Mark Simpson (YouTube) advises owners to regularly update online marketing seasonally rather than ‘set and forget’. He emphasizes the flexibility of digital platforms (websites, Airbnb, Facebook, OTAs) compared with historical print advertising, and gives practical steps: swap main website/listing images to match season (autumn/winter versus summer), prepare seasonal image folders (Dropbox/Google Drive), and pre-write alternate copy (Google Docs/Microsoft Word) for easy swapping. He references timing (recording on Tuesday 24th August) and suggests acting in Q4 to be prepared for the next year's booking seasons.
Chapters
Change or amend your marketing. Now, the beauty of the Internet is that it's flexible. The beauty of the Internet is you can change it like that. It's not like when, you know, my parents first opened the farm way back in the 90s when it was heavily reliant on print advertising, where in January or February, you were to sign off on the advert for a whole year, and that stuff stayed like that for the whole year. Now, you can change your website like that, you can change your Airbnb listing like that, you can change your Facebook page like that. So again, when it comes to the slow season, when it comes to maybe fall or winter or spring or summer, depending on where you are in the world, and the Aussies are really going to mess up my explanations and how I explain seasons here, because obviously you're coming into your summer, but this is where you need to start to change the pictures and the layout and the things that you have. For a lot of people, you're thinking, oh, such a pain in the ass. I've never done this before. But some of you who are already on the ball with this and have got a Dropbox folder for autumn and winter, and you've got a Dropbox folder for spring and summer, and you could literally just change your pictures as you go. But if you think about it, if you're now starting to think about a winter vacation or a fall vacation, let's just say northern hemisphere for this. So if you're now starting to think about autumn and you're starting to think about winter and you're going to do a bit of research, you wouldn't want to be looking at a property that's got bright blue sky, swimming pool, you know, hot, everybody's in shorts and T shirts because that's not what people are going to relate to. So with your pictures that you put on your website, and I'm thinking of the first image, so the first image that people come out when your website loads up, if you've got a current picture right now that is of bright blue skies, a very summery feel to it, you can now start to go and change it to a more of an autumn feel. You can maybe go start to feel of a more winter feel. So again, when it comes to autumn, you feel about warmth, you feel about the higgy, you know, the Danish term where it's log fires, hot chocolates, etc. Etc. Or if it's winter and you're in a snowy location, this is where you're going to start now to get your Beautiful white snowy pictures. But I would start to amend your website now and you can definitely start to earmark a date when you will start to change and amend the pictures on the OTAs as well. Now, I say this with the OTAs because I'm assuming right now, seeing, recording this on Tuesday 24th August, is that you're all fully booked, you've got guests, you know, well into say, September. And what you're starting to looking for now is those autumn and winter E bookings. So amend and change your marketing. Never just set and forget. And the cool thing is, is that if you act now or if you act in Q4, quarter four, the last three months of this year is that when it comes to next year, 2022, you will be in a beautiful position where you'll have your spring and summer folder on Dropbox or Google Drive right here and you'll have your winter and your fall as well. Now another thing that you can look to amend is the words or the copy that is on your website or the pictures and the words that are on your listings. So again, right now and again with booking.com obviously you're very restricted in what you can put in the words that you use. But with Airbnb, you get more of a full range with the text and the copy that you can use. But if, now if you're focusing on, you know, how close you are to the beach or the amazing outdoor activities that are available in and around your area, change the wording to be more, you know, of something to do in fall and winter, maybe focus on more of, you know, board games, you know, Log Fire, Hot tub. We'll definitely talk about things like Hot tub later on, but start to have different copy that you can just copy and paste. And again, the beauty of Google Docs or Microsoft Word, if you fancy that, is that you can have the copy ready to go. So you can just copy, paste and personalize again, the Internet, social media, your website, your listing sites, the copy can be amended like that. So again, it's, it's definitely something that you need to start doing.
Having a blast. Can I get it on the Boost Lee podcast? Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee? Cause it's so hard on the T is loosely making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely.
