Where to Advertise?

WHERE TO ADVERTISE?

In some cases the knowing where to advertise or lack of advertising and marketing can be the death of a small business like a B&B especially if you are slightly off the beaten track or on a quiet road.

I actually spent a few years in the Marketing business so I was well placed to bring my capacity to 90% full within 1 year through advertising alone! 

There is a misconception that you just put a vacancy sign in your window and people will flood in - not true unless you're positioned outside Victoria Train Station in London.  You Must Advertise!

For getting your own Website see the MAKING A WEBSITE page

I'll start with the easiest and most cost effective way first -

BOOKING ENGINES
Booking Engines mean booking sites such as Laterooms.com, Hotels.com, Expedia.com, Hostelbookers.com or Booking.com and the list goes on, in fact there are thousands but chances are if you've heard of them like the ones just listed then they probably pretty good.  Most little booking engines actually are partners of the giant companies anyway so you can't go wrong.

It is best to have a website first then you can integrate the booking engine you sign up with into your site making your room availability levels easier to control.

So choose the site that's best for you, we've tried them all and I have to say the best and by far the biggest international reach is Booking.com but everyone has different reasons for picking the one that works for them so test their site to see which you like.  Most of them require a Fax machine which can put people off but sign up with efax.com to receive faxes by email and it's cheap

International Reach is very important, gone are the days when we only pander to the British, the most guests we have come from Europe and the US - and they complain less but I'll get into that on another page!

Sign up with your chosen booking engine, all are very helpful.  After being accepted booking.com speak to you for an hour on the phone teaching you to use their back office where you can add photos, descriptions, features, rooms and prices etc.  You even have your own regional hotel manager for any problems you may have.  You can pretty much design the way your B&B looks on the listing page when people search for a town to stay in.

How much does it cost? - IT'S FREE! You don't pay anything until a guest stays with you and has paid the cost of the room.

How do the booking engines make money? - Booking Engines are like the eBay of the travel world, the marketplace is huge and most searches are done through them so you need to be there.  You may think, well how can they take a booking with no deposit and no fees? - it's because you pay them commission on the people that stay with you.

Sadly It's normally 15% commission +VAT so you're looking at 18% - If you take a booking online through a booking engine for £100, the customer pays you £100 and then at the end of said month you get an invoice for £18 - 18% and you pay it.  So you actually sell your room for £82.

Some owners up the price on booking engines in order to cover this but you may have to have the same prices on your website as sometimes the booking engines check to see they are guaranteeing the best price. 

I would say only sign up with two so as to make your room level changes easier to deal with.

BOOKING ENGINE TIP - 
You may have noticed I included Hostelbookers.com in the list above.  Crikey, not a hostel site, we don't want 'unkempt' people staying with us I hear you think.  Far Far from it - Hostel Booking sites such as Hostelbookers & Hostelworld don't only list Hostels, they advertsise B&Bs, Inns, Guesthouses etc right up to 5 star Luxury hotels and their international reach is very very big.

When a guest books through a hostel site they pay a Deposit up front which is only 10% of the price inc VAT, so again, a £100 room is booked but the guest pays you £90 on arrival.  Better already?

Hostel Sites attract a huge audience, not only backpackers but as they have grown in size more advertisers have signed up with them, free of course, to list hotels and all sorts and Hostelworld in particular is the favoured booking engine of some airline companies!

Now try this - Do a search on Booking.com or Laterooms.com for all the accommodation in your area on a certain date, there might be quiet a lot.  Now do the same search on Hostelbookers & Hostelworld and you will notice a huge drop in numbers and they might all be budget accommodation such a hostels and pubs but here's where you leap ahead in the market.... 

...If you were to list your property here knowing the huge international reach that the Hostel sites have then you are instantly tapping into a massive marketplace that your competitors either don't know about or don't know enough about to take that leap into the Hostel World.  Take it from me - If you are just starting out then the hostel sites are the best and least stress free way to enter the market.

B&B DIRECTORY'S
There is a plethora of B&B directories and listings company around and they are popping up all the time so be careful which ones you wish to go with....

www.bedandbreakfast-directory.co.uk & www.bnb-directory.com are two of the biggest and most well known and are also free.  You can upgrade but there is no need to, just link back from your website and they will move you up the ranking a little bit more.

I personally would not recommend Paying to list your property with any directory unless your advertising budget is huge.  It is not necessary and not too many people will discover you through these directories.  But some people do so if you can get a free listing then there is no harm in signing up.  The two mentioned above are the biggest and take free listings so sign up there.

bedandbreakfast-directory.co.uk also allow you to have pictures and a page all of your own!

LOCAL INTEREST WEBSITES
This would mean for example if you are setting up in the New Forest there might well be a 'Welcome to the New Forest' Website for tourists to view and research before they arrive.  Most of these Local Interest Sites offer Accommodation pages.

When you sign up with one of these sites you will probably expect to pay around £30-£50 per year but it gives you a very localised spot on a what is potentially the best site focused on your area.  A lot of visitors come to these sites to learn more about to what to do, if they can see your B&B listed - you might get that phone call!

MAGAZINE ADVERTSING
Be careful here and make sure you find the very best for your area.  Again there are lots of yearly publications listing accommodation in your local area - find the best or at least the one with the most circulation. 

If one company prints 1000 copies and delivers them locally and another company prints 20000 and also stocks them at ferry ports and in Europe - I know which one I'd go for!  Go for the biggest reach within your price bracket

ADVERTISING TIPS
There are lots of tips for getting ahead in the world of advertising but here are just a few I will run off quickly for you, all are guaranteed to get you a booking...

  • Get your own Website
  • Focus on an advertising niche, if you are gay-friendly then advertise in gay orientated guides, if you only use organic food in your breakfast - focus on the organi, if you accept Silver Bars in exchange for payment - say so - everyone likes a niche.
  • Approach your local paper to do a small story on the new B&B in the area to get some interest.
  • eBay - List one night's stay in your B&B for a specific date like you would any other listing.
  • Get Business Cards printed, send it with a letter to all the local businesses in the nearby area to see if you can get some of their business when they have clients stay.  Job Agencies are a good source for professional bookings for single people, sometimes on a long-term basis.
If you are creative there are many things you could be doing to advertise your business cheaply and with great results - just see what works.

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