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[00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, listeners. I am so excited for today’s episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.
[00:00:05] Annette: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are–
[00:00:07] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.
[00:00:07] Sarah: Let’s kick this episode off like we do each and every week, and that is sharing one of you, our listeners, who is using our hashtag, #STRShareSunday on Instagram. If you use it, we’ll find you, and then we’ll share you here on the podcast and to our entire email list. Annette, who are we sharing this week?
[00:00:23] Annette: This week, we are sharing @thelargolow. Again, that’s @thelargolow. T-H-E-L-A-R-G-O-L-O-W. A couple of things. Number one, I love their logo.
[00:00:35] Sarah: I know.
[00:00:35] Annette: I love when a host creates a logo, and this one is so cute. The other thing that I noticed, Sarah, you said this, there are absolutely no rugs in this unit, and when we talk about that, a couple of things come up. She’s near the beach, so I’m sure sand and rugs and carpet is just not a good mix.
[00:00:53] And secondarily, just slip, strips, and falls, people navigating the home, accessibility,just nice, free, clear. It’s just the, um, I don’t know if it’s actual hardwood floors, but just the floors throughout. She does a really nice job also of pops of color throughout. It just looks like you’re going to be happy when you’re staying there. Very, very bright. Very clean. And there is this use of pink throughout that you just got to love. So well done, The Largo Low. So cute. Cheery. Take me to the beach. Sarah.
[00:01:26] Sarah: Okay, listeners. This episode came about because I went through a training. I wanted to create something fun to get people into our Thanks for Visiting world. You know how fun it is here on the podcast and on our Instagram. I’m preaching to the choir. But some people don’t know about Thanks for Visiting.
[00:01:42] And our mission is to level up what it means to be a host. So it’s our job to get people into the Thanks for Visiting world. Well, I thought, what’s a fun way we can do that? Instead of saying, no, I promise our podcast is fun and informative. I promise, our Instagram, we’ve got these hosting hot tips, but–
[00:01:58] Annette: Come to our live event, come to our membership. If you haven’t bought a ticket to our live event, if you are not in our membership, come on, what are you even doing? What in the world?
[00:02:06] Sarah: It is even more fun than hear us on the podcast. So what I did, I was like, Annette, we need a fun way to get people into our world. And I had heard of other entrepreneurs online creating quizzes. And I was like, I need to create a quiz for us, Annette. And what I ended up doing, long story short, is we create a quiz.
[00:02:22] If you go to the hostquiz.com, you can find your Airbnb five-star hosting style. Now, listeners, I know we teach you short-term rentals, but here’s a little marketing tip for you. A lot of people who haven’t come into the Thanks for Visiting world yet to learn about making your short-term rental your business, they still use that word Airbnb.
[00:02:42] So I’m meeting them where they’re at with that quiz title. We get them into our world, and then we start teaching them about treating their hosting as the business it is. So anyway, I was like, this quiz was so much fun to make, and it’s so impactful because people love learning about themselves.
[00:02:57] This is a great marketing strategy for our rentals too, Annette. And Annette was like, our listeners need to know about this. It’s creative. It’s different. So on this episode, I’ve invited our quiz coach, Linda Sidhu to come on and share with you how a quiz can really change your business. And actually, during the interview, we all come up with a totally different idea for a quiz on how to make your guests lifelong guests.
[00:03:25] They’re going to come back again and again with this idea that we didn’t even think about until we hopped into the interview. Again, if you want to take our quiz that we made for the Thanks for Visiting audience, it’s thehostquiz.com. If you want to make a quiz for yourself, buckle up. This episode is going to be so good. Linda, welcome to our show.
[00:03:43] Linda: I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:03:46] Sarah: I am so excited to have you here because I told you off-air, Linda, that I just feel hosts, listeners out there right now, we don’t think creatively enough about how to get people into our top of funnel. How do they find our rentals, our short-term rentals, our vacation rentals, other than Airbnb or Vrbo? There’s got to be a better way, a more fun way.
[00:04:11] And so Annette and I were at a mastermind this past holiday season, and a woman there who had a totally different business than us said, oh my gosh, if you need a way to get people into your funnel, into your email list, you have to try a quiz. And Linda, of course, she mentioned that you are the queen of quizzes. And so we thought we’d bring you on the show today and share with everyone. Let’s start it off with, tell us your backstory and how the heck you got into being–
[00:04:36] Annette: In the quiz biz. How’d you get into the quiz biz?
[00:04:38] Sarah: Yes.
[00:04:39] Linda: Yeah. So first of all, I’m so excited to bring some creativity to your audience and help them think outside the box. And it’s funny how I got into this because even my mother-in-law is like, I don’t even know what you do, how you got here. And I don’t know how to talk about it. So what I will tell you guys is, a couple of years ago, actually a while ago, I was in pharmaceutical sales, and I leapfrogged into the industry.
[00:05:08] So instead of working with primary care physicians, I got straight into specialty and started serving dermatologists. I was a little nervous because I felt like they were the experts. They did clinical trials on my acne products or the other competition. You know what I mean? And it’s like, why would they use my product over something else when they know better?
[00:05:30] So I was really happy when my company at the time introduced me to the DISC assessment, and it was a very straightforward, easy assessment where I got to identify my personality, but then I was taught how to people-read and understand their personalities, so the different physicians. If you’re not familiar with DISC, it divides you into being fast-paced or slower-paced with decisions, or people-oriented, or task-oriented. And you fall into one quadrant over the other, but you still embody all four of the personalities. It’s just you fall into one quadrant over the other.
[00:06:07] And Sarah, I’ve worked with you a lot. So I would almost say that you’re the dominant entrepreneur. You’re fast-paced, task-oriented, always land on your feet. So anyways, if I were to call on you, like I was with the doctor, I would come in. I would be efficient with your time. I would give you options because I knew you were going to call the shots.
[00:06:27] So at the end of our conversation of talking about acne products, I would then say, what type of patients would you use this product on? You would tell me what patients would come to your mind. Like, oh, maybe female patients, where I would use it off-label to give your skin a little bit more rejuvenation. Treat it off-label where it’s wrinkled.
[00:06:49] Or they would say, maybe I would treat teenage boys and help them with this. Use this particular product with teenage boys. And so then I would say, okay, try it on your next teenage boy when you see one, and just let me know how it goes. But each conversation would be different depending on your personality.
[00:07:08] People opposite of you, I would have to do lunches. I’d have to really earn your trust because they’re slower with decision making, and it might take a year or two for me to gain their trust to try my product. And because I relied on the four different personalities and people-reading and using my own personality to network and really nurture relationships, I ended up being the top 10 in sales year after year.
[00:07:34] And so when I retired from pharmaceutical sales and launched my own business in email marketing, I couldn’t think of a better way than to kick it off with a quiz as the top of funnel so I could segment my buyers personalities. So I knew how to communicate and sell to them. So that’s what got me here.
[00:07:53] And what happened was I knew very soon that I didn’t have to just focus on email marketing, that I could really niche into quizzes because I had a knack for creating them, I had an understanding for it, came fairly easy to me. And so that’s what got me here.
[00:08:06] Annette: So what I hear, because listeners, what you don’t know is that Sarah has been working really closely with Linda over the past 12, I don’t know, 16 weeks. She’s had the pleasure of working with her, and I’ve heard all of the aftermath, after the meetings, because Sarah’s working on, I don’t want to completely roll it out right now, but a hosting quiz. What type of host are you?
[00:08:25] But what I’m hearing right now, just to help us, the people that haven’t been in close contact and working with you, Linda, is that each person, no matter what decision they’re making, whether it’s purchasing a pharmaceutical product, whether it’s purchasing a couch, purchasing a vacation, maybe technology, we all fall in these four quadrants. Is that correct?
[00:08:47] Linda: Yeah, you fall into one quadrant over the other. So the way you make decisions is going to be differently. Sarah, for example, she’s very fast-paced, task-oriented. She’s always going to call the shots. She probably knew she wanted a quiz before she hired me. So it was a very straightforward, quick call. I gave her a few options.
[00:09:08] Unfortunately, one of the options, I wasn’t really able to do at the time, which is a done for you quiz, but I did have the option to do a collaborative way and join the quiz lab. And so I gave her a few options best that were working for me, and then she made the decision and decided to find a way that worked best for her to move forward with the quiz.
[00:09:30] Now, if it was somebody who was opposite of her, those people take a little longer to make a decision. They’re going to be on your email list, maybe a year, two, three, even, and they’re really going to look at your case studies. They’re going to read every testimonial. They’re going to see, how was Linda able to help other people?
[00:09:50] And you really need to gain their trust. You need to show up. You need to give them low risk, um, call to actions, guarantees, stuff like that because they’re always worried, how can I get my money back if this doesn’t work? And so there are four different personas. And so when you look at sales pitches or you look at conversations you’re having as you’re selling, if you know this person’s personality type, you can communicate with them in a way and serve them better. So at the end of the day, the reason why I love quizzes is because they can attract the right lead, they can help you sell out your offer, and they can help you better serve your clients as well.
[00:10:29] Annette: So I have a question. I’ll gear this back towards quizzes, but let’s say for our listeners, they have people coming to look at their vacation rental, their short-term rental. If they want to be able to serve all four quadrants, they don’t have sales calls, they don’t have that ability to sometimes nurture as long as possible. What guidance would you give in all of those four quadrants if you could only do it via copywriting, via your descriptions or photos?
[00:10:56] How can you make sure you’re serving all four of those personas to make sure that you’re hitting on the fast-paced, the slow-paced, the way that they’re going to make decisions? How would you guide them in that to make sure that if they can’t have all these contact points, the best way to do it through copywriting and through photos?
[00:11:14] Linda: I think that’s a great question. And so I think what you need to focus on is having options available. So I think the majority of the people who are probably looking to rent your property are probably going to be renting. So they’ve already made the decision they’re coming to your area. So you have that advantage that you’re just really an option for them.
[00:11:34] But what I would do is be efficient, get to the point, showcase things that matter to them. Obviously, testimonials are a huge deal in your industry. So having that five-star review. Maybe having reviews where people could do a video testimonial to add a little bit more personality or something different than somebody else is doing if they’re comparing two different units.
[00:11:58] If there’s an FAQ for the people who have questions, have that available for them. Make everything easy, accessible. Definitely have pictures. I know for me, I’m going to make decisions on the type of pictures, what it looks like. Is it clean? Is it not clean? Is it well lit? So making sure that you’re doing those little things to make sure the pictures look gorgeous, whether it’s lighting, whether it’s presentation with the towels and different things, but really go that extra mile because those little touch points are going to be really impactful.
[00:12:34] The other thing that I love personally is, what’s their experience like when they do go to your place? I know I’ve gone to places where it was a long flight. We didn’t get in till 11 o’clock at night. We were starving, but everything was closed. And at the moment, I was so happy that this person had left a cheese plate with cheese and meat from their area.
[00:13:00] And so they were showcasing maybe a local area where you could go and get more cheese and meats and different– like a charcuterie board, which was super cute. I know I live in Seattle right now, and just putting together a Seattle local type thing, go down to Pike Place Market, get some cheese, get different things. Maybe even just allow them to have an experience.
[00:13:23] The other cool thing for the onboarding too is making sure you have a list of things for people to do. All those little touch points matter. And also, the other thing that really matters too is a book. I go to the San Juan Islands, and it was fascinating for me because I was reading about– I really wanted to see the orcas there, and I knew that you can see the orcas during June, July, August, September.
[00:13:47] And so as I was reading the book, I could see that people in July were having more success seeing the whales than maybe other months. So a year from now, I’m like, okay, I’m going to come back here to this place because I love it in July. And it gives me encouragement to prebook it.
[00:14:04] But all these little touch points, they matter. And so pictures, being efficient with their time, making sure you have testimonials. Video testimonials could probably go a long way. And just trying to think of creative ways to do something different that somebody else isn’t doing because you know that they’re going to make a purchasing decision if they’re already looking on your site. It’s either you or somebody else in the area.
[00:14:26] Annette: I love the idea of a video testimonial on your direct booking site. I don’t know if I’ve seen anybody do that.
[00:14:31] Sarah: Yeah, thatwouldbegreat.
[00:14:32] Annette: I like it. You could just ask them to do it and send it to you, especially if someone’s having an amazing time.
[00:14:39] Sarah: Well, listeners, here’s what I’m thinking. And Linda, you can guide us to something that our listeners could hopefully get their wheels turning, is this. A quiz also, and on top of being able to speak to your audience and serve them, how they show up in the world fast, slower, what have you, is it’s fun. And it’s different.
[00:14:58] So I don’t know of, and correct me if I’m wrong, listeners– send me their quiz so I can take it. I don’t know of any vacation rental, short-term rental hosts who have a quiz that could help me maybe tailor my stay. So what Columbus, Ohio, state do you want to have? Linda would help me make a much better and enticing title.
[00:15:15] And where you could put that quiz out, you could run paid ads to it. It’s a free quiz that should be pretty inexpensive. If you’re already sending out email marketing, this could be part of your nurture sequence that you send. And you could have them share their quiz with someone else who might be coming to their area as a way to get the word out.
[00:15:31] I wonder if you could evenput it in your different listings on an OTA to get people off that OTA and into interacting with you before they even book their stay. So I want you to think of it as a way to have your potential guests have some fun with you before they even go to another listing to check them out and start comparing, is my thought. Linda, what do you think about that?
[00:15:51] Linda: Yeah. My thought just goes straight to what type of experience they would have in your local area. And so you could potentially do some type of quiz based on somebody’s personality on how they want to experience their stay while they’re at your place. For example, the slower-paced personalities, the ones that are a little bit more slower, more thoughtful about decision making, they’re also task-oriented.
[00:16:15] I find them to be very smart individuals. They’re a little bit more analyzers. Think Steve Jobs, Bill Gates. And if you can really envision this person, they’re probably going to enjoy staying indoors more than some of the other personalities. So keep that in mind. Maybe they like rain.
[00:16:34] There’s a ton of this personality here in Seattle. They’re tech savvy. They’re smart. They enjoy the rain. They don’t necessarily want to be around people that much. They like the downtime because it’s just too much energy. If you’re just thinking about this, maybe you could help curate a stay that would make them feel at home.
[00:16:53] Whereas maybe the people-oriented people who are a little bit more into going out into crowds, maybe they might be interested in doing some type of seafood fest while it’s available, or a different thing that they can experience that your hometown offers that’s different and have that curated as– that way, they can envision, oh, my gosh, I can see myself staying here, and I can see myself really enjoying the activities that are around the availability of your home. And they can put themselves in those shoes before they ever purchase to stay at your place.
[00:17:27] Sarah: Brilliant. How fun would that be, especially if you’re in a very competitive market? Maybe even Googling, and that’s what pops up, is taking a fun quiz instead of just giving you my name and email to get 10% off the next day. I’ll be wanting to interact much more because we want to know more about ourselves, Linda.
[00:17:46] You always said that we want to talk about ourselves. We want to learn about ourselves. We are very curious about who we are as people, so taking a quiz can be fun. Something else you teach Linda is to also– I felt like I need to diagnose who they are and make sure– and you really were like, take a breath. This is also very fun. And we did the results first, and then we did the question that led to the result. And that let me have fun. I figured out the four quadrants of the DISC assessment, and then I could figure out, okay, what is that dominant personality?
[00:18:18] Annette: Let’s tell them what you’re working on, though, because it’s not for stays. It’s actually for hosts. So, I think, explain that to the listeners a little bit, that it’s actually a hosting quiz, not the travel.
[00:18:27] Sarah: Well, we can talk about the travel quiz because I want to make it relevant to our listeners. If we’re starting with the results, Linda, and we’re starting with D, D is that dominant personality. They act fast, they are task-oriented, so therefore, let’s start with their result. You just said, what stay they would like to have? I don’t know. Do you have anything that come to mind?
[00:18:45] Linda: Yeah. What’s coming to mind is that’s my husband. And we are actually planning our trip to Iceland and Italy, and we leave next Friday. So if you’re listening to this, we’ll have already come back from our trip. So hopefully we don’t have any issues with our Airbnbs because we’ll be staying at five different places throughout our trip and our excursion, going from Iceland to Italy.
[00:19:06] But I will tell you, my husband loves to call the shots. He was in planning mode for months, just trying to figure it out and make sure that we have the best time. He’s like, I know things are going to go awry, and I’ve tried to make sure that there’s plenty of time in between things. So if something goes awry, maybe we don’t have to fly out until the next day.
[00:19:26] So he’s even considering adding cushion in between. But for example, because I’m using this and you’re curating it, we’re using the theme of curating it around your stay. How cool would it have been if a guest provided like, here’s some excursions, here’s some things to do in this area, that provided that for my husband when he booked the stay with them?
[00:19:48] So it took something off his plate because he’s literally spent months trying to figure this out and figure out what to do. The other cool thing that we had was somebody in Italy offered to send a car to pick us up and take us to their place. Again, it’s these little touch points. Now, I will tell you that they canceled our stay for some reason.
[00:20:08] So we were like, oh, no. So we ended up figuring that out. But my husband was like, oh, wow, this is so incredible. This is above and beyond. Again, going above and beyond. But that’s why I like if you can curate something. And so I actually recently had a friend come to Seattle, for example, and I curated a list of things that I thought would be really interesting that only a local would do.
[00:20:31] So taking it from that standpoint, take away the tourist stuff. Yes, you’re going to do some tourist stuff. I’m sure you have some stuff in mind, but look at it from a local angle and go see these cool things that you wouldn’t know, because that’s the thing. When people are coming from out of town to stay there, I personally would love the local feedback of like, hey, you’re going to maybe want to do this, but really maybe try this or do this in addition to some of the touristy stuff too. So I think it’s just taking something off the plate of the person who’s trying to book with you, and that’s going to help you get your five-star review and maybe even a video testimonial.
[00:21:07] AD BREAK
[00:21:08] Sarah: So when we’re creating the questions that lead to these fun results that we’ve already created, we’re having so much fun– okay, a D personality type traveler is going to love this about my city. An S is going to love this. We’ve done all that. How do we come up with the questions that lead them to those results, Linda? And do I have to have a deep understanding or education in the personality world, or how do people, anyone who doesn’t have the train that you may have, create a quiz that would produce results that are actually accurate for the taker?
[00:21:36] Linda: Yeah, so that’s why we start with the result first, so we know what questions to ask. And if you are doing a personality quiz, it’s imperative that you add some personality questions in there. I usually tell my clients, or when I’m designing quizzes, to do five personality questions to really determine which quadrant you are in.
[00:21:57] Now, I also like to add in some engaging questions and some research questions to help you get some research and some data for some of your burning questions that you might want to clarify for your own business. And so I don’t usually want people to go over 10 questions. I usually want you to stay around nine.
[00:22:14] But at the end of the day, nobody’s going to get mad at their result, first of all. Keep things in perspective, that this is a quiz. It’s not an actual DISC assessment where there’s hundreds of questions that they ask you to really determine what your personality is, because what you’re trying to do is really just to track the right lead and get them onto your email list so you can help them have a better experience with you and engage with you.
[00:22:39] So five questions is all you really need to determine what result they need to have. And then two research and two engaging questions with a total of nine questions. And again, keep it in perspective. People, when they come to your quiz with the title alone, you’re really going after the low-hanging fruit. So for example, do you want to share your title of your quiz real quick? Uh, and I’ll tell you why we selected it.
[00:23:05] Sarah: Yeah. I’m trying to remember if I know it exactly, but in essence, it’s Find Out Your Five-Star Airbnb Hosting Style, I think is what we landed on.
[00:23:12]
[00:23:12] Linda: At the beginning, when we were first working together, I also recommended saying Airbnb hosts to really call the Airbnb hosts in. And the reason why we do this is is with the title alone, if you have a really good title for your quiz, people are going to be attracted to it because they’re going to raise their hand and say, yes, that’s me. I identify as an Airbnb host.
[00:23:33] Or they’re going to look at it and say, well, that’s not me. And so they probably won’t take it. So from the get go, you’re really attracting the right leads to your email list so you can communicate and sell to them. And then with the quiz questions, you just want to keep it fun, light, and on theme and try to get the right result.
[00:23:52] And at the end of the day, when people read the result, it’s super fun. I’ve never really had anyone question it. You know what I mean? They just love quizzes. And actually, the conversion rates tend to be really high as a business owner. So I know that quizzes, if you look at the statistics from TryInteract, on average, they convert at a 40% rate.
[00:24:12] So they are looking at your quiz, and then they become a new lead. I personally have helped people get higher percentages. Some of the higher percentages, I can get up to 70. The friend that we know, that we have in common, her quiz is actually converting at 76%. So if she’s getting this in front of 100 people, 76 of those people are turning into new leads.
[00:24:39] So they’re very high conversion, which is great. And then they’re very engaging as well. So people will stay on your email list longer, they’ll communicate with you, they’re more likely to purchase from you too.
[00:24:51] Annette: Yeah, I think it’s cool to think about if your quiz is something, let’s say Columbus, what kind of Columbus traveler are you? And is it like, are you the homebody? Are you the sport– we have a lot of sports teams here. Are you here for sports? You’re here for retail? Are you here for– there’s just ways that you can pull out what– live like a local, not a homebody.
[00:25:12] There’s just different things that you can do to curate what stay they’re looking for. And then if it’s sports, that’s something where in your results, you would say, hey, I’m this close to all of these stadiums, and give some fun facts about Ohio State football, our hockey team, our baseball team, our soccer team. There’s so many things. Or if it’s a homebody, these are the places to order in from. And what would be fun too is if you have multiple people staying, them figuring out what type of traveler they are to that specific town, I think it’d be fun to figure out.
[00:25:43] Sarah: And like Linda said, no matter what result you get–
[00:25:45] Annette: It’s still fun, and you’re still highlighting things like– yeah, no one’s going to get mad at, I’m not a homebody. I want to go to the tours.
[00:25:51] Sarah: No, everyone likes to order in delivery.
[00:25:53] Linda: Yeah, because at the end of the day, we embody all four personality types, so even if we might be more outgoing, we’re still going to want to unwind. And if we have a busy day, we might want to order in anyways. So no one’s going to give it a second thought if their result wasn’t great.
[00:26:08] Sarah: Right.
[00:26:08] Annette: No, it’s fun.
[00:26:09] Sarah: So let’s say we have the engaging title. We got the low-hanging fruit. They’re like, ooh, I want to find out, what perfect Columbus Day I could have, and they start taking the quiz, and I’ve got some questions that are going to lead them to result. Okay. I get my result and it’s a super fun page full of all things I can do.
[00:26:26] Maybe it’s even got a discount code on that page or not? I don’t know, Linda, what that would be for. Their next day, or what have you. But the important thing then is that not be the last time they hear from you. Linda, what happens after they get their result? What’s a good way to continue to nurture that lead?
[00:26:39] Linda: Yeah. So I guess the way I’m thinking about this is there are certain places that I would go back to. Whether it’s the San Juan Islands, or in San Diego, we’ve stayed a couple of nice places, but if you are on their email list and– I’ll just use the example of the San Juan Islands because it’s a place we go to frequently.
[00:26:59] And if we find a good place, we’re going to keep going back. But the cool thing is, if you’re on their email list, you can do different things to engage them, to help them come back and retain that client. You can give percentages off, which is really helpful. And it could be like in the winter months when it’s downtime, it’s not so busy or the place isn’t selling out.
[00:27:20] You can take advantage of that. You can also just think of different ways to entice them to come back. And if you notice that they came to visit you in the summer months, maybe they’re going to come back at the same month for a specific reason. And if it’s like a high time with high traffic anyways, again, just giving curated lists of things to do so people can be like, oh, I’ve always wanted to do that. And so that’s good to know.
[00:27:46] So one thing I’ve always wanted to do when I visit the San Juan Islands, again, is the orca whales. I’ve always wanted to go there. I’ve always wanted to see them. And just showcasing when a good time is to see them, when they’re in the area, different things to get people engaged and excited about that area, if it’s something that’s unique to you, and leverage that.
[00:28:07] Yes. At the end of the day, you’re going to want to keep them on your email list. You’re going to want to send emails to them, and you want to pick a way to be consistent with them. So because that matters for the people who are slower action takers, they really care about you being consistent.
[00:28:26] And so what’s going to happen with that is you might want to pick, hey, I’m going to send out an email twice a month. Or maybe you’re going to send out an email once a week. You just decide and stay consistent. And the reason why I like email marketing so much is because the return on investment is higher than any other platform out there. So for every dollar you invest with email marketing, you usually get $38 in return. So keeping them on your list, keeping yourself top of mind, it really does matter.
[00:28:57] Annette: I think what would be cool too, is once you have your four styles of traveler, that could help you guide your emails. Like, okay, let me address the homebody. Let me address the sports tourist. Let me address the retail connoisseur, or the foodie. And I think that would help you every time. Let me speak to how each personality would enjoy the city or my home, and make sure you’re touching on those.
[00:29:26] I know myself. I like to communicate probably too much the way I like to be communicated to, and then I forget that there’s like this whole other population of people. So I think that’s a great guide in your marketing strategy. Here’s the four personalities. This is the way that they make their decisions. Let’s make sure that there’s a touch point for them in my communication with them in my email marketing.
[00:29:47] Linda: The other thing, too, is seasonally, think about what you have going on. I don’t know why I thought of this on our interview, but the Arnold Classic, you guys host that in Columbus, Ohio. I wonder if in the spring you could share something about that and then give different things to do around the area of the Arnold Classic just as a random example.
[00:30:08] But places to eat, places to order from, other things to do that’s a must do in the area that’s close by. But use your time wisely, and email different things seasonally. Look what’s coming up, and then curate their experience based on each season as well.
[00:30:25] Sarah: I want to go back a little bit, talk real quick and give examples of when we are curating the questions that lead to the results. Linda mentioned that we can do research questions, and this was really helpful when I was creating our quiz. And I can also think about how hosts can use it, where you can ask them questions that have nothing to do with leading them to their personality but have everything to do with you collecting data, and how we could use it as hosts.
[00:30:48] And Linda, I don’t know if you have any brilliant ideas too, but I’m just thinking of asking a question like, when you travel, your most important amenity in a vacation rental home is? And you can list it. Is it the comfort of the bed? Is it the couch? Is it the coffee selection? Whatever you want to get more information on from those people who take your quiz.
[00:31:06] And the way you set up in the quiz technology, it’s not going to help them get to one result or another. It is simply for you to collect data and learn more about travelers who are coming to your area and where you can focus on in your rental as we’re always zhuzhing them, and making them better, and improving them.
[00:31:23] Linda: Yeah, no, I think you’re a 100% right. And that’s the beautiful thing about quizzes and even surveys. The more you understand your ideal clients, the more you can curate what the need. And really, it goes back to Starbucks. I always end up talking about Starbucks for some reason, but maybe it’s because I live in Seattle, and they’re local in Seattle. But Starbucks always puts the client at the front of the table. So whenever they come out with something new, they’ve already talked to them. They’ve already heard them. And so at that point, they’ve curated this experience for them.
[00:31:58] Think about the pumpkin spice latte. They probably ask people, what kind of flavors do you want? What do you need? What do you want? So they listen to them, and they serve them what they need. And that’s what quizzes and surveys do, because they really help you take it up a notch and give them a curated experience with you.
[00:32:16] Annette: And I know we’re talking about a quiz as far as bringing people into your home. What do you think about offering the quiz once they’ve already booked?
[00:32:26] Linda: This is a fascinating question. I was going to say, I almost think this is where you could totally use it. So sometimes there’s front-end quizzes, which attract leads. And then sometimes there’s backend quizzes that help you go deeper with your client. So for example, for Quiz Lab, I have a quiz that attracts people, like, hey, are you interested in a quiz?
[00:32:49] Then discover your quiz to cash strategy. That is my lead magnet, where I attract leads to do a quiz. But I have developed a quiz where the next question I get once people have a quiz is, how do I promote it? So I actually designed a quiz. I haven’t put it out there. It was just something fun I was doing just because I know how to do it, and I was just playing around.
[00:33:11] But it’s how to promote your offers based on your personality. How do you lean into your strengths to promote yourself now? And so I put something like– and so it’s called a backend quiz. And so I think that’s perfect, and it’s a great example of what you can do. So once people book, you can have them take the quiz. And again, you can curate an experience based on their persona, which is beautiful because then that will help retain them as a customer to come back. Again, those touch points.
[00:33:38] Sarah: It makes it sticky. It makes it fun. And then maybe you can say, especially if you have a larger vacation rental, listeners, and you can invite the booker to say, hey, did you have fun with this quiz and love the itinerary we created for you? Share it with the guests that are coming to stay with you, and then they can figure out what’s the best day for them to have when they’re with you as well. So everyone can really optimize their stay. It’s fun. You get them on your email list now. Again, I’m just obsessed with this whole quiz thing, Linda.
[00:34:05] Linda: Yeah, I actually really like that idea too. Once they book, send the quiz, and then you’ve got them on your email list, so you can continue to communicate with them. And then that would be an easy way to retain them to be a guest again.
[00:34:17] Sarah: Are there any mistakes our listeners should watch out for that you’ve seen novice quiz makers make on their first quiz?
[00:34:26] Linda: Yeah. That’s a great question. So usually, mistake number one is not creating it the right way. You always want to reverse engineer, which we already touched on a bit. So writing out the results first, then you know what type of questions to ask and reverse engineering it. But also, reverse engineering it to the offer you’re trying to present.
[00:34:46] What is the point? What do you want people to do. If they take their quiz, what’s the next step? So really trying to create it with the offer in mind and working backwards too. So that’s mistake number one. People have no idea how to put one together, and they often just start with the quiz questions.
[00:35:01] Mistake number two is not having a welcome series and not communicating with them after they’ve taken your quiz. So when people usually take your quiz, they’re coming in hot. They’re very excited. And this is prime time to talk a little bit about, who are you? Why do you have this Airbnb rental? What made you do it? Why are you so passionate about that?
[00:35:22] Just give them a couple welcome emails, whether it’s one, three, or five, but acknowledge that they’re there. Introduce yourself. Start an engagement. Start communicating with them before they go straight to your newsletter and get on your emails. Um, because it is weird when you take someone’s quiz, you don’t hear anything, and then all of a sudden you get these emails where you’re picking up where you’re at in your life, but you’re not meeting them where they are.
[00:35:48] Another mistake is not promoting it right. So a lot of people actually create a quiz, they’re super excited, and they think, okay, you build it, they will come. That’s not the case. You’ve got the quiz, you’ve got the foundation, you’ve got something that’s really incredible. Now you need to start promoting it so you can get leads to take the quiz, and then start selling out your offer. So really putting yourself out there to promote it in the right ways.
[00:36:14] And then last but not least, sometimes people just do quizzes on platforms like TryInteract or maybe Involve.me. Those are two of my favorite platforms. But what I would really like you to do, if you’re going to spend the time to do a quiz, is do it on your website with a landing page where it’s got your branding and all that beautiful stuff.
[00:36:32] Because I think when people put together a quiz, it looks very generic if it’s just on the quiz platform that you use. And you’ve missed an opportunity to, again, have that extra touch point and make it even better by having your branding and have it on your website. And this is also important because if you do run Facebook ads, you’re going to want the Facebook pixel to gather that information because it’s on your site.
[00:36:54] Sarah: I got another idea, Linda, while you were talking. Another quiz you could do if you’re a bigger operator, let’s say you have more than, I don’t know, three, four, five, six, upwards of 10, 20 properties. If they don’t know which property to stay at, you could help them hone in on what the best rental that you offer is. So I’m sure listeners do have other ideas. So the options are limitless. You know what pitfalls to avoid. Anything else, Linda, that we didn’t touch on that you think our listeners should know about when it comes to thinking about introducing a quiz to their marketing strategy?
[00:37:23] Linda: No, no. I’m just all fired up and excited. I love this idea. Oh, here’s one thing. I think you can utilize sensory with your quizzes, specifically with Airbnbs. You think about it like it’s all about their sensory. What do you see? What do you smell? What do you hear? These are all experiences they have when they’re staying in your home.
[00:37:47] So leveraging your senses. And so where I leverage senses and get some really good ideas is Pinterest. So I’ve done quizzes where maybe it’s about a drink. What type of margarita marketing style are you? Is a quiz that’s coming to mind right now. And each result was a different type of margarita.
[00:38:08] And so this had a theme all the way through it, including the quiz questions, which was like, what type of garnish would you garnish yourself based on your personality? Are you cool as a cucumber, or are you hot like a jalapeno? Spicy and hot. But you can have so much fun with it with adding sensories to it. And if you need help, go to Pinterest and just look at different recipes, look at different things that involve senses to help you think outside the box and go even an extra layer with creativity.
[00:38:39] Sarah: Yes. Linda created a really fun quiz that was all around the margarita type, and it was so cute and fun, that is perfect for a short-term rental host because whether it’s a drink or a food, and maybe that is part of your welcome gift. I know a lot of us hosts do s’mores packages and things of that nature. So maybe you have a s’mores bar. I don’t know. Options are limitless of how you can create your quiz, help you also just enhance your brand and really start becoming that go-to vacation rental, short-term rental in your area.
[00:39:09] Linda: I just thought of an idea. If you do a backend quiz, like we did, and they get some type of, whether it’s a drink, or it’s s’mores, or something, having that available for them when they come–
[00:39:21] Annette: Yeah. Their welcome gift. Help us decide your welcome gift with this quiz.
[00:39:24] Sarah: Oh my gosh. I love that.
[00:39:26] Annette: Yeah. No, I love that. Like, hey, I’m so glad you booked. Here’s a few questions. We want to decide what the best welcome gift would be for you.
[00:39:34] Linda: Slam dunk.
[00:39:35] Annette: Yeah. Maybe it’s a bottle of wine. Maybe it is a s’mores package. Maybe it’s a gift certificate to coffee. But I think that would be a fun way to implement it too, is we’d like to curate your welcome gift. You can have the same few welcome gifts, but have some fun and just a few questions where they get to choose. Their quiz determines what their welcome gift is.
[00:39:55] Linda: Yeah, keeping it as easy and simple as that can be very impactful for you guys.
[00:39:59] Annette: Yeah. You could be like, are you sweet and salty? Yeah, there’s a lot of really fun questions you could do with that, for sure.
[00:40:05] Sarah: All right, Linda. Our listeners are all hyped up. I know you have something special going on. How can our listeners who may want to work with you or learn with you do that?
[00:40:15] Linda: Yeah, thank you so much. So if you’re interested in creating a quiz, I am offering a three-day nail your quiz idea challenge right after Labor Day. And so I would invite you to join the challenge. This is what Sarah and Annette joined in the spring last year, and we are really going to help you figure out your quiz idea in this challenge.
[00:40:37] And so I highly recommend you join. Come check it out. And one cool thing that we’re adding this time around that I didn’t do in previous challenges is I’ve also generated my own AI micro app to help come up with the titles. So we’ll be doing some hot seats and some fun things to help you come up with your title.
[00:40:56] That way, you can get your title, and you can get off on your way and create your own quiz. Of course, if you’re interested in working with me, I’ll be opening the doors to the quiz lab as well, where you can get my support to collaborate with you to make sure you do it as perfect and as beautiful as you had hoped. Yeah. But thank you so much.
[00:41:14] Sarah: We are so excited. Listeners, we will have that link in the show notes for you. Highly recommend. Again, I went through this myself. If you’re interested in the quiz that we created alongside Linda, with her guidance, it is the hostquiz.com, and you can find out your Airbnb five-star hosting style as well as to see what our hard work created.
[00:41:33] And now I got to go back and create one for our rentals too. So I’m going to create all the quizzes. But Linda, thank you so much for sharing your time and expertise. I cannot wait for you to just help tons of businesses, no matter what they’re offering, really thrive, whether it’s lead magnets or keeping clients as happy clients. The work that you do is really impactful. So with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.
[00:41:58] Annette: I’m Annette Grant, and together we are–
[00:41:59] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.
[00:42:00] Sarah: Talk to you next time.
