How to Achieve 85% Book Direct Rates - Hear From 2 Hosts in the USA & UK

Okay, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to a very special episode of the boostly podcast. A couple of weeks ago, I was invited on to a Direct Booking masterclass webinar with touchday. So Andy and Tyrone of touchday invited me on alongside Arthur from Stayfi. We had Catherine, who was a host, which was really cool. Farm Stay Property in Little Qualm Cottages. And then we also had the American Flavor with Monica from Moorhead Manna, who has a bed and breakfast in the Carolinas in Durham, which is amazing. Me and Alpha were on it to give sort of like an overview. It was really Catherine and Monica who were the stars because they were able to give real life examples of what they're currently doing when it comes to direct bookings. I was really happy to be a part of it. I was really happy to be able to lend some insight and some knowledge and some trends to it. And yeah, thank you so much. So what I did is I asked Andy afterwards because it was such a good session. I said, can I please have the raw copy and I will put it out on the Boostly podcast. So they're very, very kind enough to do so. So here we are. It's about 30 to 45 minutes long. It is really actionable. There's some really good tips in there. And like I say, the stars of the show are Monica and Catherine. So please do show some love in the comments below. But without further ado, let me pass over to Touch Day to hand over to Andy as he introduces the book Direct Masterclass with Touchday.

With that, we are here today to talk about BookDirect and the different tactics you can utilize to try and get more of your bookings directly to you as opposed to coming through the OTAs like Airbnb, booking.com, etc. We're lucky enough here to have a bunch of panelists who are really clued up in this kind of discussion. But without stealing their thunder, we'll ask them to introduce themselves. So, Tyen, do you want to take it away?

Absolutely.

Thanks, Andy. Everybody. I'm Diane Marsink and I'm the queen of guest experience here at touchstay. But I am also a property manager who started out 15 years ago as a vacation rental owner with one property. So I do give that different viewpoint of large houses here in the Midwest as our Branson properties are between four and 10 bedrooms and we focus on three, four generation families. And then our wine country places are historical and as small as a tiny house. So I get to see all Kinds of the run of the gamut, including people making a road trip across the United States and wanting to have a single night stay. And I'd like to introduce my panelists and if each of you could please just kind of give a little bit of your background of where you're coming from. Because we all know how much location and type of property makes a huge difference on your perspective and what you're bringing. And each of you have a very different one and that's why we have you with us. So, Katherine, if you could start, please.

Hi, I'm Catherine Daniel. I'm the joint owner with my husband of Little Quam Cottage and weddings. We have six cottages. We sleep up to 22 people, so we rent the cottages to individual groups, but we also rent the whole site to groups. And we do quite a lot of sort of multi generational groups, family get togethers. And we also market for weddings as well, when they can actually come and get married here. We're a licensed wedding venue pose have put up a marquee and they have a whole weekend here to celebrate a wedding. My background is actually in tour operating. So whilst this was a new venture for us five years ago, I have worked in travel and tourism pretty much all my working life. So a big change, but not wildly different.

Wonderful. Thank you, Monica.

So I'm Monica Edwards from Moorhead Manor Bed and Breakfast, located in Durham, North Carolina, Queen of the South, I guess you would say. My husband Daniel and I own a five guest room bed and breakfast in over 9,000 square square feet of a 1910 Colonial Revival style home. We can accommodate up to 12 people overnight. We also do events as well, including weddings, birthday parties. So we have lots of good fun things that go on here at the end. And we just celebrated our 25th year in this wonderful industry.

Awesome. That's wonderful. And congratulations.

Thank you.

All right, the guys, Mark, thank you very much.

So my name is Mark Simpson and it is so interesting to be on this panel with Catherine and Monica because my background is from a farm stay business very similar to Catherine, but also as well, we had a bed and breakfast element which obviously Monica has. I've been involved in hospitality since the age of four, which believe it or not, is like 34 years now. And I grew up in it. I was just so used to having strangers in my house every single day. I just grew up thinking it was the norm to have a stranger in my kitchen when I came down in the morning for some cocoa pops. And ever since then, grown up in it, developed it Helped build our family business using Book Direct. And now since 2016, I started a little company called Boostly, which is to help hosts get the tools, the tactics, but most importantly the confidence to increase their direct bookings. And it's cool to see some Team Boostly members in the chat, in the audience saying, hi, Hunter. And we had Harold jump in quickly. And yeah, I'm excited to hear Catherine and Monica's stories and provide any sort of little nuggets of advice on top of it, if possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark and Arthur.

Hey, guys. My name is Arthur Kolker and I'm the founder and CEO of StayFi. I have a little bit less experience in the hospitality industry than the rest of my colleagues here, but super excited to be here. So my background's in digital marketing and branding, which I consulted for a bunch of short term rental companies before starting a wi fi marketing and management business called Stayfi, which was founded in 2018. And super excited to hear what everyone has to stay on this panel because it's a fantastic group of people.

Amazing.

Back over to you.

Thank you. So let's get into it. I think the first question everyone wants to know is how much direct bookings do you get? So, Catherine, percentage of direct bookings that you get.

Right. So direct bookings percentage in 2021 was 88% direct.

Phenomenal. That's great, Monica.

I'm at about running about 95%.

Okay, so we've established two people who are driving virtually all of their bookings direct to their website. So thumbs up. The question really is how on earth did you do that? And that's not an answer that we're going to get in two minutes. And that's why we're here on the webinar. So let's have some more direct kind of questions. So, Catherine, talk to me about your 85% or 88% direct. I mean, that didn't come overnight. So what are the sort of things that you did to get there? How long did it take?

Absolutely. Well, we bought the business five and a half years ago and the percentages were much lower than to the point where our predecessors were struggling for business. And they'd actually signed up with a number of OTAs just to try and build the business to get volume so they could actually sell the business. So my estimate is it was probably about 50, 50 back in the day, five years ago. I think what we've done is fundamentally just improve the quality of what we offer. We're on site, we have time for our guests so the actual guest experience while we're here is professional. It's not overly friendly. We don't make. We're not friends with our guests, but we're professional with our guests and we try and preempt exactly what they want and we provide them with everything they need and we try to be the experts on the local area, which was one of the reasons we signed up with touchstay a few years ago, because it just epitomizes sort of the whole expertise angle, which is what we're trying to do.

Are you. Because you're taking that approach with your guests, are you finding that your repeat business is strong? So out of that direct booking, is it a lot about people coming back again?

Absolutely. Our direct booking, our repeat booking percentage so far in 2022 is running at 59%. Some guests even come back. Well, we have one set of guests who come back four times a year, but it's not unusual for guests to come. Come twice a year for a week or so each time. We are situated in the most wonderful countryside, we have the most stunning views, and guests can't get this anywhere else. They come here just to be able to walk out of their cottage door and drink in the view and walk their dogs in beautiful countryside.

So your direct booking success is in a fairly significant way influenced by the ability to which you can get your guests to come back again. And that is in turn a factor of not just your service, but the type of place you have and where you're located. It gets them to come back.

Absolutely. And the other thing I think we very much try and do is value our guests. So we actually offer loyalty discounts to guests who come back once, twice, and the loyalty improves until once you've come back three times, then that's as good as it gets. But we do offer. We offer monetary discounts to repeat guests. And we dreamt that up, really, when we first started here, because we were putting our prices up by so much because they were so cheap, we felt we had to keep our loyal guests on site. And having done it, now, we know that they really appreciate it. And it's something. I won't say they expect it because many of them actually write and thank us for it. It's percentage discounts, but we also come up with little gifts like a bottle of wine, that kind of thing, which just makes them feel special and valued.

Can I just ask a quick question? Katherine, this is amazing and I love that you do that. How are you admin it? How do you run it behind the scenes. Is it all on pen and paper or do you have like a Google sheet going? How are you admin in that?

I basically. Yeah, well, pen and paper. No, I run it through actually, our account system is how I do it. So the account system is actually the automated bit of it. I mean, we obviously have an availability on our website. What we don't have is live booking, but we do have availability. And then I run all the customer data through the account system.

Yeah, I love that. Great work.

Monica, in terms of your repeat business, that's a lot smaller. 20, 25%. So you're succeeding with Book Direct less because of your repeat bookings and more because of something else. What is this mysterious something else that you managed to sell?

Well, I think the other thing that helps us is that when people come and they have a great time with the 20 to 25% that are repeat guests, when they come back, they bring other people with them or they tell their friends and have their friends bring other people with them. So we do that. And since we are a small property, it's not very hard for us to fill up very easily. So if we have a couple or two that come in, we'll basically say, hey, guys, have you thought about doing a couples weekend with some of your best friends and especially opening up? Since COVID people are more comfortable with bringing their bubble with them versus being in the house with people or in a space with people that they don't know. We foster the relationships. We always sit down with our guests at breakfast time and act as ambassadors to the city to find out what it is that you're coming to the city, what are some of the things you like, what do you not like? And we try to direct them to do those things while they're here in the city.

I think one thing about Monica's business is, which is really cool, is that if you were to look at it like the. You look at the repeat guest number just on a singularity basis at 20, 25%, you'd be like, oh, what's that? But you look at the direct booking number, which is so high. So what does that tell you is that maybe that the guests aren't coming back. But one thing you can't track and you can't monitor is that social proof that social word of mouth. So they're going to go home and say, hey, I had an amazing time in North Carolina, stayed with Monica, guest house. Fantastic. She really looked after us. And you can't track that. You can't put that on A thing. So for me to say, yeah, maybe the repeat guest 20, 25%, but the direct booking number being so high, it tells me one thing and one thing only. Fantastic business, fantastic stay and people are going home and raving about the business and the model. So, yeah, amazing stuff.

I think, Monica, you also have a very niche way to get your word out as and it's part of social too, with the radio. Can you tell everybody more about that?

Yeah.

Radio 1, which is a large radio black radio conglomerate in the United States, basically has a campaign to push black owned businesses. And for each one of their radio stations in the major market, well, all the markets, not just the major markets. What they do every Tuesday they pick five black owned businesses and they do all this for free and give you airtime. So they talk about the businesses that they're promoting for the week at least twice in an hour and then every Tuesday that changes. But then if you go directly to their website, they have a directory that includes all of those people who have signed up to be included in these advertising.

Yeah, it's amazing. I really like the fact that your USP is not about the amenities you have or the location you have. It's about the culture. And I think that it's so hard sometimes when businesses think about usps to make their property sound different. Like if you've got an apartment in a city, how is that different from another apartment in the city? Whereas you've shone a light on this idea of thinking about your differences being cultural and actually talking about that, making it an important part of attracting the kind of guests that want to be with a culture that they've chosen as opposed to something unknown. So I think that's really interesting to think about USPs in that way. Catherine, you spoke about USP being important in your business as well. The USP for you is what the farm stay, the views.

It's the views in the countryside. It's the fact that people can. We have gardens around. Each cottage has its own garden, so that's very important for dogs. So it's thinking through some of the little things that it's taken us a little while to think through what we. Each cottage had a garden but they weren't fully enclosed so the dogs could escape, so that irritated guests. So each cottage now has a fully enclosed garden, but we have wider gardens so they can wander and people find it very quiet. They love that they get away from the noise of the cities but then they can walk away, walk from here with their dogs and one of the things that we've done, sort of touching back on the whole thing about experts and trying to help guests have the best experience while they're here. Many of them who've been coming for many years didn't realise that you could actually walk from the door and all the variety of walks that you can actually do from here. So we've put together a whole group of walks that you can actually do from the door. You don't have to get in your car. Doesn't cost us anything. And they're exploring the countryside around here. So there's more and more we're trying to encourage them with more and more things to do that they didn't know about, even though they may have been here 10 times before. So it's trying to help people get more out of a place as well. So giving them reasons to come back.

Arthur, I'm quite intrigued because you have this digital marketing background. So this idea of communicating what, like what you stand for or what's different about you, that's important. Why and how do you kind of do that? How do you get that message out to people?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, this discussion of unique selling point is super important and you can approach it from a ton of different angles. But you know, the core of the brand is kind of how you articulate yourself and your business to your guests. And I think understanding who your guests are and what platforms are relevant to reach them on would be the most important thing I would look at first. So I think, you know, whether that's you're appealing to maybe a younger audience where TikTok or Instagram or having, you know, a robust social media presence is super important, where you know your content will be engaged with and you can encourage people. I know one brand in particular, I think of the United States, Avantstein. You know, they have so much user generated content because all of their guests are tagging them constantly in avance day and they have so much collateral in their home about them and you see them all over social media. But if maybe you're appealing to a slightly older demographic who's doing weekend stays where maybe Facebook is more relevant. Email marketing, really understanding who your audience is, where they're spending your time. Those are the platforms that I would invest in to generate content and engage those guests to drive repeat stays. And I think one really important thing that was just spoken about was giving people a reason to return. Especially if you operate in like a seasonal market, like a ski destination where maybe people aren't aware of the type of activities that people are working on there, like biking or other reasons to return to that destination. So understanding other ways you can drive people to your destination during lower seasons when they may typically only come there for one reason during one time of.

The year, I think that's really important. Go ahead, Monica.

One of the other things that we have going for us too is that we're in a very walkable location too. We have like a performing arts center within two blocks. The Durham Bulls baseball park in the center of the city is less than a 15 minute walk. And especially a lot of times when we're marketing, we're marketing the people that can get here in a four hours drive time. And if you've been in the car for four more hours, the last thing that you want to do once you get here is to have to get in the car to go find dinner, especially if you want to have a glass of wine or a glass of beer or something like that. So that's one of our other selling points, is that we tell everybody that we're walkable to downtown, dining, shopping and entertainment. And even if you don't want to walk, you can catch an Uber. But that's one of the other selling points for where we are, where our location is.

And what I wanted to add with the whole communication thing, especially as Arthur had mentioned, keep in mind that people don't always return every year or every other year or every five years. It could be every decade. I've been around for a very long, I say very long time, 15 years. But what's happening is now that my first guest in those first five years are coming back and it's very important to stay in touch because I'll get an email that says, hey, Tyenne, we've been on your email list for 12 years. We celebrated, you know, Mom's, our dad's 80th birthday. We're coming back for Mom's 90th birthday. And you know, our family has grown, so. So we're so glad that you now have even larger homes. So keeping in touch is super important. And I do personally use Stayfi as well. Arthur's business. And what is really important is getting more than just your booker's email. You're getting your entire party's email. So I really want to stress staying in touch, send those emails even though it feels like, oh my gosh, I've been sending them a decade and I'm getting nothing. Well, you got to be patient and you have to stay in touch no matter what.

I think that we should shift a bit from repeat. Because the question's coming from Debbie, which is it sounds a bit like this is all a repeat business. And the reality is that you didn't go from zero to 85, 95% overnight. You started at zero. Just like probably Debbie's thinking. And I know, Monica, you've got some, some, some tactics you deploy when you get people coming to you from an ota. You tell us a bit about that.

Well, one of the. One of the things, of course, you don't want to tell people to book directly with you once they've come through ota. When. Cause you don't know. I don't know if it's a plan or not. So when, when a person comes in there with an ota, one of the things I talk to them about is just to let them know commission part and how they would get a better deal if they booked directly through my website. My cancellation policy is more flexible. They can add on packages and different things like that that they can't do through an ota. But as life goes on, you know, when they come to me through the OTAs, I also employ tri whistle. And in using tri whistle, I get, I send messages directly to them to ask them too, if they have any questions, if they want to add on things like that. More of a direct contact versus going through the channel with the ota.

Okay, so that talks about the tricky line that you walk between a lead coming in from an OTA and then you converting them into a book direct. And you use some tactics there to do that. But what about those who come to an OTA and poking around and they see your reviews? There's some interesting thoughts you had about you do to review.

Oh, one of the things that I do with my reviews through Both Google and TripAdvisor, which tend to be the majority of places that I receive reviews. When I respond to a review, I basically tell a person that we enjoyed having their stay. I always make something personal. Someone's knocking at my door. I have to go.

I'll jump in. I'll jump in here. I want to share. So to answer Debbie's question, and it's a really, really good one. Now, if somebody is coming to Durham. Durham, North Carolina. That's my English accent coming through there. But someone's going to Durham, North Carolina for the first time. Okay. They don't know any friends in the area. They've never been personally. Then more often than not, they are going to go to the brand that they trust. And whether we like it or not, that's going to be Airbnb booking or Burbo. Okay? So sometimes you're just going to have to suck up that the booking is going to come from the OTAs. But that's where we talk about making the OTAs work for you and not the other way around. You need them for these instances. This is why it's as dangerous being 100% book direct as it is being 100% OTA reliant. But the trick is here is that once you've got that guest to come to you for the first time, then after they've left, just like in Monica's situation, is that when people leave, she's got such an amazing product that she's got people talking about you online. That's social proof. Now, when you're first getting started, like it sounds like Debbie is just getting started, then this is obviously going to be a bit trickier than somebody that is established like Monica and Katherine, because they've got amazing businesses and they've got the power of having that social proof, word of mouth recommendation behind them. But it doesn't mean that it is out of the question to be done. The main thing is, is that, number one, like Tyen said, you've got to stay in touch. If you go quiet, people will forget about you. And it's so lucky that there's a chap to my bottom right who's got a tool that is very handy in keeping you in touch with guests through email marketing and through text message. And it's nothing that is so complicated that you can't get set up. Everybody can do it. The thing that you have to start doing as soon as possible is you've got to get your guests to start talking about you and referring you and recommending you. If I've had amazing stay. And there's four little words that everybody can do that nobody's doing, but everybody should start doing. And it's do you know anyone? So a really simple little text that you can send, a real simple little email that you can send out starts with do you know anyone? So for Monica's example, do you know anyone who is coming to Durham north car? Do you know anyone that needs accommodation? Start by sending that message out and you'll be amazed at how many replies and nods and referrals that you'll get on the back of it. So that's something I'd recommend to you, Debbie, to give a go.

I would echo the whole sort of online presence. If we view the commission payments that we make as our marketing budget. We only actually actively pay to go on a couple of other websites, but we view any commission that we pay as our marketing budget. So we absolutely aim to showcase little Qorm on. In our case, it's Airbnb. And I don't know what percentage of the people who see us on Airbnb actually book direct with us, but my aim is that they at least half of them will book with us direct simply by then coming to our website, seeing our very large flag at the top of the website that says if you book direct, you will get the cheapest prices. And then they can check out our social media presence via TripAdvisor. They can see the reviews, they can see reviews on Airbnb, they can see reviews on Google, they can see up to date Facebook posts, they can see testimonials there. So it's all going to show that we are a bona fide business that you shouldn't be scared spending your money with, which is would be people's reluctance and that would be one of their major reasons for booking with an ota, as Mark said, is because that's where they're comfortable and that's where they feel their money's safe.

Can I add one more strategy?

You want to talk about billboarding or.

Billboards. 1. The other one is, and built by billboard, what Arthur and I mean is your, your property is available available on Your, on the OTAs, but you've blocked your calendar, so you only release some dates to that ota. So that's one strategy. Another one strategy that I use and I can am able to do this. So keep this in mind. One, I don't have a lot of competition in the one area. So that is why this strategy works so well for me. I actually raised the rates on the OTAS dramatically. So on Airbnb, I don't want a lot of Airbnb bookings. So my rate and fees are 50%. That's 5, 0, 50% higher compared to booking direct. So with my branding, you know, coupled with higher rate, people are searching me out direct or they're searching me out on verbo. And on verbo, my rates are higher. It's. I've got a 7% upcharge there. But then they're also paying the Airbnb fee or I'm on the verbo fee. So Airbnb, I cover that fee. VRBO with my properties, they're paying additional 500 to $900 a stay a lot of times because of my larger properties and the price that it is. So knowing that they're going to save a thousand or more if they've, if they're smart and they'll come find me.

Arthur, is that what billboarding is? Is that where you are?

Yeah. And I would just say, you know, core to all of this is starting with obviously a trustworthy website that looks reputable, which is something I know Mark can talk a lot about. And you know, to be honest, a lot of the PMS built websites that they roll out with whether, depending on your industry, maybe aren't meeting that standard. So I'd say, you know, that's really the core. Like brand presence is always going to be your website. And as I'm sure people know, realistically, especially starting out, breaking into a Google search result organically or being in that first or second page is going to be really hard, especially if you're in a competitive market. So I found for most of our customers, the way they drive discovery is through something where it's very easy to discover the brand after looking at the OTA listing. And you need to make sure there's that connection. Because some clients, I look at their OTA listings, there's no way for me to find their website because the information is not there in a way where it's easily searchable.

Yeah, I mean, for example, our website is Little Quorum Cottages and Weddings. So on Airbnb, all of our cottages have their individual names, but it is, for example, Dunkery Cottage at Little Quam Cottages. So it makes it very easy. And in our text in Airbnb it all talks about is one of six cottages at Little Quam, blah, blah. So it's very easy for people to go off and actually find us direct.

We do the same as well. But one of the things you. I know some people may be concerned about parity and we do, I guess what's called billboarding as well, is that when you go through the ota, our prices are significantly higher, which if you. But they are the same as our standard rates on our website. And you'll see another listing on our website when you look for availability, it will say book direct discounted pricing, which is significantly less than our standard pricing, just so that we will remain in parity with the agreements that we have with our OTAs.

So I've got a little hack on this that I can share with everybody and rate parity is becoming to be less and less of a thing. Thanks to our neighbors in Europe and Australia, it's becoming less of a thing and being less of an objective. Because when I was really in the family business, 2013, we were always so wary of the fact that we signed these agreements with booking.com that our price on our website had to price to match the price on the OTAs. We got around that with discount codes, but now it's becoming less of a thing, which is amazing. And here's something that the OTAs, sorry, the PMS providers, so property management software providers are doing, which is so cool. So insert any property management software you go onto the dashboard and there's now a little function on the good ones where you can mark up your prices on booking.com, vRBO and Airbnb. Last summer I tested this with one of our clients in Spain and we marked up the price 40% from the website to booking.com but then what you then do is you then take advantage of the OTAs again, make the OTAs work for you and not the other way around. So we'd mark the prices up 40% on booking.com in their extranet. And obviously if anybody's gone onto your extranet on booking.com, you know, they hit you with opportunities all day long. Try this, try that, try that. One of them is give us a discount. So you go on there and you say, yeah, okay, let's take advantage of the discount. Now when you take advantage of the opportunities, you get the SEO boost on booking.com so the SEO boost means that you have more visible to more people. So let's just say you go put a 20% discount on your rates on booking.com. now some people will go, well, hang on a second, 20%. But let's not forget we've already marked the prices up 40%. So now even with a 20% discount, we're still 20% more from what our book direct is. But what you're doing is you're getting advantage of the algorithms and the SEO of booking.com so they're getting your name and your brand everywhere on the search to a lot more people. But like Catherine and like Monica is doing is even when somebody lands on your listing on an ota, you're branding your business. You're making it sure and obvious that you are not doing this as a part time hobby. This is your business and they can find you online if they've got a question to ask you. So then it drives you from the OTAs back to Google search, which then drives you to your website, which is then how you're going to pocket that direct booking. So give that a go.

Great hack yeah, it's a great hack. It takes a bit of confidence though, doesn't it, Mark, to say, I'm going to price myself out.

If only.

There was a book that literally labeled everything on how to do this and a step by step guide which costs less than $20 on Amazon and you can pretty much get it on Audible, Kindle or Print, but I don't know where that book would be.

Fantastic. I want to talk a little bit about pricing there. We did talk, we spoke about the hacks, but dynamic pricing is everywhere at the moment. I'm quite intrigued as to what because I think somebody mentioned, I think was Catherine. You actually do the reverse of what most people would think when you've got a product is where you generally gradually increase your prices. Given you've got 90% coming back to you, you're actually reducing your prices because you're giving them discounts.

Yeah, we may be. I mean, you could accuse us of being naive and, you know, maybe our regulars would pay full price. But I think that's part for us. It's part of making our regular guests feel valued and it seems to work because they keep coming back and they keep coming back for more. So we have put our prices up probably by 50% since we took over five years ago. We have put them up by like everybody, I imagine by a large amount for next year. And so far people are rebooking for next year. If we then took off the loyalty discount, I think that probably most of them would. But it's enabled us to give people that kind of loyalty and that kind of warm, cuddly feeling and it's worked for us. So I think we will carry on doing it and I do accept it's very hard to take it away now we've started doing it and that's one of its flaws. I do accept that.

But I think you're not in a short term business. I mean, you're in the business. You're not here for one season or two seasons, you're here for years. And I think that the goodwill that that fosters is worth way more. You could make a bit of money extra. I'm sure you could, but the fact that you're driving a lower cost repeat booking back to you and net you're probably still increasing your prices because what you're doing is just unfortunately we've had to increase this year 10%, but you're coming back to us. So we're going to give you 5% off that you still net up. So, Monica, what do you do with your pricing currently?

Well, one of the things I did coming out of COVID was I put a surcharge on a one night stay. So because it's more labor for us to have a one night stay, we're turning over more room. So you pay anywhere between 20 and $50 per night if you're staying a one night stay. But if you're staying more than one night you do get a discount. But one of the other things that I've done is employed yield management with think reservations is occupancy driven and sometimes it amazes me that even my smallest room in times of high occupancy is going to go more than my largest guest room and people don't mind paying it.

Interesting pricing. Mark, good of you on that. Other than the hacking, I think with.

Everything it's all dependent on the current state of demand and what's the market like and all that jazz depending on the time of the year. I absolutely, absolutely love dynamic pricing software tools because what it will do is it gives you not just like what you think, what you assume, it gives you the data that is behind it. And there's some really cool tools that are available now to host. Doesn't matter if you've got one property or 100 plus. It was the biggest mistake that we made 10 years ago literally when it came to pricing. We just put our finger in the air and go, okay, what are we doing? Let's just put it back by a dollar or a pound every year.

It was ridiculous.

But now you've got to take advantage of the software and the tools that are available. Price labs, wheelhouse beyond. There's loads and there's more and more coming, which is so cool. My one advice with pricing software tools is set it up by all means, but don't 100% rely on it. You've got to still have your little instinct like Catherine's instinct is obviously looking after the regulars and that is not naive in any way, shape or form. That is absolutely genius because if there's one thing that I know about this industry, we live and we die on our reviews and our superfans that we create. There's an absolutely no wonder to me that you've got such a high return rate of people coming to you. It's because how you look after your loyal guests. And it's my mission, it's my job to try. Now what I'm trying to create is a tool that will bring in loyalty programs that we can have it for everybody and we can try and automate it where it's not just pen and paper done on account and I'm trying to bring it to the mass levels because it's something that is missing from the short term rental bed and breakfast industry. Like the hotels have access to all this cool technology and stuff. I'm trying to bring this in now to just short term rental hosts. So it's something that is so powerful you definitely got to take advantage of it. Bed and breakfast owners can take advantage of it, small hosts can take advantage of it, but definitely do use it but also keep your smarts about you as well.

Very good. Tyenn, I know that you've spoken about the pricing where you've said you've put it up 50% for billboarding effects but I know you also do manage your pricing and you have got some very big places that attract big ticket sums of money and I think there's a lot of people out there that would be thinking let's make hay while the sun's shining and everybody's interested in our sector and let's jack up the prices. But because you've been through the last two years where that's been a thing. Have you seen now coming out of the pandemic where people now can travel again and they have more choice that there's a pressure downwards on your pricing.

No, not, not here in the Midwest with the pandemic we opened up right away, I mean we were only down for maybe six weeks and then everybody surged because we're rural area, you can come, you stay in your own place type thing. But on the other hand I am in an area that has dramatically had hundreds of homes built in the last couple of years. So you know, yeah, two years ago I had one of a handful of 10 bedroom houses. Now it's, we're looking, I got, I haven't done a latest search but there might be 50, 40 or 50 of them and we've. I'm expecting another 200 homes being built in the next two years so increase dramatically of competition and I only started dynamic pricing within the last year and part of that is the whole data point, point I attempted to do it previously but there was not enough data. Now that there's more competition and more people are hooked up to software, there is more data available and yeah, I still definitely keep an eye on things because like those, you know, Catherine and Monica, you mentioned you, you know your area, you know your area best, you know what's going on. So I do have a bottom floor and a top floor and that top floor I let stretch, you know, and then I have to say, hey, wait a second, the top floor is still too high for this season. No one's booking. It's soft. But the dynamic pricing is thinking, oh, well, yeah, Covid, it was really high. It's like, no, it's not doing that now. So you do have to keep your finger on things. But I am. I'm seeing dramatic pricing. I just booked some of my wine country stuff for 1700 a night in October weekends, when October weekends are our high season here with Oktoberfest. Last year, I got half of that. So it's incredible to let the dynamic pricing do its work and giving it a little bit of space to do that work and then also being aware of your booking windows. I think booking windows are extremely important and being paying attention because, like, my big houses. Yeah, people have to book farther ahead. I'm talking to people who are looking at two years from now because it takes coordination to get that many people together. Whereas my tiny house and my little houses, I might, you know, they might call up that day because they're biking the Katy Trail and they know they're going to stop in Martha's Ville for the night and it's going to rain, and they want to see if there's something available. So being extremely aware of what your booking window is, what kind of pricing your target guest is able to do and willing to do, is really important when you put all those factors together.

Okay, thank you for sharing that. Let's move away a bit from pricing. I want to get into a little bit of maybe some kind of advanced stuff here, and it may be the sort of thing that doesn't work. I'm one of those that's kind of a bit. You know, Arthur, I'm looking at you here. I'm thinking more of dropping a Facebook pixel on your website or retargeting people with AdWords and stuff. For me, I have a strong sense that that is a way to burn cash very quickly. But tell me, do you have a different view? Do you think it can work?

Yeah, I definitely. I would say, you know, success in digital marketing is all about efficiency. And I. Where I see failure is people doing it in an unfocused way where their audiences are too large. And I'd say the one thing to remember when you're setting up Perhaps a Google AdWords campaign or a Facebook Instagram advertising campaign is that the recommendations that the Facebook or Google are giving you are maybe not in your best interest. And you have to keep that in mind because they're optimizing for you to spend more money and maybe they're willing or they're fine with, you know, maybe you're going to hit your conversion metrics you want, but there is green space for you to move in a more efficient direction that it's not going to push you towards because you'll spend less money on the platform. So that's kind of my high level view of kind of the tension between your objectives and the objectives of the ad tool. And you have to remember it. Just like when you use Airbnb, your objectives are not totally the same.

Right.

They're not completely aligned. So you have to keep that in mind. I would say when it comes to Facebook or Instagram advertising, the first thing people have to keep in mind is how you can measure the success of those campaigns. And those basically those companies provide tools like Pixels, which, if you have a well built direct booking website, can report back to the ad tool conversions or sales from ads or content that you're placing through those platforms. So that's number one thing is without the measurement, there's no way to determine if you're being successful or not. And the second thing is understanding how to use Facebook Pixels to advertise to the most likely audience that will transact on your website. And those are people that have visited your website or stayed with you in the past. And it's very easy through Facebook to create an audience where you target people that have visited your website or have stayed with you or in your email marketing list. And that's always where I would start, because when you're doing advertising on those platforms, people are more likely to engage with a brand that they already know about. So you can very efficiently and cheaply target very small lists of people through Facebook or Instagram. And that's typically where I would recommend people starting if they do want to play with those ad tools and grow their social media following from people that have previously stayed with them or have visited their website.

Yeah, Mark, what do you think? Because to me, it still feels like a very dangerous game to start getting into. I think I like Arthur's bit about that. It's the people that have engaged with your brand. Those are the ones you want to try and get hold of. But trying to go out and win business from these platforms, to me sounds like you're shooting in the dark. You'd burn a lot of cash, right or wrong?

I mean, yeah, I mean, you can do it if you do it right. It's like printing money. If you do it wrong, you might as well just give me the money and burn it, because it can. And it's such a fine line. And the problem is, is that Facebook, Google and the big channels and whatever you want to call them, they're always changing the rules. And I know so many people in my community and I see it on a weekly basis where they said, oh, I just got banned from Facebook ads. And it's not because they're trying to promote a scammy, scummy thing. It's just literally because Facebook changed the rules. And just like that, and because there's bots and automations running it behind the scenes, there's no human to talk to. It just happens. I lost my Facebook account for the exact same thing. And it can be tricky. And this is the daunting thing when you talk about direct bookings, because when you talk about direct bookings, people think about direct marketing and they instantly get overwhelmed with all the things that they think they have to do. But the most important thing to state is that the people on this call today, whether you're in the attendees or if you're on the panel, is that it can be done. And this is the cool thing. It's like it's first and foremost you've got to re educate your guest. And there's been so many little bits of nuggets that I've picked up on this, on this call from Monica and Catherine of what they're doing. So the best place to start on your website, you actually state a benefit of booking direct. How are you going to increase your diet bookings if you're not clearly talking about it when people are on your website to say, hey, when you book with us, this is what you get and you don't always have to go down the money value. I feel like so many people, they go, well, you just save more money. But not everybody's looking to save money. Give them the incentives of booking direct. So maybe you could offer a slightly earlier check in time. Maybe you can offer a welcome hamper, just like a bottle of wine, like Catherine was saying, for like the regulars and whatnot. And all you got to do to look at real world examples of this, go look at what the Hilton, go look at what the Marriott, go look at what they're doing. And they have a section for when people book direct, whether it's free wifi and all those other cool things that they're doing. So it is definitely doable. You don't have to get down the Rabbit hole of pixels and Facebook ads and all that cool thing retargeting. I mean, it can be done and it is so powerful. Arthur and myself and Tyenne, we obviously, we know how it works and we've been there, done that, bought the T shirt being burnt. But it has worked as well. And you know, for my sins, now I try and show guests and hosts how to do it as well in the boostly academy. So, you know, it's, it is doable. If you are going to do it, don't just go and YouTube. How do I do Facebook ads? Because you'll get every, you'll get everything around it. Make sure that you find somebody that has done it in this industry. They know what they're doing and they can, can clearly explain it, but it can be done.

Monica, you've done it, haven't you? You were speaking about your Google Ads for your hotel.

Yes, I've done Google Ads and like I said, because a lot of people, when they go, when they Google you, you come up and most, most of the time it's going to show booking.com or Expedia. But the mere fact that I've engaged with Google Ads through Think reservations, I have the little hotel at the little green bed there where it gives you the official site and people can click on there and go directly to book a room.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, we have a question, Andy. But before we get to the question, I do want to bring up just a reminder of everything that something Monica said earlier that I think is super important, I do not want this to get lost, is that she treats the OTA commission as part of her marketing budget. So don't look at these ladies and think, oh my gosh, I can't get to that high of a direct booking. Well, you know what, whether it's direct booking or ota, you have to spend money. So it could be a commission with the ota, it could be Google pay per clicks, it could be Facebook marketing, it could be, and it has to be your website. But there's all these different things that are part of the budget to get people to your property. So think of it that way as a budget, not just as this is the golden thing to do.

That was, that was Catherine that said that.

I'm sorry, Catherine.

Yes, I was going to say with my sort of tour operating background, I worked for BA Holidays for 15 years and a number of other tour operators. Every booking whether. And we were always charged with trying to get as many direct bookings as possible. But in the end, the Cost of sale was always at least 10%. Whether you put it into your book, direct marketing or into your travel agency commissions, it was pretty much no different. So you, you do as. You're absolutely right, you do have to spend to get your customers. But the repeat bookings then is when you save your budgets. But you're absolutely right, you do have to spend it. But I think looking at sort of Facebook ads, Google Ads and all of those kinds of things for somebody who doesn't know their way around it, the safer way of doing it is to go to the OTAs and use some of the tricks and tips that we've talked about today and also look at some of the advertising sites. You know, they'll be different in the US to here, but there are actually some very good sites where you can pay a relatively small amount of money to have an ad on there for a year. You just need to make sure that your text is correct and you keep it up to date with new pictures. You know, we, virtually all of our guests bring dogs, so we do advertise on a doggy website for example. And there are specialist websites out there which will do some of the SEO for you. And you don't have to worry about it yourself because it is complicated and you need to know what you're doing.

Well, I think one of the things that we've not talked about yet is E commerce tracking. Make sure you have E commerce tracking tied to your property management software as well as being able to not only access your Google Analytics, but have it properly coded so that you can understand your Google Analytics and be able to see where your bookings are, how much, what the return on investment is when you're paying for something. I know that that saved me once I started doing understanding Google Analytics when I was paying for being listed on different B and B websites and things like that. Naivety. That's basically saying If I pay $139 to be listed on a website, if I get at least two room night bookings, that would equate to that, that would justify me being able to continue my membership with that particular site. But as most people know, anytime you come into a business, I get emails all the time, list here, list there, list there. But you always want to make sure before you know it, you might build that into your budget. But if it's not having a return on investment, you might need to drop.

Yeah, I think it's really good.

Most of them are a waste of time. Let's be clear about it. Certainly in the uk, most of the sites are a waste of time. You know, they approach you well, just Google their site and if it doesn't come up on the first page of Google, you're wasting your time. And most of them don't.

Yeah, I agree. I mean I think we started talking about some of the more sort of advanced stuff in terms of analytics and Facebook ads, social ads, banner ads, all this kind of stuff. But I think bringing it back to the things that you're really in your control now as we're coming towards the end of the hour here, I think the last comment there from Debbie Mark, which I said you'd answer, I think that's probably a good recap because that's talking about going back to the basics of using the channels to get people into your world.

Well, the first question which Debbie put, which is really cool and it's something we need to focus on because we haven't yet touched upon it and I'll just read out what she put. So are any of you premium priced? Question mark? I'm wary of doing Facebook, Google, Instagram ads marketing because I don't want to deal with the trolls who will bulk at my half price or high prices. Thoughts? And this is really important because every business in this room, whether it's on the panel or in the attendees, has got a different customer avatar. Now a customer avatar is your ideal guest. It's the people that you want to walk through the doors and this is a problem that every newbie makes in this industry. So Debbie, do not worry if you are sat there thinking oh my gosh, how am I to going to deal with this because everybody goes through it. But what I encourage you to do and what I encourage everybody to do is really figure out who you want to be staying at your property. Now we are very lucky in the hospitality industry because we've only got a limited amount of beds, we've got a limited amount of heads to fit on those beds. We are not Amazon. We can't just keep churning it out. So you've only got a limited amount of supply so you don't have to fee or home the billions of people that are on this planet. Okay? So try and focus on a core few demographic of who you want to feature and focus on. Now for you it's going to be the premium priced guest. So don't worry if you're going to eliminate people who are looking for a travel lodge and for anybody who's in the U.S. you will not have a clue what I've just Said, basically, Travelodge is your Motel 8. You know, you want to be appealing to the people who are going to pay premium price. So don't worry about dismissing them because when you try and appeal to everybody, you appeal to nobody and that's really important. So, for example, Catherine Farm stay. Fantastic views. I assume that the majority of the people that come and stay with her, because it's such a high repeat rate, is maybe a three or four hour drive max away. So there's like a circumference that you can draw around. It was exactly the same for us. We had fantastic views, North Yorkshire, Moors, cottages, bed and breakfast, the whole shebang. We created a hashtag which is farmy. We just knew that people love to come and stay on our farms. We had our customer avatar to a T. The people that will stay with Catherine are not going to be the this Is Essex crowd who are looking to go on a party down in Colchester. Again, if you're in the usa, you haven't got a clue what I'm talking about. But just to say where it says this is Essex, it's the Jersey Shore, right? So it's a different demographic.

There's nothing wrong with the. There's nothing wrong with the Jersey Shore, Mark. I lived in Jersey. It's not all snooky and bad, you know.

Well, I'm going to say we're not going to be looking to come and stay at a farmstay property, but that's by the by. But this is what I'm saying. You've got to nail down who your, your guest avatar is. And as soon as you do that, Debbie, and as soon as you do that, Hunter, then your life just becomes so much easier because the copy that you put on your website, the post that you put out on social media, the guests that you come into your doors, the guests that you actually talk to about leaving a review and telling their friends. It becomes so much easier because. Because you've got such a narrow focus on who you're looking to support and achieve. Now, obviously you're not going to turn away somebody if they're literally on their door wanting to book, but if you do it over time, the referrals that you get, the guests that you get to arrive will be more in tune. Catherine's been doing this for a while, Monica's been doing it for a while. That's why the return rate is so high for Catherine now, because she's got people that come back four times a year, three times, they come back for weeks at A time it's so much easier. So my advice to you, Debbie, figure out who your ideal guest is, and then life will become so much easier. And don't worry about the trolls, because they're not right to stay with you.

Can I also say something as well? I mean, I've been doing this for 25 years. When we first started, we were the fourth bed and breakfast to open and we were operating. And then shortly after we opened, there was another bed and breakfast that operated as well. The other two, I'm sorry, the other three had been in business for at least 10 years. And we didn't see them as competitors, we saw them as companions. And so one of the things that we did, because we were all smaller properties, we pulled together and formed what we call the Inns of Durham, which was a five bed and breakfast in cooperative, which allowed us to do marketing that we could not do individually on our own. And so in getting to know the other innkeepers, what would happen is since they were in business much longer, well, longer than we were, and like you said, we only had a finite number of rooms, our competitors were the hotel room in the area. So if someone called, say, the Arrowhead Inn, which was the oldest inn in the area, and they didn't have any rooms available, the thing that, because we had developed a relationship with them, they said, well, you might want to call the people at Moorhead Manor. They may have a room available. So it does not. It may do goodwill for you to reach out to some of the bed and breakfasts that are around you and let you. And get to know them and let them know that you're there, because they're not really your competitors, they are your companions.

Tyenne, you do this, don't you?

Yeah, well, granted, my competitors are my family, so we have holiday dinners all the time discussing occupancy and guest problems and things like that. But yeah, direct competitors, and we refer back all the time. So I highly encourage everyone, find your family, your collaborators in your area. And there's always so many benefits to collaborate together. For sure.

Okay, let's wrap it up. Quick fire. The one thing that you would do today if you didn't have a book direct business to get started. Katherine.

What would I do? I'd build my social media presence. No, I build my. I'd have a fantastic website.

Good call, Monica.

I would say make sure everything is on. Your website is really tight. I don't get a lot of people from social media. So I would say make sure your website is very tight and I think previously when we had our pre session one of the things that Mark talked about was making sure that people can contact you even if you have live reservations. Sometimes people do need to reach out to you in the process of making a reservation they may have to a question. So either have a chat available or have a telephone number there on your reservation page where they can call you while they are up and trying to make the reservation.

Nice. Good call. I like that Arthur.

Website is always number one. But number two I would definitely recommend email marketing would be my first go to channel to drive repeat bookings from your previous guests.

Okay. And Mark, you're the website guy so you can't say website.

That's fine, that's fine. Number one, pick up this, this is your phone. I guarantee in your phone you've got friends, you've got ex co workers, you've got family, people that know like trust and love you. I guarantee 85% of them don't even know what you do. So pick up your phone, get a text message, text them and say do you know anyone that needs accommodation in insert your town or do you know anyone that needs a place to stay this, this summer and send them, send that message to 10 people today. Do it right now. Debbie, perfect example. Someone's just starting go and send it to 10 people right now. And then after those 10 people message, another 10 people. If they reply back to you saying sorry, I don't just say hey no worries, bear me in mind just in the future. Number two, if they reply back saying yeah I do say fantastic, do you mind setting up a group chat or sending me their details or sending them my details. If they book on your recommendation I'll send you X bottle of wine in the post. Amazon vouchers. It is so powerful. And number two come to Boostie for a diet booking website.

Okay, so I got something different. Yes, processes folks. You have to know how you're going to take that direct booking. What are your processes? How are you going to do all this? And also when do you start? You start now, you start yesterday. Me I list the house as soon as I've bought my dirt. So Friday I closed on buying some dirt this week it will be listed and available and I will be telling the story and then people can start thinking and dreaming and then booking. So there are some few things ahead of time that I think we sometimes we forget about.

And I will say the one from me, I was always told don't forget the value of repeating yourself. Do not be afraid to repeat yourself. So if you've got something, put it on your website. If you've got something to say about your direct bookings, do it in your reviews like we were talking about. Mention it on the reviews. If you've got some social presence, do that. If you've got friends, like Mark said, they don't all know that you have this holiday business. So tell them that would. That would be what I'd say. Repeat yourself. Thank you everyone. I've enjoyed the conversation that we had some really, really interesting points. I hope everyone who attended did too. And thanks for your time. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for checking out today's podcast episode. Now, before you head and go anywhere else, before you click to the next episode, before you do that, do me one big favor and go check out boostly.co.uk trust IPRAC are the sponsors of all of the Boostly content and the reason why I work with them and the reason why we spread the message of IPRAC is that when a host or a company is looking to get more into diary bookings, the main question they have is around trust. As in will a guest trust that I am a true and real business? Well, IPRAC take care of all of that and they've got a special offer that is only available to Boostly people. But to do that you need to go to Boostly, which is b o o s T-L-Y.co.uk trust. You can find out all the information there, you can book in a demo, book in a call and then you will get your super special offer that is only available to Boostly peoples. Thank you again for tuning in. Do go check out iprac. We'll be back again very shortly with another podcast episode, but until then we'll see you all very soon. Take care.