Welcome to Boostly Podcast Episode 394. This is a recap of my Facebook live where I talked about how to market your property domestically.
Here's the audio for this episode:
Here's the video for this episode:
Timestamp
00:00 Start
00:30 About Workcation
02:30 What you can do
04:20 Go to a local newspaper
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Visual – YouTube
Audio – Boostly Podcast
Transcript from the Episode
We'd all agree that there's going to be a new demographic of guests that are going nowhere. It's the work from home the workcation guest and that is going nowhere. Stats and trends from Airbnb show that over the coming months and even the coming year, more and more people are going to look to work while vacationing, which is why the wokcation trend is going to go nowhere.
About Workcation
So seeing that this trend is not going anywhere, how can you adapt your business to the demands of your new guest. There are so many different things we can do. And in this podcast episode, I want to pick you up with a couple of things.
Now what we noticed, and what the stats show is that when you've got people that are working from home, they are more likely to be travelling domestically to you. So could be three to five hours away. We've got reports of people even being 45 minutes away, but just wanted a change of scenery. With everything that has happened over the last 18 months, we've had people that have been living and working out of the same four walls for months on end. So when restrictions lowered and they were able to travel, they were taking the opportunity straightaway.
So in America, in the USA, the domestic travel in 2020 was up 12%, which is a big chunk. And again in 2021, that stat has not lowered in any way, shape or form.
What you can do
So what can you do to get more of these types of clients, these types of guests to stay with you are number one, you can start to market more domestically. Now how are you going to market your business? First things first, Facebook groups, it's a fantastic resource. And you will know Facebook groups as maybe being the hospitality community. But you've got Facebook groups for every single type of niche all over the world, there'll be a load of Facebook groups in your local area.
So let's just say you were based out of Manchester, in England. So that's the city of it that you are based out of. So what you can do is you can draw a big circle on a map around where you are. And you would go and find Facebook groups in the areas in and around. Now if you've already had a couple of seasons under your belt, an easier way of doing this would be to go back on all of the bookings that you've had over the last few years and do the 8020 principle. So which 20% of locations bring 80% of your guests save it, you've got three areas.
So one would be Scarborough, say one would be Glasgow and say, well, we'll be new King. So what you would do is you would go to Scarborough, Glasgow and Yuki, you would find Facebook groups in and around that area. And you would market your business on there. So you would talk about the benefits of you know, working from home, the workcation aspect that you've got good Wi Fi, it could be that you have a desk that has got work equipment, printer, ring light, whatever it may be charging stations, talk about these features and highlight them in the Facebook groups, or be a different post and a different picture than what you would maybe using on your Airbnb portfolio or your booking.com account. So you got to think a little different think, locally, think domestically.
Go to a local newspaper
Another option, which is a paid option is you could go to the local newspaper. You could go to the local newspapers in those areas I mentioned you could do maybe TV ads, radio ads, really get in front of the people that are looking in your areas. And again, I think what's really important here this is all direct bookings. So when you're in the Facebook groups is obviously a free option and you've got newspaper ads, which is a paid option. You are going to be targeting those areas in and around you that aren't too far to travel domestically. So it's a great option to start.
The best place to start right now is you could just pick up your phone, any guests that stayed with you in the last two years but you know that was on a workcation or stayed for work, contact them and say Do you know anyone? It's a, it's the most powerful marketing tool that there is. Do you know anyone that has come to the area? Do you know anyone that needs accommodation? You start with that, and reverse engineer from there.
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