5 Ways to Boost your direct bookings

Okay, welcome back. Now, as you may have seen in the press or on the Boostly blog, I've recently joined forces with Guesty for our Boostly API website, which is super exciting. And one of the things that we were talking about in how we can spread the word between Boostly and Guesty a little bit more was to do a blog piece. Now, believe it or not, seeing I've got my first book coming out very soon, I much prefer talking than I do writing. And they asked me to put a blog together and I said, listen, I can do a blog, but I'm much better at talking. I can do a video. So how about I put together a little video? I put one together without waiting for an answer because I was just so excited. The reply back very nicely saying, listen, Mark, this is, this is good. I'll have a look at it. But to be honest, this isn't what we were asking for. So I thought, well, instead of just binning the video, why not put it to good use? And I thought, well, let's just use it on the daily podcast. So the next part of this segment that you are going to see is a little video that I put together for Guesty for five tips to get more direct bookings. And I thought it's great, it works well. It's about 12 minutes long, so settle in and please listen. But before you do listen, please make sure you hit like, subscribe, download, but most importantly, share this video, share it with any groups, share it on LinkedIn, etc. If you want to tag in a member of Guesty that you know, please do so say hi. I will be doing more blogs and more work and more partnerships and all those cool things with Guesty over the course of the coming weeks, months and years. I'm really looking forward to it. This is just the beginning. I've got to know some really cool people behind the scenes, chatted to a lot of people a lot of times over the course of the last few weeks. Alexandra, I'm looking at you in particular. Thank you for reaching out and a special mention to Hendrik as well, over in Germany with Staybright. Fantastic people. And I'm really looking forward to doing more and more and more of these things. Take a look very soon at this. I. Okay. Until then, let me quickly switch over this video and we'll get straight into it. Hello everybody at Team Guesty. My name is Mark Simpson. I'm the founder of a company called Boostly. And in 2016, I started to help hosts just like you with the tools the tactics, the training, but most importantly, the confidence on how you can increase your direct bookings and guesty came to me and asked me for my five top tips on how you can go and increase your direct bookings today. So what I want to do in this very short video, which is part of this blog piece, is I want to give you some really actionable pieces of advice that you can do right now. So this is going to not include. Let's get over what it's not going to include. It's not going to include Facebook marketing, it's not going to include Google marketing. It's not going to involve you spending any money on any of the social media platforms in any way, shape or form. Everything that I'm going to give you is something that you can do right now, but most importantly, it's something that's not going to cost you any money to do. So. So let's get started. First and foremost, why me? So I was born into this industry. I was born into hospitality. My parents own a 200 acre farm stay property which is in the UK. I was born into it. And this is when they had the business. This is before the times of Airbnb, this is before the times of booking.com, this is before the times of social media, of guesty or anything like that. So the only way to get heads on beds back then was offline tactics, direct bookings and what did they rely on? Word of mouth, print advertising. Now they're very fortunate that they were one of the first to have a farm stay property. Farms a properties now are very common, they're everywhere. But back then they were one of the first to move. So one of the early adopters and I came into the business in 2011 just when social media was starting to get really popular. This is when review websites like TripAdvisor, et cetera were very popular as well. And I was able to take that offline word of mouth online. So let's start with reviews. If you want to get more visibility and to build a brand, then you are going to need to get reviews. And I don't mean just get reviews on Airbnb as in get reviews on Google. Google Business Listing, which is free, is a very effective tool in getting your business visible online and on the search engines. Very soon Google is going to change Google Business Listing to Google Vacation Rental and you will be able to have access to that as a, as a hospitality owner. Somebody's part of guesty and it's free. I would start to get people to review you on Google as soon as possible. As soon as you've got the ability to have access to Google Vacation Rental. Why if somebody comes into your local area and types in Recommended rental company or Recommended property management company, for example, your reviews will be on the Google Business listing. So it's not hiding on Airbnb, it's on the Google Business listing on your Google Vacation site. And that means that the more you get, the more visible you'll become in that map pack. So that's when you're first on Google. You're looking at the Google search results, you'll see that map. The more active and more visible you are in there, the better. So reviews are a fantastic way. Those five star reviews go a long way in help building your brand. Now, once you've got reviews, you're going to want to shout out about it. Now, when you want to shout out about it, what may you use? You may use your social media tool, you may use X, Y or Z. But as I've said, I don't want you to have to rely on social media, just like I don't want you to have to rely on Airbnb. So what you're going to do is you're going to create an email list. Now there are free softwares out there such as Mailchimp, which you can get started on. Mailchimp is free, up to 2,000 subscribers, 2,000 email lists on their system. So if you've got nobody to email at the moment, this is a great place to start. So you've got an email list. Now how do you go and get people on that list? Well, number one, a very simple and effective way is to pop a little sign up in your units, pop your little sign up in the properties or the units, houses, whatever you have, and just say, would you like to keep in touch? Go to this link. You can either put a QR code that can scan with their phone or they just put a link on where they need to go to to join an email list so they can keep in touch for the latest news, offers, vouchers, things that are going on, events in the area. Very effective, it's free to do. And again by putting it in your property. I always like to do a laminate and I would get a fridge magnet, put it on there, put a sign on the back of the front door. So where there's a lot of traffic, people come in and out the door all the time by putting on the back. They're nosy, they're on holiday, they'll see that and they're more likely to act. One of the really cool things that I like to do a little hack, so to speak, is that with the copy and the message that we do, the message says, would you like access to our top five favorite secret things to do in insert your town name. If so, scan this QR code, pop in your email and we'll send it to you straight away. You can do that automatically through automation on mailchimp and it costs nothing and it's so effective into getting email addresses onto your system. So save now. You've done this for a couple of months. You've got 100 emails. Now the trick is to email people. So what are you going to email them? Well, the thing that I love to email is things that have been going on in the local area. You know, build that trust, build that brand relationship with the person. More often than not it's going to be a guest that's already on your email list. So just remind them about how good your area is. If you keep being present and if you keep being visible and if you are emailing once a month just reminding that person why they stayed with you in the first place, then when it comes round to them revisiting the area or thinking about a vacation again, then they're more likely to choose. Choose you because you're top of mind. So email 100 hands down the best way. Building your own list. Getting your own data is key to building a proper business. Again, the whole point of direct bookings is so you're not reliant on Airbnb, you're not relying on booking.com, you're not relying on VRBO to bring your bookings, you're spreading it around. So start using it like a marketing channel, like Facebook, like Instagram, like LinkedIn, et. But the key goal is to start building your list. So we have done reviews and we have also mentioned Google and we've done email marketing. Okay, so how else can you get diary bookings? Well, let me give you a tip right now. It's the power of referrals. It's the power of do you know anyone? Those four little words are going to transform your business today. Now, do you know anyone can work in a couple of different variables. Let's just assume right now that you are a management company and you are looking to grow your portfolio. Say that you've got five units and you want it to get to 10. How are you going to go from five to 10? One of the best things that you can do is Pick up your phone right now. Let's assume that you've got five different landlords that you or five different co hosting or five, five different people, that these properties, either they're your properties or you hire them, rent them or someone, it's totally up to you. But let's just assume right now through this little story that we're spinning that you, a management company, you've got five different properties with five different landlords. You're going to message the landlord, you can either call them, text them, voice note, whatever you want to do and you're going to start it off with do you know anyone, do you know anyone who is like you and would like someone like me to rent their property from them? Do you know anyone who wants to look at a co hosting model? Do you know anyone? By asking that question, it's getting them thinking and if they reply back to you and say you send it to 5 people, say 3 people Reply back to you saying yeah, sure Mark, is the contact details. Fantastic. You've got free warm leads and the difference between this lead compared to any other person that you may have contacted is that it's on a recommendation. So you can go to said new person and say John recommended that I get in contact with you. By the way, I, I'm currently looking after his property. We, we've got people coming to stay and we've really helped him bring in X amount of revenue or X, Y and Z. And we're looking to expand our portfolio. We've got lots of people requesting to come and stay over us but we need more places to stay. Would you be interested in having a conversation that's that side. Say it works on the other side of the guests. So again with everybody that books with you, you get a phone number. So what you can do, open up WhatsApp or Voxer or whatever messaging app you're using. It's free, send a guest a message. It can be a voice note, a phone call or a text message and just saying thank you so much for your stay by the way. Do you know anyone that's looking for a vacation? Do you know anyone that's coming to the area? Do you know anyone that needs a stay that works for leisure business? Do you know anyone else in the company that regularly comes to the area? Do you know anyone else that comes to town for work? Super simple, free. Asking the question and one of a couple of scenarios will happen. Number one, they don't open the message. Number two, they'll open a message and they won't respond or free. They'll open a message, they'll respond and they'll give you 1, 2, 3 contacts or even better, they'll put you in touch with people that will be able to open up so many doors. So again, the power of do you know anyone? And this is something that you can do right now as you're watching or reading this blog. So pick up your phone right now and send that text message to just one person. And if you're feeling confident, two people. And if you're feeling epic, send it to five people and see what happens. And when you get results, message me. On Instagram is ostleyuk or email is markusly.co.uk okay, let's move in to the last 2, 4 and 5. How can you get direct bookings? Well, the main focus thing that what you need to do is you need to have a website. And not only any website, a good website, a WordPress website. 61% of the world's entire website is done on WordPress. Now you may have a free website or you may have a WIX website, or you may have a squarespace website. If you've got a free website, get a WordPress one. If you've got a Wix one, get a WordPress one. If you've got a Squarespace one, get a WordPress. Why WordPress? Well, Google favors it more than any of us website content generating platform out there. And the other reason as well is that with a WordPress website you've got more power, more functionality and you can do more. This is why with boostie, we've got 700 plus clients and we've built every single one of our websites on WordPress. We build it to be mobile first because we know that your future potential guests aren't searching on a computer, they're searching on a phone or a tablet. But we also as well make sure your websites run super quick. So if you have a website, go to Google Page Checker and go and see how quick it takes for your website to load. If it takes more than three seconds to load, it's irrelevant. Your website needs to load quick. We're in a generation now of Amazon prime, of Uber and all the things that are done at an instant. And if it's your website's not loading instantly and people aren't sticking around to check it out. So get a website, make sure it's WordPress, make sure it's built mobile phone first and make sure it loads, loads super quick. Now if you failed on any one of those, or if you don't know, then go to boostly.co.uk forward/website. Book a call in, we'll have a little chat with you to see if we can help you. So website is key. Obviously you want to connect it up to Guesty, your booking engine and Boostly does that with the power of our websites and the power of the connection that we have with Guesty. So you've got a pms, which is great. The final thing is what you need to do is that you need to use social media now. You need to use social media and I mentioned right at the very start that I wasn't going to get you to pay. Well, this is not pay, this is a free option. You're going to document over create. Document over create. What do I mean by that? So you're going to basically use social media to document the day to day of your business, the team, what there is to do in the area, what you enjoy doing, what your guests enjoy doing, and every now and again you're going to sprinkle in a little bit of sales. So this is our property, we've got a last minute offer, this is our properties, this is what we do, this is how you can go and book with us. If you're social over selling and you give people a behind the scenes peek at what it is to run your business, whether that's through videos, through written word, whether it's through X, Y or Z, TikTok dances, reels, you name it. Whatever you do, peel the curtain back, be honest, be open, share about your business, tell them why you got into hospitality. If you do that on social media then you will get more traction, you'll get more visibility and you'll get more people on wanting to come back to your social medias and in turn you will become the go to. So when a friend or a colleague or a family member says I'm going to go and visit, insert your town name, where do you recommend I go to stay? Because you're top of mind than the social media post they'll go, go check out them. Now I'm not saying with these five tips that you need to do every single one of them, but what I would recommend is just get started with one. Once you've got one done and you've got really good at one, then go add two and three and four and five. But those are the core five key things. If you're stuck or you're overwhelmed, just do one. If you want to do one, do the do you know anyone right now? And then send me a message and let me know how you got on Instagram. Is ostlyuk email markooster.co.uk thank you so much for guesty for inviting me into the blog so I could do this. I hope you've enjoyed this video and as always, please be proactive, don't be reactive, be awesome and let's go get some direct bookings. If you want to find out more about me, let's start the journey boostly.co.uk or YouTube. I've got a YouTube channel and a daily podcast. Go check it out. Thank you so much. Speak soon.