Welcome to Boostly Podcast Season 11 Episode 160. This is a recap of my Facebook live where I talked about how many websites should you have.
Here's the audio for this episode:
Here's the video for this episode:
Timestamp
00:00 Start
01:40 Marketing review
06:00 TripAdvisor
07:50 The struggles
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Visual – YouTube
Audio – Boostly Podcast
Transcript from the Episode
Yesterday, we were in Ipswich the day before we were in Portugal. The day before that we're in Australia. What am I talking about mini marketing review. So this little series that I am putting together for the Boostly podcast, we do mini marketing reviews of you the Bostly community that wants a marketing review. Now, how do you get on there? Like I've mentioned the past couple of days got aboostly.co.uk/review. Fill in the form at the very bottom, there's a little tick box that says Would you like a marketing review? Yes. And you may be one of the lucky people who get a free mini marketing review on the Boostly podcast.
Now, as I've mentioned before, marketing reviews are normally done live in a Zoom Room with the host. So we can have good back and forth loads of contacts, etc, with tons of people in them. And the reason, why we do them live, is that people can not only help the host, but also pick up some inspiration of what they can do for their business to get more direct bookings, which is what the Boostly podcast and the whole Boostly business is all about.
Now, because I'm trying to do a daily podcast episode all the way throughout 2021 I can't be doing a full hour and a half episode because I want to keep every episode under 10 minutes if possible. So I came up with the idea of mini marketing review. And if you are enjoying this series, let me know below in the comments.
Marketing Review
Alright, so as I mentioned, we are now in the Peak Districts, we are going to be helping Sammyof the Sycamore Inn and again, I love how we are being nice and diverse. We've had a tourist Park over in Australia, we've had self-catering accommodation, the stunning Portuguese mountains, we've had a self-catering apartment in Ipswich. And now we're going to the Peak District now the sycamore inn let me just quickly show you so you get a nice bit of context around it. So there obviously it's a restaurant, it's accommodation, its functions. So it's you know, it's a treehouse. It's a pub, it's set right in these peak districts right here, stunning location right on the cusp. Here. The village is called birch Vale. At an area's biggest area.
So again, one road all the way for out you've got the reverse set, going through it. Again, you can just imagine this being you know, December, very similar to the lake districts, you've got lots of little bed and breakfasts and pubs going around. And you know, you can just imagine the target audience, you can just imagine the customer avatar that is going to be flying through here. But they've got a bit of a predicament. So let's just go through what Sammy has said. So first and foremost, she is obviously located in the Peak District, they use free to book for their PMS and are free to book show. the website was created this year, over the past 12 months have had an 11 to 25% occupancy, obviously with COVID. And they need bookings average commission costs that are paid on a monthly basis up to 500 pounds, they need more direct bookings, they struggle with advertising. And again, they're doing a little bit of everything.
Now, one of the things that I would say straight off the bat to Sammy would be this is that when you land on the website, it instantly screams to me that this is a restaurant and a pub. And I see this quite a lot with pub accommodation is that they've got Southern accommodation, but it always hides behind the pub or the functions. Now what I would personally be looking to do for Sammy. And this is something that I've given you advice to a lot of people over the last sort of six months to a year would be I'd be looking to separate out the websites. And I'd have a website for the pub, I'd have a website for accommodation, and I would have a website for the functions as in weddings, etc, etc.
Now why, number one, when someone lands on your website, you have got up to 15 seconds to hook them in very hard to do. Now, if you've got three business models going into one website that's very confusing. Now, as you can see, when it comes to it, the accommodation side is just an afterthought. It's just a page on the website. Not a lot of information on there. And again, it comes back to the food obviously the food is obviously the bread and butter, etc, etc. But with the accommodation and again they've got four rooms, you know, so five rooms and that's Charging on average, what did they say 100 pound a night, I think they said so, you know, but some decent profit and decent accommodation. And plus as well, when you get people stay in, and you're in the middle of nowhere, they're going to be in with you as well.
So what I'd be looking to do is I'd be looking to split out the websites now before Sammy goes to me, but Mark, that's going to be mega expensive, it doesn't have to be the accommodation. And the functions website could be just a simple one page. But as soon as they land on that one-page website, instead of talking about the food, or the functions is talking about the accommodation, and again, you've got really nice accommodation, it's just lovely, Northern, it's got the patterns, it's got all that lovely stuff that you know, you recognize and it was you got the deers and all of that good stuff, but you need to be talking about it right from the very off. So by separating, it will actually get more people to stick around in your website, and it will actually help give it a bit more of an identity that it's probably struggling with at the moment.
TripAdvisor
Now again, if you go to TripAdvisor, the reviews all around the actual food. And again, if you just keep going through. And I know we mentioned here there BnB but it's like an aftershock. Now I'm not saying to go and totally separate your social media. I'm not saying to go totally separate your TripAdvisor. But what I would definitely be looking to do is to be given the accommodation is its own website, its own place to send people to 100%. Now, that doesn't mean that you're not going to talk about the food aspect of the functions aspect. But you could just easily have clickable links to send people to different places. So it could be here. And again, I'd be happy very tempted. So again, this book a room here it's hidden that's hidden. So get rid of that, get rid of that. And you could have you know, eat sleep, relax, whatever it could, whatever you want it to be. Get away from it all, you know, get away from Manchester, I assume that the majority of your guests are here, you'll have quite a lot for Manchester. I reckon you like quite a few from Sheffield, where Huddersfield Stoke, I reckon Stoke popular one. Maybe Wales, not just again, anybody who's coming in because you're like slap I understand the outskirts here, which is really ideal. And again, I can see just from looking at the pictures on the old, TripAdvisor pet friendly, etc, etc. Kid Friendly. Again, you've got all the good reviews, I would be definitely looking to separate out those websites.
The struggles
They said here they are struggling with advertising. And again, I think a book that I would recommend for you, Sammy, and you can easily read this or put it on an audio book is storybrand by Donald Miller. It's a book that I read. And it really helped Boostly and I recommended it to a lot of hosts. And I've gifted it to a lot of hosts over the last year. And I think you'd really benefit from it. It really helped you with the advertising for your business because I feel that every single strand of your business needs a website needs a bit of a brand and needs a bit of a push. Because the guests that come and eat with you will be different to the guests that come and stay with you will be different to the guests that come and book a wedding with you.
So you need to make sure that you talk into your right customer avatar. If you don't know what the customer avatar means, then please check out the Boostly YouTube channels, how to get your customer avatar etc, etc, tons of videos, there are tons of blogs about it that we did a podcast that we've done over the course of the last 300 plus episodes.
So again, if you are in a similar position, if you've got a business model that is actually catering for lots of different guests, maybe you are a pub owner and you have accommodation, or you do glamping but you also have bed and breakfast, or you have a hotel that's got a bit of glamping or if you do bed and breakfast, but you've also now started doing a bit of property management in the area. Maybe this could speak to you, are you trying to all cram it onto one website because you're trying to cut costs or you're just because that's what you were told to do. start to think about the people that are hitting your website if you've got someone that is looking to stay with you. And if I land right now on Sammy's website, the accommodation of the book a room is hidden. It's hidden, you know, and all over, I can go and I can have a little look on the calendar here. And you know, obviously September and October it's looking all right. As soon as you get out of there then there are lots of dates available.
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