I experimented with ChatGPT to save time and money in our short term rental business. I will share with you my top three use cases, plus how to get the best results from ChatGPT. Stick around until the end of the video to find out which tip saves me the most time.
Are you tired of spending hours writing and crafting that perfect listing? Or are you struggling to describe the magical way the morning sunshine pours in through the east facing bay window, glistening off your ice cold mimosa? See, I struggle with that too. Outsourcing your copywriting could be the way to go. But what if you’re just looking for a quick and easy solution, preferably a free one? That’s where ChatGPT could really help you out.
Now, let’s be clear, folks. ChatGPT is a fantastic tool, but it’s not going to magically get your listing on some top 30 hot new airbnbs blog. What ChatGPT can do is generate some kick ass ideas and inspiration, but you still have to bring that creativity and personal touch to the table. To make the most out of ChatGPT, you need to know how to use it right. If you already tried using it and weren’t happy with the results, maybe you need to rethink the quality of your prompts. ChatGPT’s outputs will only be as good as the quality of your inputs.
So what does a perfect prompt look like? Let’s see. Number one, start with a clear goal in mind and communicate it clearly to ChatGPT. Even grammar matters. Number two, provide samples of your own work to replicate your unique voice. Number three, provide information to ChatGPT in chunks so it’s easier to process. Number four, use parameter functions for best results, which I will show you examples of in just a second.
Now, let’s create a prompt for ChatGPT on an STR listing example using those tips. First, I’m going to provide ChatGPT the following prompt: I will specify my goal. I will provide property description as well as some key features of the home that I want to highlight. I’m also going to set my length parameter to 75 words to just kind of keep it short. I will include temperature parameter, which basically controls the randomness of the text generated. Something like 5.0 higher parameter would give me more varied and creative text, whereas something like 1.0 will give me more focused and conservative text. I will also include repetition penalty, which basically controls my repeated words. I repeat things for emphasis. E-E-E-E-mphasis. If I want some repeated words, I can set it to 1.0. If I want almost no repeated words, I want to set it to like 1.5 or 2.0. From here, I’m going to press Enter and let’s see what ChatGPT comes up with. Oh, my God. Okay, it’s happening. Everybody stay calm. What’s everybody doing? Escape to a Balinese paradise in this stunning three bedroom, two bath down home, unwind in the large backyard, complete with a ping pong table and bocce ball court. Or find your inner zen with yoga mats and a massage table. Stay productive with a workspace or cook up a storm in a fully stock kitchen. With a unique Balinese design and close proximity to the airport, downtown Austin and Formula One racetrack, this rental is the ultimate getaway. This is my favorite one so far. Nice job team. As you can see, you have a lot of options here to play around with the creativity and parameters depending on your task, but overall I think it’s a pretty great property description. It definitely covers all the features that I wanted to highlight. I can further tweak this description and actually make it sound pretty cool. Nice.
If you already leveled up your game and start collecting emails from guests, ChatGPT can help you create killer marketing pieces for repeat customers and brand exposure. In this demo, I want to task ChatGPT to help me improve my guest emailing game. So here I’m going to ask ChatGPT to create an email with a catchy subject line to bring repeat guests back, make it personalized and use a similar style from the email sample that I will provide to you next. Here I’m providing a sample so ChatGPT can learn my unique voice and style. I’m going to include length parameter, temperature parameter, repetition penalty just like I did in the previous demo. We’re going to click next and for the subject line it came up with, ‘We miss you. Enjoy 10% off your next stay with us.’ I don’t know about you guys, but to me it’s a pretty catchy subject line. I’ll give it that. ‘We hope this email finds you well. We want to take a moment to thank you for being a great guest and choosing our rental for your last stay. It was a true pleasure hosting you as a valued guest. We would like to offer you a 10% discount on all your next stays with us. We have a variety of properties inspired by Italy, Bali, Greece and Maldives, each with their unique charm and amenities. We’re sure you’ll find something new to experience and enjoy again.’ For someone whose copywriting skills are not his strong suit, I think this is a very solid email to be sent to my guests. You can even task ChatGPT to help you come up with a whole email campaign to be sent over a certain time period.
And yeah guys, this is it. I think if you show ChatGPT your unique voice, let it learn from it, then it can definitely help you to generate some pretty cool email campaigns and email to your guests. Perfect. If you need more info to get started with email marketing, consider subscribing to our channel as I plan to dive more into that subject in a different video.
And now our third and final tip. We made it folks. The one that saves me the most time. Not only can ChatGPT help you with email marketing, checklists for cleaners and house manuals for guests, but it can also help you with guest recommendation requests. Don’t get me wrong, I love providing recommendations to our guests. It’s just that sometimes I have no clue what to suggest based on very specific interests. But that’s where ChatGPT can come in and whip up a personalized list of attractions based on the property’s location, and even within a desirable distance for the guest. Here’s a real life example: a guest was wondering if there are any boat cruises that serve dinner and are open on Sunday. Simple, but not so simple to find ASAP. Here, I can task ChatGPT to come up with a list of recommended boat tours in the Austin area that serve dinner and are open on Sundays. It’s not very necessary to include length parameter or temperature parameter, but it might be useful to include radius. Like, let’s say maybe you have several venues like that scattered all over your town. In my case, I know the guest is staying close to downtown, so hence why I’m specifying the radius. And as you can see, ChatGPT is able to come up with a list of recommendations like that in just minutes. Hey, that’s pretty good. Note that ChatGPT only provides information up to September 2021, so you still might have to do some of your own research to capture new venues or make sure the ones that you found are still open, but I just suggest verifying all of its outputs.
Creating catchy descriptions and effective marketing is just one part of the journey. Now comes the fun part: designing and furnishing your space. Why aren’t the fun parts always the most expensive? Well, click above to see how we furnished our Bali-themed rental, and I will walk you through how to estimate the cost to furnish your own STR. If you found this video helpful, consider giving it a like and subscribing or share it with your host buddies. Also, let us know in the comments how you think ChatGPT could help you in your STR business.
