in their pocket. Um, same for ads. Ads, that, that is another aspect of, I feel like a need.

We incorporated ads to be able to track a little bit better. Um, organic social media is just really hard to track conversion for direct bookings. Um, we do have clients that are very consistent on asking their client, their guest, like, how did you find us? How did you get to this booking? Um, but if you don’t ask and you’re not intentional about codes and certain things like that, then you can get a booking.

Not really know, okay, did it come from Instagram? Did it come from Google? Did it, like where did it come from? Um, so we do try to help our clients create workflows on that so that we can track and that way they understand the services that they’re hiring us for are working or not working, and we can be a little bit more transparent on that.

Um, but yeah, I would say overall, I mean, our clients stay with us. We’ve had clients. With us getting close to that two year mark. You know, they, they stay with us, which I’m, I’m super happy about. I would say anytime somebody leaves us, it’s more about their budget and just their, it’s not the right timing.

Maybe they, they only have one or two properties and they really need to probably DIY it a little bit more than hiring a full agency. Um, and then we actually have had several leave us for a short period of time and then they come back ’cause they’re like. Uh, they just don’t wanna do it on their own. You know, social media marketing is a lot to do on your own, and that’s why we come and take it off the person’s plate.

Um, but it is possible to do on your own. And I think you can have that mindset of, I’m gonna do this myself until I’m ready, you know, to have the budget to hire it.

Gil : Yeah. Yeah. I. I am starting to see like more folks being comfortable to hire out an agency to to do it for them. Because if you think about all the different things to do, especially like you’re now a one-stop shop for all things marketing, but imagine if you had to do it on your own and you have a very smart portfolio, you have to kind of pick and choose, which.

Lane you want to like focus on, because it’s hard to do the email marketing, the social media, the influencer stuff. Like a, a ads, like I very rarely see someone doing all four of those activities by themselves early on. It’s more so like maybe they found a system that works on. Their email marketing, their nurture campaigns, and then they kind of put that aside and then they start to work on their social media and they start to, and so they, they have to kind of be very choosy on the sequence of stuff.

It’s really hard to do all of them in sequence, or actually all of them in parallel, um, all at once. So I can, and more people, more comfortable now, like, I need to get off of the reliance on Airbnb. I need to do it. Much faster than, than I want to do it on my own. And they’re now looking at agencies to kind of help them speed track that.

Emily : No, I, I’ve definitely seen that and I, that’s, that’s our goal is like, we just want the business owner, the, the host to feel like. Relief. You know, when they hire us out, like it’s, it’s supposed to be easier for them. So every week we just send them a simple social media content calendar of all their posts that’s gonna be happening that next week.

They can, they can look at it, they can make tweaks if they want to, but then we’re also, we say, Hey, if we don’t hear from you in the next 48 hours, we’ll assume things are good to go. That way we, we don’t lose traction. We don’t lose momentum, and we can still keep posting. Um. You know, I’m sure you know this too, of like every client, every host is different.

Some, some are very involved and want to have feedback, and then some are like, no, like I hired you all. Like, I want you to just handle it. And so, um, we, we love them both. And so it’s, it’s just been really awesome to see us be able to take a lot off of these people’s plates and then they get time back into their business, you know, time with their family, whatever that may look like for them.

Gil : Yeah, I, I guess this, I get this question a lot, um, with folks that have like ambitions of. Really turning things around and, and getting to more direct bookings and, um, I could constantly ask like, is it possible within the first year to get to the healthy double digit growth? Sorry, healthy double digit direct booking rates within the first year.

Have you been seeing that on your side of the folks that you, your clients that you work with, that they’re now getting 20, 30, 40, 50% direct bookings after that, with that first year?

Emily : First year. Yeah. I would say that’s a, that’s a fair amount of time in that first year. I always like, we typically do six month contracts just because around three month mark is. Kind of when we start to build traction for social media side of things. So especially if they’re willing to do ads, then yes, I, I a hundred percent can, like I stand behind those numbers of increasing that direct booking.

Um, now with organic social media, I think it, it just depends so much on your market, your property, um, how like. Your website, how that conversion is happening, because that can be frustrating on our end too, if. We’re not in, in control of who they’re choosing for their PMS or for their direct booking site.

And so we can try to send traffic to the area, but if their website isn’t converting, then that knocks. That’s a knock on us. But yet it’s not, you know, it’s like, well we got ’em there, like now we gotta convert the website. And so, um. All of those kind of stars have to align, I feel, you know, to really say that we’ve got their direct bookings increased, um, and we just try to be transparent with all of our clients on this is a piece of the puzzle, you know?

Um, there’s a lot of different factors that go into all of this as most hosts understand. Um, but yeah, our goal is to drive traffic to that direct booking site, to increase their emails, uh, to increase their email open rate, and all of those things. Um. Yeah, it’s been exciting to see. I, I, I think what I love what we’ve built so far is the relationships we have with our clients and how they are long-term.

Like they see us as a long-term, uh, marketing partner with them, and we, we try to adapt and grow as they’re growing their portfolio and we can add or remove services and just really. Be that partner for them and that that helper in this whole ecosystem.

Gil : Yeah. And kind of to your point about like successes and what you can build within that first year, I, I just had a customer when I was out in Japan, I had one of our, our customers kinda reach out to us and just kind of share what their wins has been. And they’ve been with us for about. About a year now.

It’s been about a year. Um, um, but it was, I was delighted to see that they only have one property, one property, and within one year they’re able to get 30% direct booking rate. And they’re not running ads, they’re not doing anything special. They’re just being consistent on social media, driving traffic.

Their SEO is working really well for them. But just, it was nice to see that someone was able to shift. Things quite a bit away from the OTAs to themselves with is very simple tactics and consistency there.

Emily : Yep. No, that’s amazing. And it, it also, yeah, really helps. Like with your websites, you know, the conversion aspect of it and you know, just how thought out every single button placement is and all of that. Like, it, it really does matter That friction, like the less friction we can have in that sales, um, aspect like is, is huge.

Gil : Yeah. You mentioned earlier about like tracking. I think that that’s a very important topic just to kinda like double click on a, a little bit. I think the, the marketers that do things really well are constantly looking at their metrics and constantly looking at which of my campaigns, which channels are being most effective, so that we can shift our resources.

Both time and money towards the right activities because if, for instance, you find that this social media, this influencer in so many bookings, you’re more likely to, or you should be wanting to do more and replicate that type of activity versus something that you’ve been spending energy on that doesn’t convert there.

So I, I just find that, that, that just being so, so important.

Emily : Yes, absolutely. And we’ve definitely ran into that where, okay, we tried something that didn’t really pan out, this, this really worked, so let’s put more effort here. Um, so it’s always important to be tracking and that even goes to the types of content, you know, the. Uh, the type, the, the reels or the carousels or this had this type of hook or this call to action.

And so there’s a lot of testing and analyzing that we can do on that end too.

Gil : Yeah. On, I don’t know. Do, do you guys use UTM tracking for any of the, the posts that you do?

Emily : No, we, we currently do not. Um, there was one client we tried, it just became a little. Difficult for as much as we’re posting. Um, and so that’s why for me, social media, like the organic side has just been very difficult to track. Um.

Gil : it is.

Emily : As far as like a, you know, a set booking, but, and, and I think that’s really where the ads kind of came from as far as being able to track a little bit more clearly.

Um, and emails too. Like we do track certain clicks and things like that of we can track who clicked on what button. And so I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed that and analyzing the emails too.

Gil : Yeah, one, one thing that we’ve seen kind of work out is. Codes actually definitely work out because then if for instance, you’re working with an influencer and the influencer say, use this code and get X percent off of the stay, um, you know that they watch that reel, you know that they, that that’s where they came from.

Um, the other thing that we’ve seen is that folks are starting to use the UTM parameters on campaigns. And so they’ll, for, they’ll probably do this more for the influencer side because. We already know referrals, like we know which traffic is social media versus email marketing, like the email marketing campaign tools, they already add those into it.

But when you’re working with influencers, you can add a campaign name that is equal to the influencer’s name, so that when they’re going onto your website, you can now trace back kind of where they came from. So as long as that person uses that unique link on there. It’s easier to trace through to back to you.

Emily : Yes. Yeah. And, and we’ve seen that too. And we’re, we’re kind of like, as an agency, I would say. We’re building kind of our Rolodex of influencers. So when we are coordinating with our influencers, we’re not just saying, Hey, and talking about one property, we’re, we’re bringing them into our. Our whole ecosystem, our agency, and saying, we have all these clients and all of these properties, so if we come across a client that has a need and you’re a good fit for it, then we will, we’ll pair you with it.

Um, and so that’s been really nice because we’re building these relationships with the influencers and we kind of have them on standby. So our clients get access to these vetted influencers that we have checked. We’ve. We’ve maybe already worked with them on a campaign so we know like how it performed.

Um, so that’s been really exciting to kind of open up that, that little avenue too. Yeah.

Gil : Yeah. What’s um, on kind of the. One thing that we talked about quite a bit is the consistency side of it. What advice do you give to someone that is, that’s tried social media and they’ve heard that you have to be consistent on things, but putting that in practice is actually really hard. Uh, doing anything consistently, going to the gym consistently is hard, but what have you seen work in terms of getting someone.

To really consistently post on a regular basis to get them to that traction point.

Emily : Yeah, so I would say, um. Well, first step is definitely blocking some time off on your calendar, like making an appointment for yourself to just sit down and really spend an hour, two hours, you know, whatever timeframe that you can allot to this, um, and block it off and no distractions. Um, the other piece of it, I would say.

It depends like if you’re local to your property or not, um, or the next time that you’re at your property doing a walkthrough video, like a slow walkthrough video of your entire property. All of the rooms, um, different angles like this could be like a 10 minute video that is going to allow you to create so much content, so many short clips from that, that you can refer back to.

So anytime that you’re at your property, I would do that kind of video because. The lighting will probably be different every time you go. Um, and so then you wanna organize that nicely into your phone. You know, an album, like make sure your photos, all of your professional photos and that video are in this one place.

That’ll make it easier when you’re ready to create content. Um, and then from there. When you’re sitting down, I would just map out, you know, 10 to 15 posts for the month. Um, if that sounds like too much, then maybe start with five and just start with what you can and stay consistent with that amount, and then you can start to increase the amount you’re posting.

Um, and so I, I would say, you know, do a, do a mixture of reels and carousels. Carousels are just multiple photos that you can, you know, when you’re swiping Instagram, that’s what a carousel is. I would just start there and start to think about your, your ideal guest and you’re creating content for them to see.

So what type of content is gonna make them stop? What type of content is gonna make them think, I wanna stay here, or, or I wanna share this to my friend. I wanna save this post for later. Um, you can make it about your area, you can make it about your property. You can make it about. All types. I mean, you can get really creative use chat chip, pt, use, use Claude.

Like, use the things that you have at your disposal to help you create and have ideas like that. Um, and then the last piece of advice I’d say is with consistency would be, um, use a scheduling tool that you like. I love using metrical. Um, it’s really great. They say for like social media managers, but anybody can use this so metrical and it even has some free, a free version, I believe.

Um, you just connect all your social platforms to it and you can schedule out all these posts ahead of time. Now, I will say, I don’t think you should just post and. Never check in on your, on your accounts. I think you should be logged in, you know, make sure you’re responsive to any, any comments or engagement that you’re getting.

Uh, but it is really nice that you can go ahead and schedule out two weeks at a time or you know, at least a week ahead of schedule. And that way you won’t feel so pressured when you’re sitting down at. Content date with yourself. You, you’ve got, you’re, you’re scheduling like a week or two out. Uh, but those things, those habits will really help you start to develop this muscle of getting in this rhythm of content creation for your property and kind of knowing that long-term vision that you have.

Gil : Yeah, so, so, so what I kind of gathered there is there, there’s a bit of strategy and expectation setting. Really understanding like what are the activities that you need to do in order for you to have that consistency, blocking out your time, um, recording those, recording those videos in advance whenever you’re visiting your property so that you have content in there.

Organizing that, that’s kinda like one area. Two, there’s like the, the process and really figuring out like, okay, I’m gonna, whenever I have a chance, I’m gonna sit down and I’m gonna map out 10 to 15 posts. Um, I’m gonna figure out, and, uh, this is my process for how to do reels. This is my process to how to do our carousels.

Um, but there’s also really spending time and energy on the ideal guest avatar and what speaks to them. I think that that is actually a very. Very, very importantly, I would say that’s like, probably even like the first thing to even think about is like really figuring out what type of content really resonates with your ideal guest avatar.

Um, and then kind of the, the last, kinda like the portion of it is really around like the, the tools that you use to make it more sustainable. Um. It. I, I, I heard you mention T and Claude from the AI perspective, um, but metrical from the, uh, scheduling point of view. Um, and yeah, we use metrical as well too at craft as days.

And it’s, it’s phenomenal. It helps us schedule things. It helps us distribute content across multiple channels. We’re not having to log into. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all that stuff. Uh, individually, every so often it tells us that we did it, it couldn’t upload the post and we had to do it again. But

Emily : Yeah.

Gil : at least we know we get a notification and we can manually upload it.

Emily : that they tell you at least. Yeah.

Gil : Yeah. They, they tell us, they keep us on track on things. Um, and that, that, that’s probably like to the thing of like. That’s actually your calendar. Like, like you mentioned, you do this for your clients there. At least if you have a scheduling tool, you know, like for this week, this is the amount of content that I wanna push out to, to, to our audience in, in this cadence.

There, it kind of forces you to say, oh, I actually didn’t post at least five times this week. We should adjust that for next week. And you have some, some barometer to go by.

Emily : Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I agree. And you know, metrical, one thing I forgot to mention is they have reports that you can run too, so I. Again, put that on your calendar of run this report, you know, every, every month at the end of the month, and so that you can at least get in that habit too, of just checking on what you did that last month and reward yourself, you know, if you, if you had a great month and, and even if the analytics aren’t showing exactly what you’re wanting yet.

Just the consistency of, I did get these posts out, you know, I felt like they were high quality. I felt like I put in effort toward him like that. That will go a long way over time.

Gil : Yeah. Yeah. Uh, what are some of the fundamentals that you see people overlook or they don’t spend the time and energy and they, they, they miss this, and they miss the mark on other things.

Emily : So I would say spending more time on your hooks, um, and testing out different hooks and. Um, call to actions are important too, but I would say the hook is, is the most important just to really get somebody to stop their, when they’re scrolling. Um, and so don’t be afraid to even repurpose old content, but you, you change out the hook and see how that performs or what, what that got engagement wise.

Um, I would, I, I think that’s an undervalued kind of fundamental. Thing in social media right now that we’re seeing is those hooks are super important. Even, uh, transitional types of hooks where on the video, if you can do some sort of movement or something that is just like really startling the viewer to kind of be like, wait, what is this?

Um, or, or texts that’s gonna make them stop to think, wait, I wanna read more about this. Um, and that takes a lot of time and research and. Um, testing out and trial and error. And so don’t get frustrated with it, but instead just get interested in it and, and excited to like learn like, wait, why did that hook work?

Or why, why is this one working so well? Um, and I think if you can start to land those hooks, you’ll get more excited about your content and, and get more creative with what ki types of hooks you can create.

Gil : Yeah, I love that. Emily, you’ve given us a lot to think about. We usually end the show with three questions. I’ll start off with the first one. What’s been one book that has really inspired you, you, uh, and, and the work that you do?

Emily : So, um, it’s funny ’cause it kind of goes along with what we’ve been talking about, but I would say one of my favorite books is Atomic Habits by James Clear. Um.

Gil : Yeah.

Emily : That book is really powerful and, and I think it just helps you to realize like we, we can build such tiny habits that really compound over time and can change your life.

And so that book has been really great for me to just. Um, even learning with like habit stacking and things that you already have implemented, what can you attach to that habit and start to create this new habit just based on what you’re already doing? Um, you can kind of trick yourself in that way, which is really awesome.

Gil : Yeah. I haven’t had that reference on this show, but I, I, yeah, I haven’t had that reference, but I’ve, there’s so many, I’ve read that many, many years back, and when I look back, that’s actually like out of all of the, um, self-help books and mindset books, that’s like one of the top selling books out there.

It just has so much applicability, like no matter what industry you are, like that is a book that. Everybody should have, have the opportunity to read because you, it applies to, it applies to your business, it applies to your health, the things that you do, how you show up for other people. It just, it, that’s a very universal book.

Emily : Yeah, yeah. No, it’s, it’s great.

Gil : Yeah. Awesome. Second question, what’s one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?

Emily : Um. So unique to my season of life right now. I’m, you know, a newly mama, four kids and running a business and just have a lot going on, as do a lot of us. And so I think my mindset advice right now to somebody starting something new is reminding you to build something that fits your life. Like build something that you.

Are going to enjoy. You know, there’s certain things in my business, for example, that I don’t do that other agencies, it’s like, you have, you have to do this. And I just think that you should always question that and build something that feels right to you and your life. Um. And not just what success looks like online or to other people, but, um, I’ve just, I’ve built this agency with that in mind of like, I wanna build it, it for me and for, for this to fit my lifestyle for something that I love and that I’m going to continue and just enjoy creating rather than just trying to fit into this box of what I, what an agency should do or what it should look like.

And instead, uh, never be afraid to question that.

Gil : I love that. I love that. Emily, we spent a lot of time talking about different tactics. We talked about social media, we talked about ads, tracking emails, a bunch of different topics here. What’s for someone that’s either trying to get started in direct bookings or trying to amplify their direct bookings?

What’s one tactical takeaway? What’s something that they should put in practice right away?

Emily : Um, okay. So I think that I just wanna encourage the listeners to start simple. And I, what I would do with social media and, and with your short term rental is I would just pick one platform. So don’t pick them all, like, just pick Instagram or Facebook or TikTok, or maybe it’s your email marketing software.

Just pick one thing. Um, and then. I want you to just commit to that for the next 30 days. So right now, like in your notes phone on your, on your, on your phone, on the notes app, go in there and like write today’s date and pick one platform. And for the next 30 days, I want you to commit to that. Maybe it’s two posts a week or five posts a week.

Whatever you can manage in the next 30 days, I want you to stick to it and then go back to that note and at the end of the 30 days. Reevaluate, like how did that go? What did you learn? Um, did you pay attention to the hooks? Did you set down, you know, did you write down time in your calendar? And stick to that, like go through those things of what you want the 30 days to look like, and then evaluate that at the end.

Gil : I love that, like a little, little sprint there for you to, to, to work on. Awesome. Emily, thank you for sharing all that knowledge that you’ve had, working on your own social media, working with your clients. Um, for folks that want to get in touch with you, maybe wanna work with you, how can they find you?

Emily : Yeah, the easiest way is just go to Instagram. Um, I’m Emily Lethgo on there, or Matchpoint socials. Um, either way you’ll find a way to, uh, just book a discovery call, and from there I, I’m happy to just chat with you, learn about your goals, and then can kind of point you in the right direction from there.

Gil : Awesome. Well, I appreciate you spending time with us today. I am definitely gonna, would definitely stay in touch, um, right before the show. I, I think we both have like this revelation, like we should have talked to each other. We should have worked together a long, long time ago, but I’m glad that we had a chance to record in the show, but also spend some time together.

Emily : Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on.

Gil : Thank you, Emily. Till next time. Bye.