That’s a good thing, right?

The problem is that people tend to only research their vacations a few times a year. They may only be interested in our site in January when preparing for a summer trip. This is bad news for return visitors through the year.

So what should I do about this? More importantly, what can you do?

I could remind customers about our place at the same time of year as our last contact – maybe with a message from our autoresponder. If they contacted us last February and stayed at our place in the summer, we might want to remind them about it again this February.

Can we afford to leave it for a whole year though? What if they did their research already in January? If we miss them by a week, we’ve lost a potential booking.

What we really want is to keep customers coming back to our site throughout the year. This will keep us and our place in their minds and maximize the chance that they will think of us again when they are planning their next vacation stay.

So over to you. What can you offer your visitors to keep them coming back through the year? If your site is just a few photos of your property and some description, I’ll guarantee its not going to be too compelling for them to come back to!

OK – here are some things you can try:

1. Write a blog about the holiday location. Heather Bayer does this really well at the cottageblogger.com Write about events, new offers, places to visit or updates and improvements to your place. Keep it fresh, open it up for comments and get involved in some discussion!

2. Build a discussion forum around your place. Give customers the chance to talk about their experiences, share vacation tips and tell stories. This is a great way to build interest, and it also shows that it’s not just you who thinks your place is great.

3. Use an autoresponder to send out regular messages to existing customers. Keep customers updated with availability offers and new information about your property

4. Try and catch them on Twitter or Facebook

5. If none of these work, use a calendar and pick up the phone!!

When you get customers back to your site, you can welcome them back with a personalized welcome message or some special info that only customers can see – maybe some special offers or some photos or a private discussion forum.

Of course all of this assumes you’re providing a great place to stay and that your customers want to book with you again…