which is the best advertising in terms of value for money

[amesbury druid]

I have over the years tried many ways of advertising my business. Stillwells was very good at one time but now seems to generate very few bookings: similarly, Smoothound doesn't seem to be as good as it once was.
Some have been very good investments and others rubbish. Fortunately I do not have to advertise much these days as I generally have more trade that I require, but it would be good to here which advertising generates the best results.

[Ebor1]

I'm not saying this is the best advertising ever, but I find the most "cost effective" is the widespread availability of business cards for our guest house - every bedroom/lounge/breakfast room has a supply. As I take people to their room, I tell people to take one with them for use in taxi's etc - particularly if they are doorstep customers.

I have had people re-book 8 years after an original stay with us; using the original card they picked up - tranferred from one handbag to the next... and everytime they come across it in a wallet/handbag/purse the opportunity to get another booking occurs. For the cost per card nothing comes close!

As for attracting new business I wish I knew! Stillwells/Smoothound never did any business for us and the few that manage anything in their first year of operation, generally fade to nothing in year two.

[imported_tessa]

I am in my third year of the business and decided at the beginning of the year to try Eviivo online booking system which I have found has given me a good number of extra bookings, especially in view of the credit crunch. Yes they take commission but only on a booking. They are also very helpful especially when you are setting up.

[Raincliffe1]

You have more trade than you 'require' - require to keep your staff busy? require to achieve 70% occupancy, require to make a profit? If that is the case is it really that important to know what advertising works? We have a healthy business however you always want to know ways of marketing your product in order to reach new customers both home and abroad hence we are always considering new forms of advertising and often it is the most innovative that work, sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith and hope that it pays off - sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. My husband distributes our hotel literature across the continent with his haulage business. For the first 3 years nothing, then the subsequent 3 years resulted in 30+ bookings. There can often be a 'dead' period with advertising before any results kick in.

[Joyce Taylor]

I think you have answered your own question, it is word of mouth the best advertising by a mile. It is even quicker now that the internet plays such a large part in people`s leisure planning. (unfortunatly bad publicity has also speeded up as well so it keeps us all on our toes)

[Jules]

Word of mouth and recommendation go a very long way and also give the opportunity to quickly build a great rapport with the guests - with the common ground of their friend/relation/work colleague who recommended you to them - which smooths the way for further recommendations.

Tripadvisor is extremely powerful if you can encourage your guests to review your establishment on there (obviously only if you are confident you are providing an excellent service and product and they leave you satisfied!). It's free and unbiased. There are other accommodation review websites which are growing in popularity, but none matches this one. If you're not on there now, register without delay as it will be well worth it. www.tripadvisor.co.uk.

Another idea for free but effective advertising is to register with other 'information' websites not just with the cream of those million or so accommodation sites (where do you stop and most bring zero return!), but think laterally - what are visitors coming to you area to see or do? Walk? Cycle? bird watch? Visit theme parks or other major attractions? Attend a wedding? Dine at a renowned restaurant? Bring the dog and walk every day? Many websites which cover these kind of interests have accommodation guides on there too, or at very least may be happy to link to you as a useful resource for their visitors. So email them or register with them (often free) and you will be surprised at how worthwhile that will be in many cases. If it took you 10 minutes to register, cost nothing and you got even just 1 or 2 bookings a year, it's worth it AND it helps your Google ranking too if they are respected websites!

[Raincliffe1]

Agreed, travel review sites are powerful tools in swaying people's opinion however I would personally ignore any review that consists of a couple of lines saying the following: 'It was a nice breakfast, our room was nice, the owners were nice, we will be back...' These reviews tell you nothing specific and I believe they are just put on by whoever to boost the ranking of the hotel (but that's my opinioin).

[amesbury druid]

You have more trade than you 'require' - require to keep your staff busy? require to achieve 70% occupancy, require to make a profit? If that is the case is it really that important to know what advertising works? We have a healthy business however you always want to know ways of marketing your product in order to reach new customers both home and abroad hence we are always considering new forms of advertising and often it is the most innovative that work, sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith and hope that it pays off - sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. My husband distributes our hotel literature across the continent with his haulage business. For the first 3 years nothing, then the subsequent 3 years resulted in 30+ bookings. There can often be a 'dead' period with advertising before any results kick in.

yes I have more trade than I require, I was just trying to stimmulate a discussion (which seems to be working. the topic is more for others than myself,but ofcourse things change so i may not always have a suriet of customers and may require the info myself?

[Raincliffe1]

Agreed circumstances do change, often due to factors beyond our control; but recommendation/word of mouth is probably the most vital form of advertising, returning customers are the holy grail. Contented, discerning customers are the best form of advertising as they inform other likeminded nice people.

[Dick&Dom]

Add an "Extreme Tracker" to your website, its free and it lets you know where all your hits are coming from. This will then tell you who are the best ones to advertise with as they are sending people to your website.

click on and check out the little square "planet" box on the front page of our website [url=http://www.bandbcirencester.co.uk]

Go right to the bottom of the first page and select referrer2

It gives you an amazing assortment of statistics.

[Raincliffe1]

I will certainly give it a try out of curiosity, I'll let you know how I get on, thanks.

[jpenticouk]

We have found the following very successful:

-acceptance into Sawday's Special places to stay' (Johansens did not achieve any volume for us, but is highly successful for others, but being part of a reccommending group is very powerful)

- someone put us on a national newspapers site for reviews by travellers- I agree that all review sites (tripadvisor, booking.com, laterooms etc) are very influential

- we get 80% of bookings through our own website, using Guestlink for online booking requests, and 20% via phone and other late booking portals, including our own Tourist authority sites

- we distribute our leaflets to local attractions who act as reccommendors (and do the same for local suppliers ourselves as a mutual benefit)

- we live by the google analytics associated with our own websites, which shows the sources of all web traffic fairly accurately (although the providers of traffic such as smoothhound always claim hits wildly in conflict with the traffic reported by Google. But this does allow us to see which web sites on which we advertise are effective or not.

- we have given up general print advertising except for specialist press such as that for walkers. We never recoup our outlay in increased bookings.

- we ALWAYS have a special offer of some sort displayed prominently, on the advise of reccommendors, as a lot of people search on travel web sites only under the category of special offers. Doesn't have to be much, maybe only a bottle of wine, but it gets your site found.

[baz]

When you advertise anywhere ensure that your advert can be found. If you are choosing a directory to advertis on then, ensure it on the front pages of search engines. We have a guest house in Blackpool and when you search accommodation in Blackpool, www.blackpool4hotels.com is on the front page. If you can find it then so can your customers. A another blackpool site is www.csideholidays.com that appears high if you are searching guest houses in blackpool.

There are many sites that will advertise your place and many different costs so check them out before you pay.

[Starchip]

I would agree with Jules here.

But take it one step further.

Do not only trawl the websites of your local colleagues/retailers/pubs/restaurants - in fact, anyone that is running a business witin a mile of you - walking distance - right?

Visit, personally, each and every one of them. Sure, might take a while, but do at least six a day at the beginning. Meet the Owner/Manager. Talk to her. Tell her what you are doing and where you are. Give her your business card. Take a few of their menus/brochures/price lists to display for your guests. Offer a discount if your guests were recommended by that establishment. Ask for a discount from that establishment for your guests.

Don't forget the Taxi rank.

Remember - Free dog in every wardrobe. Everyone is looking for a bargain.

[Sue Greenwood]

Hi - this is my first year of running a holiday let - and thanks for the really useful suggestions. I'm small-scale (only one property) and do this as an 'extra' job, so it's the cheap and easy ideas that appeal most to me - particularly stuff I can just do online myself.

If you're reasonably confident in your own ability to market your property, particularly in writing, I'd suggest using free software out there to create your own website or brochures.

I used Wordpress to create my own website for free (http://hullholiday.wordpress.com/) - it's blogging software, but works just as well in creating a static website. Blogger is good for that too. It gives you flexibility to change your 'Top ten' or add news or offers yourself. And you can still use Google Anaytics or StatCounter (also free) or other traffic trackers.

I also used Sweeble publisher (www.sweeble.com) to create a colour printed brochure for the flat - really cheap (8 pages, 25 copies cost me around £40) and looks brilliant. Every guest gets one sent to their home with their booking confirmation and the local tourist info centre has copies too.

I really like the business cards idea too. I think, while websites will get your initial bookings, print works well with repeat bookings and word-of-mouth - there's nothing like having someone pass on a leaflet or card from somewhere they've stayed to a friend.

[Torquay]

HI, new member here from guest house in Torquay. I have a couple of questions concerning advertising - can anyone tell me if they use the "iknow" websites for advertising, such as "iknowdevon" "iknowyorkshire". They promise a certain number of enquiries depending on what package you are on but how can they make promises like that. I have signed up with them and have had a few enquiries but no conversions. This also links to my second question, what is the opinion of everyone when an enquiry comes in, should you reply by email or ring them up to give a quote, I dont come from a sales background and find the second option daunting! But if experienced guest house owners get more success then will seriously consider this. Any sales lingo would be greatly appreciated.

[Sue: White Horse Walking Holidays]

........... what is the opinion of everyone when an enquiry comes in, should you reply by email or ring them up to give a quote, I dont come from a sales background and find the second option daunting! But if experienced guest house owners get more success then will seriously consider this. Any sales lingo would be greatly appreciated.

I'm still new to this too, but speaking as someone who also likes to stay in B&Bs, I reckon that if they email, then you should email back, offering to phone them if they'd like further info. I tend to speak on the phone to most of my guests at some stage (because I'm mainly a walking hol business and it's good to discuss their requirements personally - plus some are quite old and don't have this new-fangled internet stuff!!) but not until they indicate an desire to do so.

Regarding advertising, when I started a year ago, I was suckered into several things that haven't led to a single booking, so am much more wary now.

[Raincliffe1]

Yes, we tried Iknowyorkshire about 4 years ago after some neighbouring guesthouses told us about the deluge of bookings they were having via this site. We got a big fat nothing and attempted to get our money back (they offer a full refund in their advertising) however this money back guarantee assumes you convert 30% of the enquiries to bookings, even if the enquiries are for times when you are full.

Last year, against our better judgement we went with them again and had a very poor response. In terms of sales we have recouped our outlay although I doubt very much that we have actually made any profit from these bookings after the £500 annual fee is deducted. Apparently, there is a better take up on enquiries if you telephone but we are very disillusioned with the fact that we often get number unobtainable, voicemail, ansaphone etc or a person who does not really appear to know what the heck they want. But that's just our experience, I'm sure other people have had better ones...

Katherine

[greenbarncottages]

We've been with iknowlakes for our first year, and had a few enquiries and a few bookings. We do get a number of redirects to our website, (based on our own stats, not iknow's), and the number seems out of proportion to the enquiries. Okay, we don't have our availability on iknow, so arguably loads of people are coming to our website to check, and just happen to be looking for the weeks we're fully booked. I'm not convinced.

It's due for renewal in August, as iknowlakes have been telling me for the last four weeks, and I'm considering what to do. Although we're in Cumbria, our location is closer to the Dales than the Lakes, and I was pondering whether to switch to iknowyorkshire as a trial - listing on both is financially not an option! As we are new and still building our repeat and word of mouth business, dumping a potential source of bookings is a tricky decision, but Googling with appropriate keywords doesn't return iknow that high on the page. All food for thought!
I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on the fact that iknow also link to Hoseasons cottages from the same page as our listing. Something in my mind says this is not a good thing, as rather than going off to look at one independent owner's website and returning, going off to Hoseasons gives a whole new set of listings to look through, so they may not return to check out on us independents. Any views?

We seem to get best returns from Independent Cottages and Holidaylets.net, so we're definitely renewing them. So far we've had nothing from VB, which surprised me, but it seems that this is not uncommon?

[West Country Chic]

I too have been with iknowDevon for the past couple of years. the first year was certainly worth the money but no so again this year.
I think their problem lies in the fact that their success has become their downfall. They have encouraged too many people to sign up with them, hence too much choice for potential guests and diluting the enquiries to a minimum. Converting the few such enquiries to bookings is especially hard at the moment and as the other comment made often the enquiries are for bookings that we cannot offer.
Their response is that at some stage they will be splitting down the areas further hence less perceived choice, not convinced though. We are seriously considering not renewing as well.

[denny (member)]

HI, new member here from guest house in Torquay. I have a couple of questions concerning advertising - can anyone tell me if they use the "iknow" websites for advertising, such as "iknowdevon" "iknowyorkshire". They promise a certain number of enquiries depending on what package you are on but how can they make promises like that. I have signed up with them and have had a few enquiries but no conversions. This also links to my second question, what is the opinion of everyone when an enquiry comes in, should you reply by email or ring them up to give a quote, I dont come from a sales background and find the second option daunting! But if experienced guest house owners get more success then will seriously consider this. Any sales lingo would be greatly appreciated.

We have been trading in the B&B for 23 years now, and find reccomendations are the best advert going, but to answer your question, if an enquiry comes in by email, I answer by email, with web site address, phone number etc; if they need any other information, they can then contact us, or check out the web site.
The site Iknow, has not generated any bookings for us, you could try some web site's that advertise for free for maybe first 3 to 6 months, then pull out after this time if you have not had any bookings with them. The only draw back is that they tend to phone, and waffle on about what they can do for you if you pay for a bronze, etc. I say our expediture is allocated now for this years advirtising.
We have gone with Eviivo this year, not keen on there charges, we cannot add much onto our prices because of this, we have had some bookings with them, but do loose out with the charges made for the online bookings,. So block out dates when we know we are busy, and only take 2 nights min at weekends. Good luck.8-[

[Der Alte Fritz]

There is an easy test for Eviivo to see if it is for you. Take your existing turnover, divide it by 2 (for 50% of bookings coming in as online as opposed to telephone) and then times it by 6% to get the commission charge. This is the cost of the system on your sales before they add anything.

So for a 6 bedroom property (with about £12k turnover per room being normal) it would have a turnover of £72,000 and online bookings through its own website of £36k which means commission of £2,100 a year. That is before any agent commission or sales are added in.

Now go out into the marketplace and see what £2k buys you. And you will find that you can afford a Hotel grade PMS and online booking system like Hotel Perfect or HotelLinx or a smaller system such as iBex which gives you PMS, online booking and channel management (ie selling through agents) for more or less the same money.

So Eviivo is convenient and easy to set up and use and may link you into your local Tourist Information Centre but with a little effort you can get the same or better results by other means.

We found that Eviivo added about 10% of sales but that was mainly because we switched from telephone bookings to online bookings. We signed up to all the agents (about 60) but only got bookings through 10 of them the best being Book Direct Rooms (Eviivos own site) which accounted for 50% of the bookings. All these agents and their high commissions only grew our sales by less than 5%.

So for us the agents did not really contribute anything much and Eviivo is rather expensive as just an online booking engine and PMS system.

[Need To Get Away]

Hi,

We, my partner and I owned a hotel in Blackpool before deciding with my IT experience to develop a number of IT based solutions given the cost of advertising in the industry. We welcome your feedback if you don't mind.
To give my 2p worth, unless you are a small, well established business in a non competitive corner of the world, you have to consider very seriously about advertising online....and I mean to do it.
When we had the hotel, we had great success with Booking.com, however they were too expensive to use for the long term. I then started to optimise our own business website and installed an online booking system on our own website. This reduced other agency fee's approx 30-40%. I would say that our door knocking bookings would be no more than 1% of our total, and that's being generous.

Points I would recommend to those new in the industry or new to IT based selling;

1. At a bare minimum, you should consider having the ability to book online your own website. Either have a system installed on your current site at cost, or use a commission based model. We charge 1%, Eviivo charge 6%.
2. Be very particular who you advertise with if it costs you money. There is no point paying for sites that don't get scene.
3. Pay for a good quality website and good photo’s. Check our old hotel site as an example (www.windsorhotel.co.uk ) & our friends (www.theoldcoachhouse.co.uk) I cannot stress enough the photo’s, but don’t oversell a picture, if it’s actually a building in a current state of construction.
4. Have an email address with a proper domain, ie. Not Yahoo or MSN based email addresses. This isn’t vital but it’s all about providing the correct image and it doesn’t cost any more to have a info@yourhotel.co.uk if you already have the website.

[Elaine Stubbs]

I think that the 'I Know' site is rubbish. I signed up with them in September and have only had about 8 enquiries and none have led to a booking. I think they have a team just sending random emails to all their advertisers so that it looks as if they are generating enquiries.

Eviivo however has been really good for me. Their commission works out about 6% but at least you have all the money up front and I do get plenty of bookings through them.

[greenbarncottages]

I think they have a team just sending random emails to all their advertisers so that it looks as if they are generating enquiries.



Interesting notion Elaine. I had my suspicions - lots of email enquiries for dates already booked, other email enquiries that didn't convert - but we've had some bookings via Iknow and I'm a trusting soul. Silly me! Had an interesting chat with a nearby rental owner who had the same story to tell......... Coincidence? :-k

[Der Alte Fritz]

At the end of the day, the only criteria you can use for success is 'does it bring me in business?' If you get lots of enquiries but no business, all it has done is waste your time, so dump them on renewal and claim any refund you can get.

[Monobry]

Hi,

We, my partner and I owned a hotel in Blackpool before deciding with my IT experience to develop a number of IT based solutions given the cost of advertising in the industry. We welcome your feedback if you don't mind.
To give my 2p worth, unless you are a small, well established business in a non competitive corner of the world, you have to consider very seriously about advertising online....and I mean to do it.
When we had the hotel, we had great success with Booking.com, however they were too expensive to use for the long term. I then started to optimise our own business website and installed an online booking system on our own website. This reduced other agency fee's approx 30-40%. I would say that our door knocking bookings would be no more than 1% of our total, and that's being generous.

Points I would recommend to those new in the industry or new to IT based selling;

1. At a bare minimum, you should consider having the ability to book online your own website. Either have a system installed on your current site at cost, or use a commission based model. We charge 1%, Eviivo charge 6%.
2. Be very particular who you advertise with if it costs you money. There is no point paying for sites that don't get scene.
3. Pay for a good quality website and good photo’s. Check our old hotel site as an example (www.windsorhotel.co.uk ) & our friends (www.theoldcoachhouse.co.uk) I cannot stress enough the photo’s, but don’t oversell a picture, if it’s actually a building in a current state of construction.
4. Have an email address with a proper domain, ie. Not Yahoo or MSN based email addresses. This isn’t vital but it’s all about providing the correct image and it doesn’t cost any more to have a info@yourhotel.co.uk if you already have the website.

Absolutely Correct, I have perused around 500 websites for guest houses and B & Bs in england over the past few weeks and I can tell you that there are a lot of really terrible websites out there. People tend to under estimate the importance of paying good money for a website. Ultimately a website is how people form there first impression of your establishment. As a designer I would suggest a budget of at least 500 pounds, but thats just my opinion.

If you are computer literate you can actually make yourself a decent website with a "sitebuilder" from a decent host. But to really do things properly you should pay a professional developer. A good way to find one is to find a few sites you like the look of and there is usually a link to the developers website at the bottom of the main page. Contact them and ask them for a quote.

Pictures are also important, I suggest paying a professional to do it.

And about the booking systems, yes i would say it is important to have one on your website. Remember to fill the site with useful info about things to do in the local area.

If anyone needs some advice about website design, marketing or search engine optimisation (publicising your website) I'm happy to answer.

[greenbarncottages]

The main drawback of the level of moderation on this forum is that it kills any spontaneity of exchange of information and ideas.

The advantage of this degree of moderation is that forum spam will be trapped before it appears.

So how the hell did the preceding 3 posts get through?

Edited to add:

As the posts to which I referred have now been deleted - many thanks mods - I'd better make it clear that I'm not referring to the posts by Monobry, Der Alte Fritz, and, er me.....

[Moderator]

The main drawback of the level of moderation on this forum is that it kills any spontaneity of exchange of information and ideas.

The advantage of this degree of moderation is that forum spam will be trapped before it appears.

So how the hell did the preceding 3 posts get through?

Many thanks for bringing these posts to our attention, there was a slight oversight on these whilst holiday was being covered. It is VisitEngland's policy to exclude posts that are deemed to be advertising and spam and we will ensure to continue to do so.

[janestevens]

Hi, I notice that there has been very little mention of using Guestlink as an online booking provider. I am thinking about going down the online booking route but I would appreciate independant thoughts. I run a small (2/3 bed) B & B, in Norfolk and try not to be a slave to my laptop!

[Andrew Clay]

I tried to use Guestlink for self-catering and found it difficult to use and expensive.

[SomersetCider]

We had Guestlink for a while, as part of a membership package with a regional tourism body. It's OK but I found it rather clunky to operate. You've probably seen that if you buy Guestlink you have to pay extra if you want the diary feature (which in my opinion is essential to have). We were with eviivo for a year, but found it costly considering that 99% of bookings were via our own website. Currently we're using Queensborough Group / Q-Book, which I like.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Look at the other thread and you will find about 12 pages of recommendations!
If you have 2-3 bedrooms it is my opinion that online booking is pretty much a waste of time and money. Spend you hard earn't cash frugally on having a really good website and then get it SEO'd so that people can find you.

Then link in with as many listing sites as you can given your budget. If this does not bring you in enough business on the phone then look at one of the really cheap options without channel management, Caterbook or Angelfish would be the two that I would try.

Still not getting those rooms filled? Add in Ibex channel management using Caterbook or Angelfish to link into a few big players such as Booking.com or Laterooms.com.

Alternatively if you want to go directly into the channel management straight away, then have a look at the Booking Button provided by Booking.com. Gives you access to all their sites, will take bookings through your own site using the Booking.com system at a low rate of commission.

I would steer clear of any site that needed an extranet unless it was the local TIC since the amount of work in maintaining more than one diary will not be worth the effort.

Are you a complete computer illiterate? Have a look at Eviivo. It is expensive but you get a lot of help and it gets you a lot of channel management without needing to understand much.

Want total control and flexibility to do it your way? Then look at Ibex which will allow you to do everything but does require some computer knowledge as it is complex.

But like I said at the start, the worlds best booking system will NOT make up for a poor website, so spend the bulk of your energy there and stick your phone number on it and then always carry your mobile so that you can answer the phone immediately.