3 simple tips to boost your Direct Bookings in 2018 S4E7

Welcome to season four of the Boost hospitality podcast. I'm back again to show all hospitality owners how you can turn lookers into bookers, get more heads on beds and increase your direct booking. This season I've got something very special lined up. The Boosterly website was recently voted one of the top 10 UK hotel blogs out there. And after asking you guys, I realized that so many of you haven't actually read the blogs. You said that you prefer audio as a way of learning about new tactics and tips to get in more direct bookings. So what I'm doing this season is I'm going to be providing the audio version of all of my blogs that.

Are on the Boostly website.

So it doesn't matter whether you're on the computer in the car getting ready for breakfast or changing those beds. I can show you how you can increase your diary book booking. Let's get on with the show some.

More help on how to get more direct bookings than read on. I'm going to share with you three really simple but yet really effective tips that I've been doing in 2018 to increase our direct bookings and I'm going to share them with you. Number one, email your guests. 90% of hospitality owners don't do this and and they are missing out on a huge market. A wise man once told me, you have hundreds of people who already know you, who already have given you money, who know your property and you are crazy for constantly trying to chase new bookings. It's true. So many fixate on new, new customers, new bookings, when you already have contacts with those of you who have previously stayed. So why are we not going back and trying to get those guests to book with us? I speak to so many hospitality owners who say that they get a lot of repeat bookings, which is great. And I ask them, well, how did you get them to come back? And they just said, well, they just, they just booked. But just imagine if you actively went out and communicated with past guests and not just a one time email, not just a Christmas card, not just a special offer every blue moon. But what if you were constantly talking to them once a month, once a week, once a quarter. Just imagine how many of your past guests would come back to you. And it's not even those guests coming back to you, it's what if they then recommend you to a family or a friend member. It's basically social proof and it's being constantly at the top of mind and it's what the big brands do. So well, yes, you may get a lot of emails and yes, you may not read them all, but guess what, you're top of mind. So when you put an advert, maybe on Facebook, maybe when you put an advert in a paper or a magazine, you never know where they're going to see you. So when they are doing their search for where they go stay next year, you're top of mind. And this is why email is so powerful. 77% of people have said that they would prefer permission based marketing compared to Facebook ads or radio ads. And permission based marketing is emails because they are signing up to your marketing emails. So instead of just dismissing it as I think it's spammy, I wouldn't like to get them myself. Try and think about the people that do want to get these emails. There are people that have stayed at your property who won your emails. So try and think of it in a new light. Open up a free mailchimp account, create a signup form and off you go. If you want help and advice on this, if you go into Google, type in Mailchimp Boostly, YouTube. I've got a 20 minute video on how to get set up on Mailchimp, how to get started and how to get bookings straight from email number two. Stop the online booking websites from advertising on your name. A large reason for losing direct bookings to the online travel agencies is because they spend billions with Google to appear at the top of the search result. Now there's nothing that we can do to stop booking.com or Expedia Group from paying Google to appear at the top for Google Ads for things like hotels in insert town name or places to stay in insert town name. However, what really annoys me is when they pay Google to appear when people are searching for your property name. So for example, I know it's this. At the granary, we were constantly being pushed down the search results because Expedia, Airbnb and all the OTAs were bidding on our brand name. So when someone searched for the granary in Scarborough, the big OTAs were appearing. So what we did and what we did to combat that is that we fought fire with fire. We set up a Google AdWord campaign and we bidded on our brand name as well. So what that basically means is we set up Google Ads for the keyword Granary Scarborough, the Granary Scarborough. Basically when someone was typing in our name because like I said, with tip number one, guests will want to come back and stay with you. They will recommend you to other people and when those people are Coming into Google to get your phone number or your website address or your email address again so they can contact you when they're typing in the granary. Scarborough, it was us that was coming at the top and not booking.com or Expedia, who are basically trying to get people away from coming to us direct to going to them. The second option, and this takes a lot longer, is trademark your business name. There's a full blog and there's a full podcast on this. So what I recommend that you do, instead of me going into how to Explain it, go into Google, type in Boostly, trademark your business name and the blog will appear at the very top. But those two are very, very key. And the final tip number three, make your website booking process easier. I see so many hospitality websites that just make it impossible for a guest to book. You have got up to seven seconds when someone lands on your homepage for them to decide whether they want to give you money or not. Now that's just seven seconds. That is crazy. In the space of the last 20 years, the human attention span has gotten so low, it's actually less than a goldfish. So when someone lands on your website, make sure it is so simple and so clear on where they can go to book. And for those of you that are listening to this and still don't have online booking on your website, then you need to get this. The rental industry, I noticed this everywhere. There are still rental properties all over the world that still doing the old school method of guest wants to stay, guest has to email and then you have to get back to them. It is a broken process and people are turning off from that and going now to the instant book. And if you don't believe me, just look at Airbnb, look at holiday lettings owners direct. They are all now pushing the instant book route. So stop making it hard for guests to book. Sign up to an online booking engine. You've got booklet, super control, free to book. There are plenty of them which are specifically designed for the rental industry and it will have an instant impact. For those of you who already have online booking on your website, go to your homepage now. Test what it's like on your computer, test what it's like on your mobile and just answer this honest question. Is it obvious on how a guest can book with you? And if the answer is no, then what you need to do is you need to find out what your website should look like. Come to Boostly again, type in what should my website look like? And I've done a video explaining to you all the key things that you need to look for. Okay? Okay.

Well done for getting through another episode.

Of the Boost Hospitality Podcast.

My name has been Mark Singh and.

You can reach out and contact me.

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