Niching Down: How Your Vibe Attracts Your Tribe

Hey everybody. Today on the Boostly podcast we are talking about niching down and how your vibe attracts your tribe and we're going to do that with a successful and interesting short term rental host. We're going to ask questions about his hospitality business extract all the stuff that he's doing well that you can put into your short term rental as you listen to them. And today we've got Andy Easton. He's coming from the UK down in Cornwall. His business is called Beach Retreats and you can check them out@beachretreats.co.uk and we're going to dive into what that business is all about as I'm sure you'll understand what niche he's going for straight away. But yeah, welcome along Andy.

Hi Liam, it's a pleasure to be.

Here, it's a pleasure to have you here. So start off by introducing yourself and you know what you find most enjoyable about hosting.

Sure, sure. So I'm the MD for, for Beach Retreats down here in Cornwall. We have about 250 properties that we look after, all privately owned and we work on a commission basis. And what do I like about the hospitality? It's really bringing the new properties on some great new areas, secret beaches, stunning properties, great interiors and meeting new owners and educating them about the sector.

What kind of model do you use, how many units and what kind of guests do you tend to host the most?

Sure, sure. So we've been around about 14, 15 years now. We are part of the Watergate Bay Hotel group. So if you've been down in North Carolina you might know Watergate Bay between Newquay and Padstow and we've kind of grown from the, that hotel DNA of looking after guests and offering great guest experiences on the beach. So we, we now look after 250, I think it's about 255 properties that we've got in the portfolio are now all united by that, that, that characteristic of being within walking distance of a beach, having good local amenities. So the beach cafe, good restaurants and the water sports and you know, and contemporary interiors as well. So the kind of really modern kitchens and new build properties really kind of resonate with our guests.

You mentioned before and I know we mentioned this just off, off air beforehand but I asked is all of your properties near the beach? I mean is it sounds like an obvious question but you know, you said they're all within walking distance to the beach which is so important. And this is what brings us back to you know, the, the vibe attracts the tribe if people know what a business does. And there was a great video recently by a chap called Daniel Priestley who says that when you're doing an elevator pitch, people like to put you into some sort of box. So instantly I now know that, you know, Beach Retreat co.uk is hey, I can walk to the beach. So I know if I want that kind of feel of hey, I can walk. And there's, there's a, there's a beach close by, there's activities, then I know where to go. And yeah, that's, that's really cool. So where do you market your. Your properties at the moment?

So everyone books direct. I think it's kind of something we're really proud of. We have a few properties where the audience have asked to list on Airbnb and that's fine, we'll do that for them, but it's book direct. So the, the marketing is a really kind of broad mix of channels. I come back to the, the guest journey when they are booking a self catering holiday in Cornwall. It's a very kind of planned, quite traditional market. It's that once a year holiday with the family when they're coming down to market, special occasion or to go to an event. So the journey from I'm going to book a holiday to actually arriving is very, can be very kind of drawn out. It's a few months of looking around the Internet and actually picking out the areas and the type of property and the dates, but all kind of coming together. So the marketing tends to be really based around that demographic and their interests. The walkers, the people who like to do yoga on the beach, the people like to get in the water and it's just kind of like drip dripping some nice content to them at different points. So when they ready to book. Beach retreats is very much the name, you know, they think of. So that's kind of, it's nice Instagram shots of the sunset. It might be an event that's happening down here are that course or path, which has just reopened, that is that driver for wanting to book a holiday. So when. So if you look at the, the marketing and where our bookings come from, it's. It's very much a mix of a bit of pay per click, a lot of pr, we do a lot of influencers and reaching out to journalists. But then it's a. Our newsletter. The Instagram account has been really effective over the past few years and now we're playing with TikTok and seeing how that. Learning from what, how that contributes to that journey, but it's very much a suite of tools that generate that one booking.

How much work does direct bookings take? And I said that depends on your business. But for you, how much work does direct bookings take? Is it, is it more? Is it. What would you say? And is it all worth it doing all this?

Yes, it just. Especially when you commit to managing your brand on a social media channel, it's not something that you can back away from and quite often it's difficult to see that direct return on the investment. I think with these channels, especially with an influencer, marketing is a great one in that we've had some really kind of interesting guests there with us. Quite well known people and their families come down and you'll see this spike in the traffic and all of a sudden you'll get a few phone calls. But that particular, you might get awareness to say 50,000 followers of a really good Cornish influencer. But they don't all translate into bookings there and then. So it's actually kind of, if you imagine that we do that in November, that the influencer comes out of season, so we've got availability, it's quite easy to arrange that. The people who see that influencer might book a holiday in January for next month, next July, I guess, or in my book, I need to get there this weekend. There's everyone in between that that you're reaching out to. So it's very difficult to measure return on investment in that respect. But our approach would be that we know who our customers are, we know where they live, what age they are, what they like to do. And we're dripping that content via the newsletter and via social media throughout the year. And it's not all book now messages. It's very much just look at this, here's some dolphins that came, came through the beer today and you know, a few drawn shots always kind of really work in terms of engagement. Everyone likes to see a beach from the air.

You mentioned, first of all, you know who your demographic is. How did you find out who your demographic is? And for people listening going, you know what, I don't know who my demographic is. How did you find out your demographic? What is there any tips that you can share around that?

We used, we use Facebook. It's quite a good insight into who's looking at your site, who's engaging with your site. I mean, we've got 50,000 plus followers on Facebook. It's quite a really good body of customers to look at. But we did a guest survey about three four years ago and was an incentive to win an iPad. And the questions were very much just geared towards understanding who our guests are and spending a bit of time thinking about the questions and what you want to get out of that survey before you rushed into it really helped us. So we asked questions about what they like to do and where they like to go. It wasn't kind of. It was quite specific to questions that we wanted to answer on activities and when they like to travel. I think the really interesting one is the people who, you know, you come down to Cornwall in July and August. It's a very different experience to coming down in September as other most UK staycation destinations I would imagine. So yeah, we would be a simple survey for the price of an iPad. We got some really good insights into into who our guests are and what they like to do.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee. Cuz it's so hard on the T is loosely making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely.