Marketing Review

Before we start this episode of the podcast, I just want to give a special shout out to our sponsors, Hostfully. Now a lot of you will know about Hostfully as being the digital guidebook leaders for hospitality business, but they are also an award winning PMS property management software. Right now you can go to hostfully.com and you can get a two month free trial by putting in Boostly in the promo code when you join. Everybody who joins get a free digital guidebook but you can also use that code to get two free months on their PMS software. Award winning software, award winning customer service and most of all just top, top people working there. Please do go say hi. H O S T F u l l y.com if you want to go find out how to set up your digital guidebook, I've done a very special video where boostly.co.uk Hostfully right, let's get on with this week's episode. All right everybody, Good evening, good morning, afternoon, welcome wherever, wherever we are. Yes, yes, yes. I know I'm a few minutes late, but there's a good reason why. There's a very good reason why and I will show you. So number one, as you know, we've been moving house. I was doing a tip run, a tip run just before coming to the office and I managed to time everything to perfection. But then I got a message from somebody who was doing something pretty special. So let me, let me see if I can get this. So as you know, I get Boostly hoodies and tops branded from time to time. Well, I haven't, I haven't had it done for a long time, obviously because of lockdown. But let me just show this. This is the new one. It's got the new logo on. So we've got Boost Lee and there's a nice big logo on the back and the writing on the side. So there's a good reason. Tip run. Picking up the new hoodie. Jamie in Javier is amazing. Thoroughly recommended. So. Hello, who do we have with us? Who do we have with us? We've got Charlotte. Charlotte is obviously going to be getting a marketing review. She's won one. We'll, we'll go over Charlotte's business in a second. We've got Tracy. Hi, Tracy. We've got Haley, we've got Hadeel, we've got Harrow. A lot of people giving me stick for being 15 minutes late. I am so sorry, so sorry. But there's a good reason for being. Okay, so first and foremost, if you're watching this on the Replay, then you cannot win a marketing review live, but you can still check out the timestamps that are going to be added above or below. Doesn't matter what platform you're watching on, whether it's YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Facebook groups, it doesn't matter. If you would like to win a marketing review live with me, I've got three lined up and I've got one left spare to do for anybody. But you've got to be watching live. So to do that you have to come to the Facebook business page for boostly. So, so facebook.comboostly UK all you need to do is share this video and put in the comments shared. Simple as that. I will do one on the live with you. I just need for you to do hashtag shared and share this video and then tap, tap this one of these emojis as many times as possible so I know that you have done it. And then after I've done Liz's, Charlotte's and Sarah Townsend's, then I will do one more. So you're gonna get me for a good hour. So like I say, if you're watching this back on the replay, make sure you please do look out for the timestamps. The timestamps are really important on the replay. But live with me now, we can go through a lot. So if you've never tuned into a marketing review live and if you are listening to this on an audio version, so Spotify or Apple or Stitcher or Google, you may want to come and find the video on the YouTube channel or on the Facebook page. Simply being it's easier because what I'm going to do is I'm going to share my screen. And when I'm sharing my screen with you, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through Elizabeth, Charlotte, Sarah's and one more's form that they filled in for me. And then I'm going to take those answers and I'm going to then share my screen and I'm going to go look at their website, their social media, maybe Google search. We'll see where else it takes us. But the goal is to give one to three actionable bits of advice that they can put into practice right now to get quick wins. That's the whole point of this. I want everybody to get quick wins, try and increase their direct bookings so it means that they don't have to rely on the OTAs. And I love doing marketing review lives, but we're gonna, we're gonna settle in and I do want everybody to join in as you are watching with me. So let me know, number one, what you're drinking. I have got, I've got water in here. I'm being a good boy. I've got water in here. Let me know what you're drinking, let me know where you're tuning in from in the world and also give your business a pitch. When you do share this, all what I want for you to do is do hashtag shared so you can potentially win one and also as well then drop in your website where you are in the world. So Tracy shared it. Thank you very much. Who else has shared it? Nobody else so far. So, Tracy, just from the sheer fact that you've been the only one to share it so far. And again, if you don't know how to share it, there's a little button as you tune in. It's the bottom left hand one, I believe. And you'll be able to share it from there if you watch on your mobile. A little bit trickier, but it can be done. It can be done. All right, Sarah Ralph tuning in from Houston. Sarah from the western side of the world. Gillian from the Isle of Wight. Let's begin. So we're gonna, we're gonna start off with Charlotte, because I know Charlotte's with us. So let me very quickly pivot slightly to a screen share and I want to make sure that everybody sees the Google Chrome which we have here. I'm going to bring this up slightly. Fantastic. Now, what I want for you to do, please, in the comments section, just so I know that you're seeing what I'm seeing, let me know if you can see my screen. Okay? Just put hashtag screen, just so I know that you've done this. And once you've, once you've shared, then please, please do let me know. So just, just to reiterate before we get started with Charlotte's, if you want a market review live on this call right now, hit the share button, share it on your page, share it in a group, share it anywhere, but then hit shared. So I know now if you're watching this in a group, for example, you got to come to the Facebook business page to share it. You can't share it from a group. So let's go through Charlotte's answers first and foremost. And again, as you are watching with me, if any of this relates to you, let us know in the comments. It doesn't matter what platform you are watching on, let us know if any of these answers relate to you. So Charlotte has got the business is called the Scarlet Hen at Norfolk House. The location is England and also as well, a little bit of transparency. This is the first time that I am seeing this Google form. I am seeing this with you. So we're all going to go through this together. How many years have you been in business for? 5. How many properties do you manage? 1. It's a single rental property. Majority is leisure and there's two people in the team. Average nightly stay is one to two nights. Which of the following best describes how you interact with the guest? Hands on. That means that they send them the guest confirmation email. I contact them pre and post date. I interact with the guests during the this day Facebook page, business URL. So let's grab that and we'll save that for later. And also as well we've got the website so we're going to. We're going to save that and we will come back to that. Who designed the website? Charlotte did. When was the website created? 2017. So we're coming on three years old now. Do you have access to Google Analytics? How many visitors do you get a month to the website? How do I check? Are you happy with the website? I don't really know if it's working or not. Which of these PMS companies do you use? So Charlotte is a super control user. Do we have any super control users? I can see a few watching with me. If so, just put Supercontrol in the comment section. If you are a supercontrol user, make sure you're not sitting on your hands on this one. This is one of the live videos that I do, but I love for everybody to get involved. So if you're watching on your mobile, your tablet, watching on the tv, the computer, please do comment below who you use as your. As your pms. See if we have any other supercontrol users. Do you email your guests after their stay with special offers? No. What software do you use? I don't use any. What is your overall occupation for the past year, bearing in mind this has been 2020, so we're looking at a relatively. All right, 51 to 65%, which is good, all things considering what percentage of your bookings are direct. So Charlotte is rocking in with a very strong 75 to 100% direct booking. So, well, well done. Let's get your little applause going. Which means that her average spend to these third parties is very low. She lists herself on Home Away and Airbnb on average. How much do you spend on advertising costs? 100 pounds. So basically spending under two grand a year. Under 1500. And which of the following are you doing right now to promote the business? So they are doing Facebook ads and Google Ads. Which is, which is strong. What do you wish you could have a go at but don't know, want to do more Google Ads, Email marketing, website, SEO? How would you say the majority of your new bookings come in from the websites I list my property on? Wave a magic wand. How would your business profits look like in six months? No Covid. And midweek bookings? Where do you feel that you struggle with to achieve your goals? Midweek bookings. What is the biggest pain point in your business right now? Love. Love the marketing, hate the finances. And finally, how did you find out about Mark Simpson, AKA me? Good old Facebook. So first and foremost, please give Charlotte a big round of applause. Do me a favor, if you are watching on the phone, if you're watching on your mobile, please do me a massive favor and just tap that love heart emoji button as many, many, many, many, many times as possible. To Charlotte, say well done for that because it is a, it is quite daunting doing this and you know, even though that Charlotte, you know, it's still dying to be the focus of attention. So what we're going to do is, what we really want to do is help, help Charlotte get a little bit more clarity. Going to give us some actionable advice, something that Charlotte can be, can be doing right now. So first and foremost, let's venture over to the Facebook page. Now, instantly what I love is, is that the profile page, the profile image here isn't of the business, it's of Charlotte or Charlotte's team. Okay? So this is, this is really key and everybody should be doing this, but not a lot of people do do this. When you have your Facebook business page, don't think that the profile image needs to be your logo. Please don't do that. You know, you've got to add the personality behind your business, behind your brand. Okay? Don't hide behind the logo. Don't hide behind your business. We are in the most sociable business that there is in industry. That there is especially someone like Charlotte who welcomes the guest at every single step of the way. So when they arrive, because they will check out the Facebook page, the stats show over 75% of people will check out your Facebook page after the point of booking. Then they can get acquainted to you and your personality and all of those things. And don't assume that your guests don't do that because they do. They may not tell you that they do, but they do so have. That is key. One tip that I would give Charlotte straight off the bat would be make full use of your Facebook cover picture. Now, with the Facebook cover picture, as far as I'm aware, I'm still sure you can do this. You can have up to five or six pictures. So I would use this to showcase your property because it looks stunning. You know, it instantly has a feel to me of an old, old household manner. The windows look fantastic. And what I would be doing here would be taking full advantage of it. So you get five to six pictures. So treat this like you would maybe do your Airbnb listing. You know, your first five to six pictures on Airbnb need to be spot on. It needs to sell the story. They need to go from one to the other. So your next picture could be an interior one. It could be of the living space. The next one could be of the kitchen space. The next one could be of. Of one of the bedrooms, maybe another exterior shop. And then finally would be something like, what's your unique selling point? So the first one to write down Charlotte would be take full advantage of that. Add more pictures if you have it. If you've got a video, replace the picture with a video. Because the video plays on Autoplay, really popular and it just means that people will stick around in your page more. A top tip in SEO doesn't matter whether it's search engine, doesn't matter whether it's Google or whatever. The longer you can get somebody to stick around on your Facebook business page, then the more that Facebook will go, oh, this user likes to find out more about this business. And obviously everybody now should have watched social dilemma on Netflix. If you haven't, go check it out. And the more that you are spending on the app, Facebook adores it. So if you can get more people to spend more time on your page engaging with your posts and your content, then the more your business will be shown on Facebook. It's just common sense. Okay? So try and do that if you've got a video. Fantastic. Video always works better than picture. All right, so the pinned post here is Yorkshire's finest boutique retreat, sleeps 20 hen party specialists. So it's talking about hen parties, which. Which is nice. I would look at maybe updating this pinned post, what I would be looking to do here, because this is the first thing that people see, Charlotte, when they come onto your. Onto your business page. So I would, I would really have it especially seeing that, that now, and Facebook seems to have got rid of the, the, the story element. You know, Facebook used to have a story page right here, a story section on their business page. They seem to have got rid of that. So what I would be looking to do would be putting in something about, you know, the about us section. So the section that you should have on your website, which is about, okay, so about Charlotte or about the business. So you can just literally take this. You've got a virtual tour, which is awesome. So take something like this and create a post around it. And, you know, if you're confident, you could do a video, a live video, like a walkthrough video, something of the, of the property. So this will be the first thing that anybody sees when they come, like, say, I'm looking at this for the first time. This is the first time that I've looked at your page, you know, so make sure that when they, they come to it, make sure this is, this is relevant. So try and treat me as the first time somebody coming onto here. Okay? So again, bearing in mind this is something that you can do. Okay? So as we scroll down, that's a lovely, lovely Christmas tree, which is great. Again, nice and up to date. So it was only two days ago. And again, you've got lovely Christmas tree, which again, you could use that as a story on Instagram, etc. And you know, it's getting, you know, everybody loves a picture of a Christmas tree or a video of a Christmas tree, and you've got a lot of people there that are liking it. Now, one, one tip. Again, one tip. Charlotte, if you're still with us when somebody comments on your Facebook business posts, Facebook business page, try and do as best as you can to comment on the comments because there's one thing that Facebook is really encouraging now is it's discussion. This is one of the key factors in more posts being seen by others is discussions that is happening. So if somebody takes the time to comment on your Facebook business page post, try and take the time to respond, okay? And it only takes a couple of minutes. Literally takes a couple of minutes. You can do it, you know, at the end of the day or, you know, during like focused work time or whatever that may be. And, you know, I know what it's like. It can be hard to be perfect and get it done every time, but, but especially on a, on a post like this, that's got a bit of engagement as it is with the likes. If you can take the time out to reply to Andy or to reply to the lane. Then again, and if you ask a question, they get that little notification bell that's at the top here and they will come back to it and it'll encourage them to come back to your page. So the more times you can get people coming back, then the more time your content will be, will be same. Have a little look down here. Now answer me this question, Charlotte. And again, you're doing this on, on the live with me here, but are you posting this on Instagram as well? Is that why the hashtags are there or are you experimenting with the hashtags? Please let me know. Really, really nice photography. Well done there. Okay, so it looks like we've got a double picture, a double video here. But again, you've got a ton more content this time, which is lovely. And okay, so this, this is, this is nice. This is really good. So one thing that, that I really like what you've done here is a lot of people will just share a business page post on their business page to produce the content. It's a lazy way around. But what you've gone and done is you've actually gone and put the post together and you've actually tagged in the, the business here, which is arcade coffee and food, which is a really good way to go. So obviously you're producing this content on, on Instagram and it looks like that you're just recopying it into Facebook. But again, it, it looks good. It looks good. You've got a very Instagrammable, a very Instagrammable property here. And so you can see why you get a lot of, you can see why you get a lot of your content. A lot of your attraction is on, is on the Instagram. Let's have a little, little switch over. And again, if anybody would like to go and follow Sharla on the Instagram. It's a very Instagrammable business. I can see this already without even looking at it. Let's see. Oh, getting in on the, getting in on the reels, which is good. So look at these. So 1,265 views. So again, if nobody. There you go, nice little reel there. So if nobody's checked out Instagram reels yet, this is here. It's basically just like TikTok but on Instagram and they're putting a lot of views onto it. So as you can see, if we scroll over here. 269 Plays 6 Comments We've got lots of love over here. We've got a nice steady amount of followers. You're doing all the things. And again, you're doing the Instagram stories, which is, which is lovely. So well done, well done, well done. And I'm following on there. So, yeah, brilliant. Really, really good, really nicely put together. And just document in your business is a good thing to see. Again, so many people don't do this, just document in your day to day. You know, people love to follow and I guess especially when it's a very sociable business like this where you get to know your guests, you know, you obviously it's very much catered to, Hen parties, etc, fine boutique, etc. It's, it's very geared towards it. But you, you are in an industry where you can definitely keep in touch via Instagram, I would imagine more than others with, with your past guests. That's awesome that you are following floor plans. Carmen, at Floor plans. Have you had a floor plan done of, of Scarlet House, Norfolk House, sorry, Scarlet Hen. Let me know because it is a, I think a, a customized floor plan would be fantastic on, on here. All right, let's just go quickly to the website. And this is where it all boils down to. So if you're spending money on Google Ads, for example, and if you're driving people to your website, it is absolutely key that you have got a website that is going to turn lookers into bookers now. And obviously you did this website and I know that you said that you. Did this website a couple of years ago, right? There's a couple of things I want to, I want to show you here. So this is. And again, if you've ever watched a marketing review live, you will, you will know that I often come back to this because it's, it's one of the most biggest things that so many hosts hosts do is that when it comes to their website, there's a couple of key mistakes that a lot of people make. So it's not just you, Charlotte, but I can instantly, instantly see it. So when your website loads up, this is the first thing that people see. This is the first impression. Okay? Now when a website loads up on a desktop. So this is what we're looking at here. This is, we're looking at the desktop. The first place that our eyes naturally get drawn to is the top right hand corner. Okay? This is what's called the buying zone. This is what's called the gold zone. Okay? This is why if you go on Amazon or Tesco or ASOS or any insert site, you'll know that the checkout button, the buy in button is in that Top right hand corner. Now, to put this into hospitality terms, the most important thing that everybody needs to do is to direct them straight to the booking page. Okay, so if it's missing from here, how are we going to really clearly state to the user that this is how we book with us? Now, I know you will say, well, I've got rates and availability here, but it's blended in. One of the best books that I have ever read is a book called Storybrand by Donald Miller. In fact, I gift that book now to the large majority of the people who sign up for a boostly website is I gift them that book, I send them it in the post because it's so important to the words and how you use your website as well as marketing Made simple by Donald Miller. And what he talks about is he talks about the grunt test. Okay? So what's really important is that you have only got now the latest stats and the surveys that have been done, the human response. You have literally got two to three seconds to fully explain what you do as a business. We're in an age now of Instagram stories, Amazon prime, click, click, click, tap, tap, tap, swipe, swipe, swipe. And if you haven't grabbed their attention in two to three seconds, then they go, they bounce. Now, you haven't got the stats to show this because you haven't got Google Analytics. And Google Analytics would tell you this. Google Analytics is a free tool from Google if you don't know. And it tells you everything that you need to know. Number one, how many people come to your website. Number two, how long they stick around for on your website. Number three, where people go on your website and number four, which websites are sending traffic to your website. So Google Analytics is a free tool and I would 100% recommend you getting it because what that will tell you is everything that you need to know to see if this website is working or not. But I can see instantly that there's two much going on in the top here and there is not enough going on here. Now, I can tell instantly from looking at your Instagram who your ideal customer guest is. You are set up for hen parties or girls weekend. You know, you have got a very, very, very clear customer avatar, ideal guest, as we call it. All right, When I come to here, I don't get that at all. You are trying to appeal to everybody. And because you're trying to appeal to everybody, you're appealing to nobody. All right, so what I, what I would recommend that you do is this image here. This is A lovely image. Okay. But it doesn't tell me if I'm a, if I'm a girl coming onto this website, wanting to book a luxury weekend away, a hen weekend away, or whatever it may be for any point in 2021. And, you know, I'm totally ignoring the elephant in the room here, which is 2020, and all the things that are going on, because you are, you have, you have done what so many people haven't done and you have really niched down. So you've got your niche and then you've niched on your niche. Okay? Which is fantastic. It's awesome. But what you've got to do is when someone lands on your website, you've got to continue it. Now, if I start to scroll, I may start to figure out a little bit more about what you do. But this is what's called above default, okay? So this is above default. This is the most important area because if you don't hook them within two to three minutes, then we've lost them. Okay? So what I would recommend that you do here is that first image that you use, change it to an experience shot. And I'm sure you've got loads of experience shots. So it could be just people having fun. It could be X, it could be Y, it could be Z, whatever it may be. And you've got the scarlet hen, north of Cowes, Yorkshire. But I would be putting here what your tagline is. So it could be luxury girls weekend, it could be your ideal hen patty location, or it could be get away with the girls to Yorkshire or something like that. Think about, think about, think about your ideal guest, your ideal customer avatar, and then reverse engineer it from, from there. But you need to, you need to hook them, you need to tag them. Because what you want to do is you want to encourage people to either scroll down or you want them to click up here to book. So, you know, I don't know how you do it with super control, but I'll be definitely having a book. Now, check availability, check rates. And this needs to be a totally different color. It needs to have a button around it, it needs to be attractive, it needs to be attractable, and if possible, have a check availability option here as well. Now, if we shrink it to mobile, we shrink this, right? Which is if you want a quick tip, if you want to quickly see how your website looks on a, on a, on a, on a desktop, on a mobile, just grab the bottom corner and then just flick it up, right? Now if we do this and you, and you Say, and you say, well, it's here. Well, this isn't clear enough because you may see these three things here and you'll go, well Mark, just click that. It's obvious, click that. But most, you know, it's not obvious. We can't be just relying on that. Okay, what you need to be looking to do is number one, get a better image, make that an actual button to click or even better on the, on the, on the mobile, have it where it appears here. To book now and make your website more appealable to, to mobile, you may be thinking, well why, why should I be making it appealable to mobile? In America right now, 96% of its users use it on a mobile phone. Mobile 96, that's a ridiculous amount. All right, Everybody now spends time on their phone. Whether they're in the bathroom, whether they're walking, whether they're cooking, whether they're sitting down watching tv, they're on the phone. And the latest survey that came out with guest booking behavior is 86 or 87% of all hospitality bookings started at least on a mobile phone. All right, so the first impression, and again if you've got Google Analytics, this would tell you exactly what device people are using. But the over all the results that was taken, 86 to 87% start their search on a mobile phone. So it's super important that you and everybody that watching that the, that you build your website mobile first. Okay? Now if you're not confident doing it, then find somebody who can. Okay? I really do recommend it. My personal opinion is this first impression is not doing you any world of good. If you were to tweak it slightly and again go on, buy story brand, it's less than a tenner. So for less than a tenner you will figure out exactly what you need to do. If you don't want to do it, if you don't want to read the book, come and chat to us at Boostly. We will definitely be able to help. But I think that with a little tweaking it will mean that you get more people on your website. But before any of that, before you do the tweaking, go and install Google Analytics. It's free, 100% free, easy to do and it will give you, and if you just look at it for the rest of December, maybe even for a couple of weeks into January, you will find out over a space of four weeks everything that you need to know. Okay, so the other thing that I noticed about your website and again think about this on mobile and up in good old Yorkshire and I'm from Yorkshire, where the Internet's not the best. You've got very, very little information on your homepage of your website. You're encouraging and relying on people to, to click. Now, when your website is loading up, if it takes longer than two seconds to load up, you've lost your potential user. It's ridiculous. The amount of people, if a website takes more than two to three seconds to load, the amount of people that just bounce is ridiculous. It's crazy. Your website now has to load in less than one second, which is, which is so hard to achieve, you know, especially if you're doing it yourself. So a good way to combat this. And again, so you've got your information here and then what you're relying on people to do is click to here. Now, even if you get them to scroll down, if they click on activities and it takes more than three seconds to load, you could lose somebody quite easily. So the best way to work around it is to have 80% of your website information on that homepage, which leaves 20% to be on, you know, etc pages, the SEO pages as we like to call it. All right, so on here and let me, let me show you an example, Let me, let me think, let me show you an example of what I'm talking about. It's always easy for me to show you an example. I'm trying to think of somebody that we've, we've gone, we've gone live with, which is a similar type of business, similarish. Let's have a look at a layout here. So this is Julie over in America. So as we scroll down, we can see here our story. So as we're scrolling down, we're finding out a little bit, a little bit more. All right, we're finding out a little bit more about Julie and Julie's business as we go. So as you can see, we're scrolling down, we've got property highlights, special offers, you know, we're finding everything out. We're not about the property, we've got all the rooms, the rental accommodation, which is all here, breakfast, weddings, reviews, real time reviews from real guests, which is fantastic. And then we've got the book NOW and the FAQ. So you would definitely argue that 80% of Julie's information is on that homepage on the website. So by the time they get to the bottom, they are in no question what Julie does. Weddings, bed and breakfast, rental accommodation, the reviews, which again, not having that social proof on your website is a large reason why people leave your website because they then go and try and find the reviews, TripAdvisor, wherever it may be. But then, even if they, even if they are still confused at the bottom here, they've got an faq, and if still not, they've got live chat. So again, it's really, really clear and obvious exactly what they do and who they do and how they work. So again, I would really encourage you to try and model your website on that. How do you add Google Analytics? I can see you're asking in the chat. Just run a Google search. How do I add Google Analytics to my website? It's super simple to do. It's a matter of clicks. And if you've got a WordPress website, it's literally even, even easier. Now, one thing I would definitely be doing in these icons at the bottom, I would be removing the Airbnb link. Simple being is that when you've got a website, the reason, if you've got your own website and you've done all the hard work in getting somebody to your website, the last thing you want to be doing after doing so well to get someone to your website is to go and click on a third party that's going to charge you commission if they book. So get rid of that. That's super simple. So some. A couple of quick wins for you, Charlotte. Number one, take full advantage of the Facebook cover photo. Use full 6 pictures. Really sell that you do the hen parties, ladies, weekends, etc. Number two, quick win, change up this above default to again, an experience shot. Get a tagline, get in the book now button here. And number three, add in Google Analytics. Number four, get rid of the Airbnb. So you've got a couple of things to work on 100%. Now, again, if you get this little widget tool, you can actually bring those reviews from Airbnb to your website. So don't worry if that's where your reviews are. That little widget tool that you can get, and there's loads of them, there's tons of them, review or revu or loads of people that can do it, you can actually bring them to your website. The final thing that I would say to you, and something that stood out here, is that you do not do email marketing. You are missing a massive opportunity by not doing this because, again, you've got that experience business. Okay? So the final tip that I'm going to give you, you've got an experienced business here. And again, when you've got a group of friends meeting up, and I say this to Anybody, anybody that does weddings or a place where you encourage engagements or anything like that, you've got the ability when it comes to about one to two months now, you can either do this on email or you can do this on WhatsApp. And again, I would imagine that the communication with you and the guest, you get asked a ton of questions. Now if you can take that communication to WhatsApp or whatever, but if you can keep that communication going and keep it in touch when it gets to sort of two to three months away from their sort of anniversary of staying at you, a little message into one of the girls that stayed you saying, hey, coming up to a year since you last stayed with us, would you like to book again? You know, relive those times, you know, maybe send a picture and just go, we missed this. Something like that. You can send that in an email. That would be really powerful to send. I think that one of the main problems that we have as hosts and hospitality owners and just business owners in general, is that we are always, always focusing on new money, new guests. And what I, what I believe is that for a lot of the time, the, the big wins is with the people that have already stayed with us. The people have already, you know, given us money. The people that you've already know like and trust you. So if you can keep in touch with via email, via WhatsApp, whatever that may be, and if you've just got dates that you can just box off in, you know, if it's on your reminders, on your phone or wherever, especially when you've got an experienced type business as you have, then I'd be definitely taking advantage of that free software to use Mailchimp. WhatsApp is obviously free. I don't know if you use WhatsApp, Charlotte, but again, it's a really powerful, really powerful tool. So that's more of a medium to long play. Everything else is short wins. Now, you mentioned that one of the things that you wanted to achieve was to get more midweek bookings. Now the best way to get midweek bookings is business guests, contractors, business guests, etc. Now I think you will agree here that the way that your whole business is set up, it's set up to be very leisure and weekend based, which is why, you know, a lot of your calendar is fully booked. I can pretty much guarantee that you're fully booked with weekends, but you want to get those weekdays. One thing that I would look to do it, and especially if you have businesses around you, I would even look to Get a separate website, a separate domain done. But again, try and focus it more to the business order, contract to market. And in there what I would be looking to do would be just have that booked for weekdays. So again, you've got a big property, kitchen, you know, if you can go to a. Go to a business and just say, listen, I can sleep up to X amount of people, private kitchen, everything is Covid friendly, all of those things, it saves you a lot of money compared to going and staying at insert chain of a hotel. And again, having a totally separate website, a totally separate layout, a totally separate usp, that could be the difference for you. Now you can't go to a business right now because they'll go, yep, Charlotte, 100%, send us your website, we'll have a look because they'll go to your website and they'll see champagne, they'll see hen parties and they'll just be like, maybe not us, but if you get a total different website done, aimed a totally different demographic, then that could be the difference between filling up one or two weeks and again, if to get a return on that investment, if you get a month's worth of bookings, four weeks, Monday to Thursday or whatever, you want to do it Tuesday to Friday, Monday to Friday, whatever it may be, simple return of investment 100 hands down. So something that I would definitely, definitely consider. And again, if you haven't done a bit of research already before you start going to do this, look around you, look around where you are, where exactly are you based? Let me just go on to. There is, you know, there is a lot of options here. A big, a big recurring theme in, in storybrand is if you confuse, you lose. And I would say about 90% of the information you've got on your website is, is in the junk drawer. It doesn't need to be there. All right, so Huddersfield, I guarantee where you are, there needs to be, whether it's NHS staff, which are crying out for people. Right now you're in the Slap Bend center of Huddersfield here. So all you need to know, right, this is a good place to start to do a bit of research. And again, I've learned this from chatting to a good, A lot of property people recently is next time you're in the car, just do an extended run, pop in your sat nav, go to Travelodge viewers, fair Hilton, all these hotels, anything that's in Huddersfield, Marriott, whatever's in Huddersfield, in and around here, just drive around and drive after 5 o', clock, after 6 o'. Clock. So Night time, don't do it in the middle of the daytime because they'll be all at work. But just see which vans are parked up in the car parks, make a note of them. So make a note of the number, make a note of the business name and then just give them a call and then just say, just, just do a little bit of research, spend a day doing it and just say, hey, so we have a, whatever it may be, how many people that you sleep, we've got a, let's say a 10 person property center of Huddersfield, close to all locations, etc. I noticed that one of your vans was parked outside a hotel recently. How much do you spend a week money to Friday? Because we do special contract offers, X, Y and Z. Don't go any further than that, just do a little bit of research, maybe call 5 to 10, get like a little price together, see who, get, see who the people are to speak to and go from there. And if they say they're spending and you go like, Christ, they're spending far more than what they need to be, then it's a quick call back, work out your rate and say, well, we can do it at this price and then just give it a go. Because if you can again get one or two of those bookings and who knows, you only really need to get one business that will just get. You know what, Charlotte, you've got you boxed off for six months of the year, then that's how you fill those midweeks. You've got lots to be, lots to be working on here and I'm really excited to see what you can be doing. So again, what I would love for everybody to do is, you're watching with me, just give Charlotte a big, big round of applause. This is really hard to do, really hard to put yourself out there. So well done Charlotte. For Charlotte, for doing so. Okay, so Charlotte, you've got some homework to be doing. Please let me know in the comments what you're going to set out doing and then please report back. So come back to me in a week and at two weeks and at three weeks and let me know what you've done and most importantly your results. Okay, so what we're going to do, we're going to take a super quick break. What I want to do is I want to just play a little video from Susan Barker. Next week I'm going to be running a five day free training to everybody, every hospitality owner who wants to get more direct bookings, who wants to get booked up for 20, 21. Charlotte, I don't know if you've entered, but please do because I think what we can do next week you will really benefit from. I'm going to explain more information about it, but what I always find useful is when the people that do the challenge will let you know how it worked and the results that they had. So quick two minutes, I'm gonna have a drink. When we come back in two minutes, we're gonna do Elizabeth Leotard. I'd like to say a great big thank you to Mark for the five day Kickstart challenge. What an inspirational week. It was fabulous. We've got now over 3,000 followers and some of my wins was getting a few bookings, gift cards sold. It was just amazing. So thanks very much, Mark. Can't wait for the next one. Bye. And that was the amazing, amazing Susan. So next week we are going to be doing another five day training. It's all about getting diary bookings, getting booked up, increasing your, your social media following and boosting your list. So what we're going to be doing next is we're going to be going on to Elizabeth Leotard. Elizabeth is based, I believe down in Mexico. So we're going right to the other side of the world, which is amazing. And again, I haven't seen her form yet. I know that she's filled it in. Then we're going to go on to Sarah and then we've got space for one more. Now if you would like to be the one more, then all I want for you to do, please is share this video. So to share it you need to come to facebook.com forward/boostly UK come on to here, share the video. When you're done, do hashtag shared, share it on your page, personal wall, the group. I don't care where you share it, just share it so more people can see this video. Because even if we're not doing your business, you can definitely pick up some, some tips and tricks. So thank you, Paul, for doing that. Ralph, Linda, Jillian, Tracy. Amazing. And again, thank you so much, fella. All right, so next we're going to go on to Elizabeth Leotard. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to share my screen again. So I like this. And what we're going to do, exactly the same formula as before. We're going to walk through Elizabeth's answers. Elizabeth, if you are with us right now, please, please do let me know. Come over to the Facebook business page for Boostly. Put in the comments if you're Watching with us. And again, thank you so much to Charlotte. You've got a lot of homework to do there and I'm really, I'm looking forward to seeing your, seeing your wins. Thank you very much, Alicia. Okay, Elizabeth, so the business name is Sunset Rentals Valetara. And I'm going to try my best as possible to give the advice to be as mixed up, as varied. I don't be giving the same advice to everybody. But again, what I normally find is a lot of The Times say 70% of the information is the same. It just needs to keep repeating. So please, please make sure that if you look at your website next, if you look at your Facebook page next, if you look, you know, if you don't have Google Analytics, if you're not email marketing, make, make, make, make, make that you go and do that, Tracy. No worries. Go and dash. So Elizabeth has been into business nearly two years now. She's got seven properties. They are rental properties, mostly leisure. Two people in the team. Average night stays, three to five nights. Which of the following best describes how you interact? When I'm on site, I try to interact with guests. So it's very handoffish. We've got a Facebook link here which we will get to. And again, let me know your Facebook business page. Put your Facebook business page in the comments if you are you are watching with me. And again, put your website in the comments as well if you are. If you are watching with me as well. All right, we're going to go on to who designed your website? A friend or family member. When was the website created? So it was created this year. Do you have access to Google Analytics? Yes. So that's a good start. How many visitors do you get a month? Less than 500. Are you happy with your website? No, I need to change it. Which of the following companies do you use for your booking engine set. Everything is done on wix. And for those of you that know me, know that I do not recommend wix. So she does not do any email marketing. What is the overall occupation level for the past year? 36 to 50%. Bookings that are direct? 0 to 25% on average. How much money do you spend in commission costs? Didn't say. Which online travel agency you listed on Home and Away and Airbnb. On average, how much do you spend on advertising costs? 0. Which of the following are you doing right now? Influencer marketing and Instagram, which is really interesting. I want to check that out. And what do you wish you could ever go out, but don't know how. Facebook ads, email, website, SEO. How would you say the majority of your bookings come on the websites I list my property on? Wave a magic wand. How would your business look in six months? Upgrading to 85%. So we're currently satisfied on occupancy of 36 to 50 and we want that to go up to 85%. That's a big jump, which is amazing. Got plenty of room to work with here. Where do you feel you struggle the most to get people to book through my website? Direct bookings. What is the biggest pain Point is that I depend too much on Airbnb, so found me, discovered me for a webinar, which is lovely. Thank you very much. All right, so seeing that they struggle, Elizabeth struggles mostly with the website. Let's just go very quickly and have a look at the website. All right, before we start again, please give a big round of applause and all those love hearts, please tap them as many, many, many, many times as possible to Elizabeth. Okay, so here's what we're going to do. The main problem that we have with the website is that people aren't booking now. And I know Elizabeth has said that she needs a lot of help with the website, but as you can, as you can see here, there is a lot of good things with the website, but there's a lot of things that aren't done correctly. And again, I think that just to double back on what we said with Charlotte just a minute ago, the book now button needs to be here. Now, the first thing, let's just go and check what it looks like on a mobile, first and foremost. So if you look at on a mobile now, what do you notice? Everything is a little bit crazy right now. We've got WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram floating here. The rooms and experience is not where it needs to be mobile. So, yeah, we definitely need a new website. We know that, but let me just give some real quick pointers. Number one, make sure your website is built first. Get away from Wix, Come and get a WordPress website. If you want to go check out boostly, boostly.co.uk websites, let us help you. The main reason that I believe that people are not booking with you is that when they come onto here, you are giving them every single reason to leave. Now, when they go onto YouTube, when they go onto Facebook, when they go onto Instagram, you are literally taking them away from having a one on one conversation with them. To imagine then having a conversation with somebody that is literally on their phone, it's Annoying, right? When you're talking to somebody and they just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tapping away on their phone, that's what you're doing. When you send people to Facebook and Instagram is because there is so much noise. Facebook are popping things in their faces saying, check me, check me, check me. Instagram is saying, check me, check me, check me. YouTube is saying, watch this video, watch this video, watch this video. So what I would be doing instantly, and again, there's a lot of you that may be doing this is I would put all social media links in what again, they call it storybrand, the drunk draw, which is down here. Okay? Now it is cool to have your WhatsApp there because again, if you can get somebody to go onto WhatsApp and if you're pretty decent with WhatsApp and you've got always somebody paying it some attention, then sending people to WhatsApp is a great idea because then you take everybody from the slow lane to the fast lane. So the slow lane is when someone lands on your website. The slow lane is when you get somebody on your Facebook page. The slow lane is when you get somebody on your Instagram or your YouTube or wherever. The fast lane is when you get someone to sign up to your email list. The fast lane is when you get someone messaging you on WhatsApp because you're taking that distraction away from here, right to a one on one conversation. And if they tap the WhatsApp, then they are a hot, hot lead, as they would call it in the sales world. Okay, so that's not so bad. But I would really encourage you to get this book. Now button up here, looking shiny. Move this down into the bottom right hand corner. The bottom right hand corner is where you traditionally get people to do chat. So WhatsApp is one chat option. There are so many live chat options. And again, if you're watching this with me live or on the replay and you have a live chat option in the comment section below, let me know what you use. I have tried and tested them all. I am still yet to find one that I truly like that's not better than WhatsApp. But again, I would love to know what you use. So anybody that is watching with me, whether it's live or on the replay, now your pictures are amazing. A dreamy Puerto Valeta getaway I would be. That would be your tag. So again, remember about above the fold, put that up here. Now, so many people do this. So many, so many people do this. And it's a big error. Do not have Scrolling pictures. Scrolling pictures. You cannot pay attention to it and it detracts people again, it gives them information overload. You can go and just Google this, watch a YouTube video on this, but you want to be making it as simple as possible without having to make people think too much on how to book with you and why they should book with you. This should be a static image. This should be your best image. Now the cool thing about your property, Elizabeth, or one of your properties, if this is just one, is that you have got some Instagramable location. You've got stunning views. I mean I would love to be right now sat here having a drink, having some food, no kids, just me and, me and Laura sat out looking over that view. That would just be a dream. And I can picture myself sat there. The problem is is that as soon as I think that it goes to the next. So let's have one image. And again, if you can get people to scroll down. And again if we go back and look at maybe not Julie's, let's try and find a different place. So Julie or Julia or Jules, I'm sorry, my name escapes me, but this is in Costa Rica, so nearby. I'm gonna kick myself. Oh, Julie. There you go. Julie. Julie. Stephen, Aaron. So again, this is something similar. So again, Coral Hill Bungalows. I'm not a fan of the scrolling images, but that's what that is. But again, if you scroll down again, you find out more. Bungalows, Breakfast, Coral Hill Adventures. Property highlights. So again, main thing to sort of, and I've mentioned this before, property highlights. When we put this in and when we recommended this to all of our Boostly clients. With Boostly, we've got three different styles. We've got a done with you where we give you a strict template and you can mess around with it as much as you like. You just follow our script or we've got done for you or we do the work for you. So Julie's got a done with you. So we gave her this sort of script and template to follow. And with the property highlights we say this is key because the problem is that so many people with their website now has got big blocks of text because they're writing it for SEO. Don't write for SEO, write it for your user. The guest experience. And again, we're in a day and age where people don't read. We skim at best. So by doing the property highlights and by doing icons that people recognize, I can tell instantly bungalow, beach, parking, breakfast views, WI fi, just because of the icons that are used. So don't use big blocks of text. And again, I guarantee at least one person watching this will suffer from this. A little bit about the owners, which is great. And then straight onto the properties. So I can tell instantly from looking at this jungle adventure bungalows is this is going to be a different adventure from what I would normally be on. Again, we've got the reviews to back it up, the social proof. Fantastic. And again, let's go and book, shall we? And again, as we go right to the top, book now. Book now. Call or email. So for you, Elizabeth, for yours it could be WhatsApp email book. And again, it's, it's. These are sort of the things that I would be, I would be definitely be looking at. And you know, you need a new website. You know, you know this. Now you say that you focus a lot on Instagram and influencer marketing and you also on the Airbnb. You got to give you a little follow back there. Now let's have a little look. So yeah, we're getting nice little likes on the images. So very active, which is good. And again, stunning, stunning pictures. So you really are what I would call a destination ambassador. You're really selling the location. But what I would be looking to do would be again to be documenting the sort of day to day. Now, if you're not on the island all that much, if you're based elsewhere, then I would be looking to maybe reach out to somebody who is there. Maybe it's somebody who's on your property management team or it's somebody like in the cleaning team or just whatever and try and get people to sort of post daily on the social media. And again I'd be looking to get in your personal profile here, the team's picture in here and sort of starting to document them or the day to day what it is like on the island. Even now when people may not be allowed to travel there. I don't know what the local rules are where you are, but try and document what it is like because it is definitely a destination. You know, this is a place that people will come back to year on year on year because it is stunning. But you need to start to document your day to day a lot more which is again what people come back for. It's what people like. And it's the same with, with your Facebook. Get your picture in here or get your team picture in, in here. Yeah. And again it's, it, it looks very same of a same. So you've got pictures premiered, adding things in looks like you've gone a bit of a live on there, which, which is cool. But again, it's very much just talking about the area. Try and talk about a little bit about you and your team, about your story, about why people book of you feature some of your guests as well. So this is a cool thing that so many people don't do is if you've got guests that are staying with you at the moment and you're on property, you're on site, maybe ask them if they fancy doing a Facebook Live and just have a. Have a chat with them, like a video chat. Just hold your phone up. Not everybody will do it, but some will. And guess what? Those will go down so well because this is that social proof live. But so many people like to see. And again, when they finish doing the live with you, they'll jump on, they'll watch it and they'll share and say, hey, so we were on holiday and, and Elizabeth asked us to do a live. So again, this is, this is definitely something I've been doing. And again, take advantage of. Of take advantage of the fact that you communicate with your guests via WhatsApp. So I can, I can pretty much guarantee that a lot of people will do that. So by doing that, then communicate with them. So again, let them know if you've got a post coming up on Facebook or something, try and keep in touch with them. Don't just when they leave, that's it. I really want everybody here to sort of get into your marketing that you're going to be emailing them whatever software you're going to sign up to. So again, another person who doesn't do email marketing, please do. It's one of the most cost effective forms of marketing that there is. And if you, if you really do want to achieve what you say that you want to achieve, which is to stop the over reliance on Airbnb, when you've got to start building your house on your own land, get people on your email list, start communicating with people, start talking about the benefits of booking direct, because again, I didn't see that on your website at all, Elizabeth. So this is something that I definitely want you to do. So number one, your big takeaway, sort the website, get a new website. You can spend all the money in the world trying to promote and market it, but at the end of the day, if you're sending someone to your website, it is not sticky. You want to have a sticky website somewhere that keeps people. Um, we had Charlotte on earlier and I. And I sort of glossed over this very blase of me. But a virtual tour is a fantastic thing to put on your homepage Charlotte if you're still watching because again with with Google the same as Facebook or any channel if you can get someone on your website for a long period of time the longer someone's on your site the more Google will go yeah, that's a good business. And again that's where you'll be more visible without end up doing anything fancy. For SEO that's how you get more traction. Have a sticky website. I call it like have a have a mousetrap website. So Elizabeth, super simple. Your main takeaway is to get a new website. If you want to come to boostly boostly.co.uk website come have a look or just go and have a look where but do not do one with wix. Make sure you go with somebody who knows what they're talking about and also as well give a bit of personality to your social media. Instagram, Facebook even if you're not on the on the island all the time either get a buddy to do it, join venture up on somebody, get the team to do it, the clean team, whoever it may be, start to get in them, talk about the day to day a bit more because that's that, that's what's missing on that sort of front. And again get email set up. Mailchimp is free, please do so. And again if you haven't yet joined Elizabeth for next week to the get booked up for 2021 five day training please do so because the time zones will work perfectly with you. You, you'll definitely get a lot from it. So what we're going to do, I am very quickly going to have a drink, I'm going to play another video for you and then what we are going to do is we are going to come back after that and we're going to do Sarah Townsend's okay so watch this video which is why you should be joining in on the Facebook giveaway trader next week. Hands up if you have ever tried to run a competition online before now a lot of people come to me and say Mark, how is the best way to run a competition? It's a regular post that is put in the hospitality community and I always say Facebook now. Why? Because that's where the eyes are already at. It's where the general population of the world is. It's on Facebook. And in your town, in your city, in your county, you could have hundreds of thousands potential of people that are looking to book and stay with you. They just don't know that you're there. Social media is a tricky game to try and beat the algorithm to try and become on the top of the feed. So when people open it and they can see businesses or people that they want to interact with, it's so hard to get there. So what I've devised is I've devised a five day challenge, free training for everybody that wants to take part. And I'll show you how you can use Facebook in giveaways to get noticed, to get attention, get inquiries and get bookings. And I'd love for you to be a part of it, totally free. All you need to do is to click on the link, put your name down, you're good to go, and then you'll be invited into our Facebook group when we get closer to the date and you'll be able to join in thousands of other people that have taken part in this exact training. All right, so Liz, I know that you're there. I really hope that that helps with what you just saw. Then please let me know in the comments what you are going to do. Please let me know what you're going to action on. And again, thank you so much for, for doing that. All right, so next we're going to move on to Sarah Townsend. And after Sarah, I'm going to pick one person that is watching live with me to do a live marketing review. Now, if you haven't yet yet done this and what you need to do is hit the share button, you've got to be on the Facebook business page to do so. So go to Facebook, type in Boostly uk, come into the live video and share that button. Then once you've done it, do hashtag shared and then please just hit one of these little emotion but emoji buttons as many times as possible so I know that you're watching with me. So Sarah Townsend. So I did a little post in the hospitality community. That's where Charlotte and Elizabeth won theirs. I also did a special market interview for one person who was part of the WhatsApp channel, the boost, the daily boost, WhatsApp channel. So Sarah is the one who filled the form in. And so Sarah's going to get the marketing review. So just like with every body else, I have not seen this form yet. So we're going to look at it at the same time. And again, if you're enjoying this, please let me know in the comments, let me know what your big takeaway, what could you apply into your business straight away? So again Please do, please do let me know. Okay? Charlotte's still here. Thank you Charlotte. So Sarah, let's go through through Sarah's. So what is your name? Sarah Townsend. She's got the furs farm bnb. I'm going to run a quick Google search. Location is England. How many years have you been in property? 8. How many properties do you own or manage? 1. What is the best describes your business? It's a B and B obviously mostly leisure. How many people are in your team? Just Sarah. One man band. Which of the following best describes how you interview our guests? Hands on. What is your Facebook business page? It's First Farm, bnb. What is your website? We'll open that up. Thank you Mary for sharing. Who designed your website? A friend or family member? When was your website created? I need a new website doing. Do you have access to Google Analytics? Yes. How many visitors do I get a month? How do I check? So again, so Sarah has Google Analytics but doesn't have a clue how to use it, which is really important. If you have these tools please do go and use it. And if you don't know go to boostly YouTube so type in YouTube boostly Google Analytics. I've got a video showing you how to spot all of these things that you need to. So again open up Google search. Type in YouTube, boostly Google Analytics. There's a video to show you. Which of the PMS companies do you use? Free to Book. So again if we've got any free to book team here, please do share this video in your free to book Facebook group. But most importantly let us know if you use Free to book. Do you email your guests after their stay? No. So we've got another person. We've got 100% of no email marketers in here. Now I would be really interested to know this if you're watching live with me or even in the replay, doesn't matter what channel you're on. If you do email marketing right now, as in you email your guests after they leave, put email because I would love to know because so far we're at 100%. No, I would like to think that with the hundred people that we have watching on all the platforms that at least one person is actively emailing and I know we've got some Boostly Academy members watching and if you're not email marketing I'm going to come find you. What is the overall occupation levels for the past year? 11 to 25%. What percentage of your bookings direct? 0 to 25. So obviously low numbers. For obvious reasons, I don't need to state what they are. On average, how much money do you spend in Commission costs? 200 to 500 pound per month. And which online travel agents are you listed on? Booking.com? airbnb, TripAdvisor? On average, how much money do you spend a month on commission costs? So realistically, nearly a grand a month is going out on advertising and commission. Which of the following are you doing right now to promote your business? Printed leaflets, BNB nationwide, Britain's finest Masham. I do promote things going on the Facebook page. What do you wish to have a go? Now, this screams to me as somebody, if Sarah's here, please tag in. Sarah and Sarah Townsend. If you know who Sarah is. This strikes to me that somebody who is very overwhelmed with, with everything. So if you know who Sarah Townsend is, please tag her in or let her know that this video is here. I can't because I'm not friends with her. How would you say the majority of your new bookings come in from the websites I list my property on? And where do you feel you struggle most? I would love to lose booking dot com. All right, so let's, let's quickly go over a few things. What I really want to do with this, Sarah, is I really want to get it where you've got a bit of clarity on what you need to be doing right now to help you get some bookings in for next year. We're going to look at your website. We will have a little look at TripAdvisor and we may even touch upon Facebook. But first and foremost, let's start on Google. Now, Google is what a lot of people may say, and a lot of people do say, Google is your new homepage. Okay, so Google is your new homepage. So what I mean by that, the amount of people right now who are googling your business name a lot higher than you think. Now you may be thinking, well, how do I go and check that? How do I know that? Well, there's another free tool that Google give you and it's called Google Business Listing. Now, if you currently use Google Business Listing, what I want for you to do is come into the mobile app that we're watching this on and live and tap one of these emojis as many, many times as you can. If you're currently using Google Business List Listing, if you are not using Google Business Listing, what I would love for you to do in the comment section, put no Google Now. Google Business Listing specifically for a bnb, for a hotel, even for Rental properties is really, really important because number one, you will see how many people are searching for your business or searching in and around your business every single month. You can see what people are typing in. But most importantly you can change this information here so you can change this photo, you can change what people see, you can change the amenities, you can see what your reviews are, you can respond to reviews. But this Google business list in here will also appear in what's called the map pack. So if I was to type in here, bed, Bed and Breakfast, Ripon, if you're doing the work right then you will start to appear in here. So we've got Box Tree cottages popping up here, Fountain, Guest House, we've got Ravencroft, Ripon, Canalside. And again if, if you get the reviews, if you update your listing, if you respond to reviews on here, then you will start to appear higher up in here. And again if you start to get the reviews, a lot of them, then you will start to appear in the top rated places on Google. Now this is Google starting to make a play on the OTAs. This is Google wanting a piece of the pie. So the quicker you can start getting in amongst this, the sooner you will start to be not only visible from here but people will then be able to book on your property via Google. Now if you're already with free to book as an example then they will already be doing the Google hotel ads for you. I believe you may have to opt in. I'm not 100% but do go and check with them if not because what that will mean is that when somebody does a Google search for your BNB and I'm going to touch upon the fact that you may be assuming that people don't as you can see here when it comes up and you check on check availability or here it's sending people back to booking.com now what you need to be doing, everybody needs to be doing this. The first bit of training that I show everybody is what's called bid on brand. So I've got a five video series, super, super short series, five videos that will get everybody direct bookings. And one of the first things that I show is what's called bid on brand with Google Ads. It's a totally free bit of training that I do. All you need to do to get it is go to booster.co.uk five steps. If someone could put that in the comments please that would be amazing. And just put in your email, the best email where to send a guide to fill in a short form and you will get it and this will show you how to do it. So Sarah, if you're watching, please do this because what it will mean is that you'll be able to dominate here and also as well with Google hotel ads, which is a free to book, which are helping you with. You'll be able to get your website in here. Now, before you do any of that, what we need to be focusing on is your website. Now you've said it and everybody can see it, you need a new website. This style of design is what was popular in the late 90s, early 2000s. We're nearly 20 years old. This website, it looks like it, it's very bordered. So as you can see here, this is not filled, this is, this is what websites used to look like of old and it's, you know, so many people fall into this trap. Let's just cut to the chase, Richard and Sarah. You need a new website. Go find a new website designer, whoever it may be. If you want to come to Boostie, we can definitely help. Booster.co.uk forward/website. But what you need to be doing, number one, you need to be designing your website for mobile first. It needs to be more up to date and it doesn't, it can't look like it was around from the early 2000s. Now I know that you're going to say, well, you know, I'm struggling to get, get filled up for X, Y and Z. But what I, what I do know and what I, well, I definitely know without even looking at your stats is that you will have people be looking to stay with you. I know it. You may be getting people come in who have stayed with you in the past. You may have got people coming that are being recommended. So you never know who is talking about you, whether it's online or offline. Facebook groups could be talking about you, word of mouth could be talking about you. It could be that somebody's looking to go and stay at the, at the Black Swan, which is just up here, or could be looking to stay locally by. But they're fully booked and they've just come onto here and go, oh, what's the nearest place? So I've got to be here for an event or a wedding or whatever, or whatever's happening in 2021 and they look at nearby and they come on to, they come onto here. And again with the website, it literally could be putting them off or they click on check availability and they're going to booking.com. all right, so what we need to be starting to do here is get your visibility or get yourself a better website. Have the confidence that when somebody lands on your website that they're going to turn lookers into bookers and they don't get that right now. And again, they could be coming to stay in the area for a number of reasons. You're in a beautiful part of the world. I know exactly where you are. I used to play football around here. I used to coach football around here. In fact, I am from here, Scarborough, that's where I was born. So again, I know this area really well. A lot of boosted clients are in and around where you are. I used to live in Darlington as well. I used to play football down here because I used to play for Richmond, a Richmond team for a couple of, couple of months. So again, you're in a beautiful part of the world. Please do not dismiss the amount of people that will be coming onto this website. Number two, utilize email marketing. Please do. You're not doing it. Nobody is from so far. And again, I can't see in the comments because my phone batteries died but people are saying that they are not utilizing email marketing and this is a message to everybody. Please, please, please do start utilizing email marketing. It's free mailchimp and you just have to keep in touch once a month. That's all it literally needs to be. Stay that top of mind. And again, if you've never done it before, just start. And if you want to get started but if you don't know how. Next week on the training that we're going to be covering in a five day challenge, I'm going to show you how to get started, how to get set up on mailchimp and how to use it to your advantage. So Sarah, if you are watching this then please, please do. Boothlay.co.uk 2021 if someone could please put that link in the comments, that'd be great. All right, what we're going to do is I want to very, very quickly let me just click on here. What I want to do is I want to go and I want to find somebody to do a marketing review live for. But as we are doing that, what I'm going to do is I'm going to play a little video from a good, a good friend of mine, Mr. Chris Turner, freestyle rapper. He's going to talk about the five day training in a freestyle wrap and whilst he's doing that, I'm going to go onto Facebook and I'm going to get find somebody to do a marketing review live for.

Let's show them how we do. I like to rhyme my words when I speak. I take two from a seven of the week Monday to Friday. That's the first five days. It's the challenge and you know it's provided free. Yeah, that's where the start. It's day one free. So you know where Scrat is. Look, I spit fire while I'm good looking. I'm gonna tell you to get more direct bookings. Not circuitously through a tribal agent. One's come to you. You sit there in amazement like wow. Mad respect to the guy with the hashtag bookdirect. Now, not a gang sign. It's a pound. In the US we call it hash over here. Running through this book directly, it means that you go. Not a book from a library. Oh no, bro, you need to understand words. Please heed. Use Facebook to get more leads. Like a dog with the collar with the multiple leashes. More leads. That's the pun. It's hard to believe it. I punch hard like Bruce Lee. Probably the only rhyme I can think with. Bruce Lee. Like an orange, I squeeze it cause it's so juicy. And Mark Simpson, not orange, but he could be yellow like the fellow in the Mac groaning show. That's the Simpson thing. Mark my woe rds. That's the words when I fill it out. Here's a little thing. Pay attention, you louse. Don't over rely on booking.com or Airbnb. Cause that could be gone. Cause the pandemic shut down down everything. Airbnb offices. The phone don't ring anymore. But over reliance is not required. Yeah, I see you're not silent and saying, Chris, can you shout to me how to save money in commissioning fees? Well, I can't explain, but I know who doo doo does. Mark Simpson. Not like Bart with the buzz sore haircut. Let me make this clear. He's not from the Simpsons. Guys, please let lend your ears Romans and countrymans and all the viewers. Get your guest to book direct and you will see your coffers swell and swell and grow. The guests all go. They're like, wow, I'm glad that I watched this show or this podcast and they'll enjoy their holiday. I'm gonna go and book direct right away. Admittedly, I'm not. There'll be a slight lag. But when you do book direct, don't forget the hashtag br sipping a virgin mojito. And there you have it. A freestyle wrap from me, Chris Turner. Do make sure you check out Mark Simpson and boost Lee's free five day challenge to get more direct bookings. Peace out.

Okay, so we are, we are back. We are back. We're back. Alright, so let me just go straight in because I've managed to find somebody to do a marketing review for. So Alicia Borta, I believe that you are still with us live. Thank you so much for sharing the video and what I'm going to do. And again I have, I have not seen anything from you. So you haven't filled in a marketing review form or anything like that. We're going to literally go through this together and I've got your website here because you can very kindly put it in the link for us. So I am going to obviously do a marketing review and I can't see this as I'm doing it and I can't as I can't see your comments as we are doing this because my phone has very kindly decided to die on me. So what we're going to do is we're going to go through your website together and I'm also going to do this, I'm going to do a Google search for you. And have we got any social media going on? Is there any social media? Got a little chat going on there. Let's go click on your about us. Get up to 20% off this month when you try our services dedicated agency to find your match. City stay as London agents. All right, so we have got somebody that is doing serviced accommodation. All right, so it looks like we've got Alicia, we've got Nadia and we've got bits of information here. City state rentals. Okay so let's have a quick look at here. And this is again, this is what so many people fail to do on their social media. So this is obviously Alicia's personal profile. Okay, now what she's got here got TQH Energy healing facilitator, artist and designer and founder of Oregon toolsiargon. Now this is what's called your bio on your social media and again this is the, this is your personal profile page which is really important to do. So what I love is that again you're doing like a little bio. So you've got the artist, the founder, the energy healer, etc. But what you've got, and if I just open up mine as an example, if you go to my Facebook personal page, not even the business to personal, when you land on it you can see that you can link off because these are clickable links and they link off to places that I want you to go. So I've got my website, my group and my podcast. So you can put in number one, the links to your website, Facebook page, wherever you want it to go. You've got 200, I think 200 characters to work with here. But please do utilize it. Don't just put nothing in there because again, if, if you are utilizing a market in your business properly and say Facebook groups, that was one of the main marketing tools this year with all the restrictions and everything that was going on. Facebook groups has been a great platform to get bookings from, even during lockdown. And again, the people have done this so well are those that do rent to rent, service, accommodation, whatever you want to call it, rental arbitrage, don't care what you call it. But those have done really well because they were able to move really quickly and were able to get key workers in their properties where in the past they may have relied on leisure or corporate or business or whatever it may be, even in March and April and May when nobody could travel. But the only people that could were key workers. They were able to very quickly do this. So the best way to get those bookings and you could ask anybody, one of the best way was Facebook groups. Now when you comment and when you interact in Facebook groups, it's your personal profile that you interact with. So when you do that, you're naturally going to get people come and click on here, they're going to look at what you're about. And again, as much as you are going to use your business to document, you're also going to be doing it on your personal as well. Now you may say, well, Mark, you know, I really want to keep my Facebook separate. I don't, I want to just have friends and families on there. Well, I'm afraid that if you're a business owner, you need to be documenting your business. If you just want to have a social media that is just friends and families, create another account. Create a total separate Facebook account that will literally, you will only give it to friends, very close friends and family. So because what you will, what you will find is that when you post on a personal page, you will get much more reach than when you post on your business page. The reason being is that Facebook want to monetize business pages as much as possible. So that is why when you put a post out on Facebook and it's on your personal page, more of your friends will see it than if you put a post out on your business page. When you put a post out on your business page, I believe it's like 0.8 or 1% of your followers will see it, which is a crazy low amount because what Facebook's trying to do is it's trying to monetize you and it wants your business to put more money into it. Now, there's ways to round it, email marketing being one WhatsApp, another way around it. Again, if you're part of the boostly WhatsApp channel, I guarantee that you will have a notification Sat in your WhatsApp to let you know that I'm about to go live. And you know, whether you're watching on the Facebook business page, you know, I'm able, I'm using a bit of kit that is meaning that I can go live on all the channels at one time, so it's all spread out. So again, this is the beauty of things like WhatsApp and email is I can. You can get people to one spot all at once. And. And what I would recommend that you do, first and foremost, Leish and everybody here, this is not just Alicia, there's so many people who do this. Utilize this info section and all you need to do is come to your personal profile, click on the edit button and you can change it around, use emojis, whatever you want. But what I would be recommending here as well is I'd be putting web links in and I'd be adding in city stay rentals. If this is the business that you want to promote. Now, first and foremost, you've got book online. So book online, a range of you and it comes to here. Now, if you are trying to do service accommodation or whatever you're trying to do here, whether it's. And I'm confused, so you've already lost me. All right, if you're trying to get people to book with you, you need to have the instant book feature. So I'm not sure how you're doing this, but if you have not got a pms, property management software is one of the first things that you need to do. Whether you're using Tokey Super Control, free to book. I mean there's tons of them. Zevu all you need to do, if you're stuck and you don't know what a PMS is and you want to get a PMS is a free blog that I created 18 months ago, but we update it all of the time. Booster.co.uk PMS, PMS, apologies. And this blog that we update all the time, we basically reviewed and interviewed over a hundred hosts to see what booking engine and PMS they're using and we just put them all in here. So go and have a look. There's loads of them on there. You can click on the information to find out more about them. There's hundreds. You could ask any 10 different hosts around the world on which PMS they use and why they use it, and you'd get different answers. But find one that's good for you. But you need an Instant Book feature on your website. The reason being is that maybe 10 years ago, a customer would find your website. A customer would like your property. They would email, wait for a response, and then book from there. That's how Airbnb started. That's how the majority of these rental companies online started. Home away, etc. But now that as a, as human beings, we have got that Amazon Prime, Click now, Click now. Buy now. Buy now sort of philosophy. This is why all of these big sites have switched to Instant Book. It's why Airbnb pressurize you so much to switch to Instant Book, because they know that somebody wants to find a place and they want to book now. They don't want to wait for you to get back to them. So this is the same for you, Alicia. So whoever PMS you're with, and if you've not got one, get one. Make sure that when they click on Book Online, that they actually book online. Right now, all they're doing is filling in a form and waiting for you to get back to them. That's not booking online. That is. That's just filling in an inquiry form. That's literally all that is. So you're already confusing me. So you've already lost me. So that already will bounce. All right, so that's one of the first things that I would definitely do now also as well, if you click on, if you just do a. Run a Google search for City State Rentals, and again, it looks like you are London. So you're London based. So your, your, your Google brand ranking, City State rentals, London, you're gonna have a lot of competition here because you've got very, not unique, but vague name, very generic name. That's the word. So what I would be really looking to do again would be looking at utilizing maybe bid on brand. So it looks like here, when someone's Googled City Stay rentals, London, you've got citystayapartuk.com which is coming up here, which is above the map pack and all of that. Um, now if you. This is a. This is a tool that I've downloaded. It's a Google extension. So Ignore this because you're not going to be seeing this. But as you can see here, Apartments in London gets a volume search in the uk of nearly 15,000 every month. Average cost per click is 98 pence. As a trend, competition is strong. Over nearly 50, nearly 50%. And again, you've got service apartments London, two pound a click coming up at nearly. So, as you can see, you've got a very competitive area, but with a bid on brand, what you'll mean, what you'll find is that the software will be there. Now, I saw a very quick comment that you filled in the form, but I haven't got the fit, got the guide yet. Please do check your junk emails because it sometimes gets put into there, but go there, check it out and utilize that bit on brand strategy. You will have a very good effect on there. But coming back to the website, it needs to be super clear what you're about and who you're trying to speak to. The website is very thrown together. It confuses me, it doesn't give me any confidence in what you're doing. I know you've got a mailing list, which is great. Be really interesting to find out if you are utilizing it. But like I say, I think that what you need to do is to get your website proper. And what you should be looking to do with it is to really figure out who you're talking to. And just like with Charlotte, if you're trying to appeal to landlords or estate agents to grow your property, then have a total separate website for that. If you're looking for property management, that's separate. If you're looking to speak to guests, have a different website. It will do you the world of good in the long run. Because at the moment, and you know, I speak this because I've learned this this year. So with boostly.co.uk. if you were to go on boostly.co.uk three months ago, before I read Storybrand, I used to have all of all of my Boostly offerings on this one website, one website page. So websites, content creator, Academy, podcast, everything. And the problem is that I was confusing people because people were coming onto the website looking for, I don't know, looking for a website, but they were hit with everything else. So what we've done very recently is separate everything. So now we've got boostly website.com, now we've got boostly.co.uk, we've got boostly academy.com, we've got boostlycontentcreator.com and because it's all separate, when you land on a different website and a different domain, and a domain costs, what, £15 a year? Nothing. It's super clear what website you're coming to. And what we're finding is that so many people are taking the action that we want them to take. So when they're coming on for a website, more and more people now are booking calls when they come onto the boostly.co.uk, more and more people are signing up to get the five Step Guide when they're coming into the Boostly Academy. When it's open, more and more people are going to sign up for the Boostly Academy, which is, which is what I'm anticipating because we've separated and because of the words that we're using. All right, so again, I would recommend that for you. So I would really, really look to your website, where you're sending people to. What I'd be looking to do would be to separate it out. And again, please let me know in the comments section, are you, are you doing email marketing? What's the success rate? Please let me know in the comments because I haven't, I haven't got your form to look at. So please do go and do so. Utilize email marketing, utilize all those amazing tactics and tools and then look at the bid on Brand one. And again, if you haven't registered for next week's five day training, please do so because again, I think another person that would really benefit from it. All right, let me, let me wrap this up because we've been going now for an hour, so I may have been 15 minutes late. I do apologize. But we have, we have definitely, definitely done overtime on this. So let me know in the comments what was your big takeaway. Let me know in the comments what you can do right now. And again, I want to give a big, big thank you to Charlotte. Charlotte, which had the amazing place in Yorkshire, Scarlet Hen. So thank you to Charlotte. We've got Elizabeth, who is over in Mexico, I believe. Thank you. We have got Sarah, who is also in Yorkshire and we have got Alicia. So thank you. So thank you everybody. And again, if you haven't yet registered for next week's five day free training, please do so. Booster.co.uk 2021 if you are watching or listening back on this and it is after December 11th and you are too late, you've got until Monday to register. So if someone could please put that again in the comments. Boostly.co.uk 2021. That would be amazing. I am going to leave you very quickly with one final video. And if you could do me one favor, please share this. Please let as many people know about this. We've been going for over an hour. I will get this timestamped, I promise, so you can go back and watch this back on the. On the replay if you miss anything. But thank you for tuning in, and I will see you all very, very soon.