Welcome to Boostly Podcast Season 10 Episode 6. This is a recap of my Facebook live video where I talked about lumpy mail.
Here's the audio for this episode:
Here's the video for this episode:
Timestamp
01:10 What is a lumpy mail
02:10 Why we send lumpy mail
03:15 How to start sending lumpy mail
06:10 What to do if you don't have the guests' information
07:30 Why you should do this now
08:20 My top tip
Whilst you’re here
Follow Boostly on the following channels to get more tips, tactics and knowledge on how you can increase your direct bookings
Visual – YouTube
Audio – Boostly Podcast
Transcript from the Episode
What are we going to talk about is Christmas cards or lumpy mail. So this is being recorded on Tuesday, the 17th of November. And anywhere between two to three to four weeks time, everybody's going to be fed up with getting Christmas cards. So it's something that we did for years in the Grainary and it always worked really well, we would start writing our Christmas cards after the half-term holidays. So basically, starting November would start posting them round about the 20th. And we would send between 500 and 600 Christmas cards.
Why we send lumpy mail
And the reason why is it was number one, it's nice to get something in the post. Number two, it's really good to keep top of mind. But number three, we would put a special coupon code in each of these Christmas cards that somebody could redeem and we put a date on it. Now what this meant was, we would get so many pre-bookings for the next year before the next year would even start. So we could already plan ahead for our occupancy our rates and budget for the year, from just doing this. Every single time it had such a good return of investment, we would spend anywhere between I don't know including postage and all of the things on a couple hundred pounds. And depends on how bespoke you went with the cards, we would range from doing them ourselves. One year, we even printed them all out. You can go to a local printer, and you can get them or you could just go and just order them in or or just go to the local shop and just buy hundreds of.
How to start sending lumpy mail
Number one, please make sure that you are collecting your guests information. Go through everybody that stayed with you over the course of the last couple of years. And what you're going to do is you're going to work out the 80-20. So find 20% of the guests that I ever brought in 80% of the revenue or just you know, really good time or good reviews. So you could either go down the revenue route, or just people that you remember that an amazing time with you.
That will instantly cut down hundreds into maybe five or 10 start off with. And what you can do is you can handwrite a couple of real nice Christmas cards to somebody who stayed with you over the last couple of years. What you're going to write is totally up to you. But what I would always put at the bottom of the Christmas card would be something along the lines of if you would like to pre-book your 2021 Stay with us, then all you need to do is call us give us your phone number. Make sure that you quote Christmas or Christmas card or make sure you know about this Christmas card and we will apply x discount we will do anywhere between 5,10 15 and 20%. It really does depend on what you want to do. It always worked and we could always track it back to the Christmas card.
Now we would put a couple of stipulations, you know, dates and availability, you got to use it or by a certain date. And this is the key. You've got to use it by a certain date. We used to not put that. And we had people calling up in sort of July and August when we didn't have a lot of availability for the summer holidays. And they were calling up, and they were using their, their code, the discount code, and we're just like, we should have really put a limit on it. So learn from our mistakes, put a limit on it. So again, maybe put it for the middle of January, the end of January, but make sure you add it in. And because this is how you're going to track the return of investment, your time investment and your money investment.
What to do if you don't have the guests' information
If you haven't been collecting your guests, addresses for whatever reason, then this is what you can do. And this is particularly important if you deal with a lot of contractors, a lot of business workers, then what you can do, if, again, working on the 8020 rule, if 20% of your bookings from this year have come from one or two offices, particularly with key workers and you know, contractors and what not with all the restrictions that have been going on in 2020. If there's one office or one person, then what you can do is you can find out which office they're located at. And you can actually put in a lumpy mail or something can you can go a little bit more than just a Christmas card, you could organize maybe a little gift hamper, maybe some chocolates, just something to put specifically if this is like a PA or somebody that places people on business because it will do you the world of good and good karma because nobody else is thinking of doing this.
So if you do this, then you will stay top of mind. So when it comes back into January, and they come back into the office, and he or she or whoever has got loads of people that they have to get out for accommodation, you'll be the one that stays top of mind. So it's little things like this that you can do. That's why it's called lumpy mail the present in the post.
Why you should do this now
If you think about 2020, do you think about everything that has happened, every single person has got a story of how it's being affected. And with the world as we know it going more and more and more online, where less human interaction is happening. And if you were just to take a couple of minutes to just do something like this and put a card in the post and send it to somebody, it physically comes through that door where it's not a bill or whatever. Then again, it just sets you out from everybody else in a world where everybody's going online, where everybody's zigging, if you can zag and do this, then who knows what that could be mean for 2021 in the long run.
My top tip
Don't send it on a plain white card. That's boring. It looks like bills, get a nice colorful card, you know something that stands out. So when all those letters drop in the post, you also the one that they're going to reach to reach to first.
Before you leave
Please go and rate, review and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify Google Play or Anchor or visit Boostly Hospitality Podcast for the full list of episodes!
