Rentals United’s Secret To Growing Their Vacation Rental SaaS.
A chat with Vanessa de Souza Lage, CMO of Rentals United, about how they used their blog to generate leads and grow into a leading authority in vrtech today.
CMO, Rentals United
Maeva CifuentesHost, Founder and CEO of Flying Cat
Maeva Cifuentes speaks with Vanessa de Souza Lage, CMO of Rentals United, one of the leading channel managers in vacation rental tech. Vanessa also founded VRTech, an event for tech companies in the vacation rental industry.
Vanessa started out running a bootstrapped vacation rental agency in Rome with a budget of one thousand dollars for AdWords. When the big booking sites squeezed small agencies, she and four other agencies built a shared distribution platform, and Rentals United was born. With almost zero budget, she grew the brand through a blog that wrote about other companies in the industry, which got the company invited onto stages and recognized as an expert in distribution.
She also shares how a shift in target customer made much of her old content irrelevant overnight, why webinars finally worked for her team, and how sales and marketing agreed in writing on what counts as a qualified lead.
“We want to help. Marketing is about proposing a solution, and the people we really want are the ones looking to be educated.”Vanessa de Souza Lage, CMO at Rentals United
What leaders can take from Vanessa
- 1Write about your industry first.Early posts about other tools in the space earned Rentals United attention, speaking slots and authority.
- 2Content follows the customer profile.When the team moved to larger property managers, the basic listicles stopped attracting the right buyers, so the content became deeply researched.
- 3Interview your customers in depth.Vanessa spoke to everyone in the company who talks to customers to rebuild the persona.
- 4Match the format to the buyer.A low-cost quiz brought in two thousand leads, yet large property managers make decisions through careful research.
- 5Agree on a qualified lead.Sales and marketing signed a shared definition, with criteria such as pricing page visits, downloads and email opens.
