Introduction to the Brand New Hotel Marketing Podcast S1E1

Welcome to the latest episode of the Boost Hospitality podcast. My name is Mark Simpson and I'm the founder of Boostly. And over the course of these next five episodes I'm going to show you how to boost your direct bookings for your hotel, guest house, holiday cottage, anything in the line of hospitality accommodation in the uk. In this episode we're going to start with, most important, this is your website. This is the place where your customers is the first place where they go to and it hopefully will be the last place they go to before making that booking. I'm going to talk to you about the very simple steps you can do to your website right now to make sure that when a customer, a potential customer, comes onto your homepage that they don't go off and go to somewhere else. We're going to be covering the Grunt test. Your images, mobile friendly, responsive websites, a clear unique selling point and your book now button. So for the next eight minutes or so, this is Boost Hospitality. So first of all we've got the Grunt test. Now you may be wondering what that is. There's a very good blog online by Donald Miller and I'll include the links in the show notes. Donald Miller is of storybrand and he has come up with a method which will help you increase your click throughs, your purchases on your website. And the grunt test is this. You will show your website, your homepage to a random person. You've got five seconds to show it, then you'll turn it off. They then got to tell you all about your brand or your hotel or your business. So you've got to ask these key questions. What does my property offer? How will by staying at your property make that customer's life better? And what do you need to do to buy now or get started? Those are the three components after showing someone your website. So this is the first part answering that question. Number one, a nice big clear image, a bright image, a welcoming image on your homepage will go a long way to getting that booking. Make sure that all of your images are up to date. When you are advertising your property, say that you've got new rooms, you've got new pictures. Make sure that when people go onto your website, they're not looking at those old pictures. Number two, make sure that on the homepage of your website, right in the eye line, is a clear message of why someone should stay with you. This is the USP unique selling point. So when somebody comes onto your website, the first thing they need to do, they have a clear message of what you will Provide, for example, if you've got a hotel with sea views, emphasize on that fact. If you are a property which offers something unique, for example a vegan breakfast, vegetarian breakfast, emphasize on that. You want to be focusing on your core customers you want to attract in your business and putting that message on your website. Finally, you want a very big book now button. You want it so it stands out. You want it on the top of your website, very clear, nice big button saying book now or check availability. By doing those three things, you will help your homepage of your website stand out also. And this is very important, make sure that your website is mobile responsive. In other words, make sure that when somebody visited your website via their smartphone, whether it be an iPhone, a Samsung or or any other type of smartphone, that it is responsive to that unit. The majority of people that visit your website will be visiting you via a mobile phone. So if you've got an out of date website, you are going to be hurting your chances of making that booking. So first thing you need to do, go speak to your website provider if you have one, and just check that is mobile responsive. If you haven't got a website provider and you're stuck, the easiest thing to do is go onto your desktop right now, go to your homepage, click and hold on the bottom right hand screen of your browser and start to drag it and make it smaller. When by making it smaller, if it amends and changes into a more compact, more concise look, then your website is mobile responsive. If not, then you need help. If you get stuck on this one, I'm more than happy to help. Send me an email. Markoostli M A R K. Ask me to look at your website and I'll give you a simple yes or no. Other important things to factor in. 1. Is your phone number clear? If you want to increase your direct bookings and you want people to come to you instead of going to the online travel agents, a phone number goes a long way. Have it really loud, really clear and even put a message on there saying for the best rates, for the best availability, call us directly. It goes a long way. Thank you for listening to this edition of the Boost Hospitality Podcast Episode two, which is available right now. We will focus on the next step, the next very simple step on how to increase your booking. I'm going to talk about TripAdvisor and how by utilizing the free tool you can help boost your bookings. We would love to hear your feedback. Email markoostly.co.uk Let us know if you implemented any of today's tips into your online marketing and also we would like to know your thoughts and feedback about the way we have released this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, really appreciate if you give it a review on itunes. Also come and say hi on Twitter oostleyuk. That's B O O S T L Y uk. Give us your thoughts, give us your feedback and let us know how you got on. I believe nobody else has done this before. We've released it in a Netflix style of six episodes all at once. So Podcast two, you don't have to wait a week or tomorrow. He's available to go get right now. Download from the from your podcast store and you can listen to number two, number three, number four, five and six. 10 minutes long. It won't take much of your day. If you want to listen to the six out front, that's only an hour. That's the reason why we want to do this. We know that in the hospitality industry time is very short. So what we want to do is we want to release these six podcasts, get your feedback. If you find that it's providing value to you, then we will do more. Thank you again. Speak to you soon.