Using Tech to Drive Direct Bookings

Hi and welcome back to the Boostly podcast. Today we are talking about how you can drive direct bookings via some of the tech within your business and some of the cool software links and things like that. So before doing that, let's just introduce what the subject of all Boostly podcast is about. It's about giving you the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly, the confidence to go out there and get more direct bookings. I'm Liam Carolan, I'm Mark Simpson's co host and we always do these Spotlight series from time to time which are looking at people services within the industry that you need to know about. And today we're shining the Boostly spotlight on a very special guest. We've got Adams, Ted Randra from Bookly. And Bookly is this awesome, awesome thing that you do need to know about as a host. So wherever you are in the world, sit back for the next 20 minutes or so and we're going to dive into exactly what Bookly is. So welcome along Adams, thank you for having me here.

Really, really excited for this.

I'm excited to have you here. So first of all, what is Bookly? Let's start at the very basic.

So a quick one liner, what is Bookly? And then I'm going to delve in a bit deeper into the story, how we got here. Certainly Bookly is a simple booking landing page for your vacation rental business. So imagine if you're running, yeah, you're running a vacation rental business and you have some say, say social media exposure, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or other mediums platforms and you're drawing traffic on those. But you want to have efficient tools to convert that traffic into actual bookings. Right. And Bookly helps you with that. Bookly builds a simple booking landing page that sits within the bio link as functions as a link in bio of your social media accounts that helps you efficiently and effectively convert the traffic that you're getting on those platforms into actual bookings. And we have a couple of cool features within Bookly that actually helps you do that thing. So that's what is Bookly in a nutshell. And yeah, awesome.

Adams, before we move on, I just want to say to every host that's listening to this, if you haven't got social media set up is 2023, you need to for your business have your social media channels on point, whether that is the one that you prefer. It might be Facebook, it might be Twitter, it might be or X as it's called now or it might be Instagram, the key Thing is, just take some action. It only takes about five minutes to do the actual initial step of getting something set up. And if you listen to this, just going, hey, I haven't even got a social media page. Well, don't switch off from listening. Listen to the rest of this and then go set it up. And then also you'll know what to do and what to put in the link. So, Adams, before we dive more into how Bookly helps, can you give us a bit about your background and your history? How did you come up with Bookly as the co founder?

Sure. So at Bookly, we are a team of four as of now. And essentially me, myself and my co founder, we both are hosts. We have been hosting on Airbnb. Me personally, I have two properties that I manage. Those are more of a seasonal properties. And my other co founder, Rennes, he has a more of a resource like Brobert. And how we got to the idea of Bookly is that, yeah, well, essentially the business was simple for us, right? We list on platforms, booking.com, airbnb, and essentially put our hands in our laps and just sit and wait for bookings to come in. And at one point we kind of understood that there's essentially no real way for us to grow more. So we wanted to grow more, we wanted to grow bigger and we wanted to grow outside platforms. And there was the clear roadblock for us ahead of our business to do that, right? And that was kind of our trigger that we were going to grow more, control more of our business, that we need to step out of the, say, trap of OTAs, right? And we just naturally just kind of started to explore solutions, ideas on how to do that. And we landed on this simple idea of social media, right? Creating a brand, creating an experience and trying to sell that on social media, connecting with people or potential guests in our local communities, whatever, just showing them our brand or experience and doing that. And yeah, that's what we tried to do. So we set up social media accounts for both our businesses properties. And it was fun, right? Doing simple reels, photos and videos about our properties, just trying to create this package, we call it the emotional kind of experience package, and trying to sell it and then present it to our potential guests, right? It was fun. But we kind of quickly realized that it's hard, it's hard to convert that traffic that you get on those social accounts into actual bookings. So we started to branch some ideas on how we actually can do that. What we saw that a lot of hosts that are using Social media to boost their business to create themselves. They were using this tool called linktree. I'm sure familiar, some of you who are listening to this, and Liam, you as well, are familiar with linktree linktree and what it does is essentially a simple landing page with a bunch of links on top of it, right? And you can put up, I don't know, links to your Airbnb direct booking site, if you have it. And then that's what linktree is. And that was our light bulb moment that we thought, well, linktree is not a good tool to do that, right? We kind of forego this opportunity to showcase our real existing reviews, to build trust, to build credibility, showcase real pictures guests buy with their eyes, right? We see first. And then there's our, like, kind of emotional decision to buy, right? And these are like massive cornerstones of a business to accidentally function. And on a simple tool as linktree, we don't. Do not have that possibility. And that was our light bulb moment, right, that we thought, damn, we need to do something about this. That's what essentially how Bookly came about, right? On this simple idea of using the simple tool as linktree as a foundation and just incorporating these really powerful tools that we as hosts need to have on social media reviews, pictures, bunch of links, and having essentially the possibility to book straight away from our social accounts. And yeah, it makes sense.

It makes sense the fact that you've hadn't really thought about it before, but you're absolutely right. With linktree, the best you can do is have a, like a color in the background and then your links. And we always talk about making things as easy as possible. So when people click on something, they're always going, is this for me, is, have I clicked in the right place? Is this, does this represent what I'm after? And of course, just a color in the background doesn't. Doesn't necessarily do anything. Whereas like you say, if they can see instantly a picture or something which matches the social media account much more than just, you know, a link, that absolutely makes sense. So that's, that's an awesome idea. And it's one of those things which, when you say it is simple ideas are often the best ideas. Is that like, why isn't that more customizable? Why isn't that more tailored towards hospitality? Just one thing I didn't catch is where. Where are you guys based in the world? Where did the, where did the business start?

Sure. So we are based in Latvia, Riga. That's. That's where our core theme is.

Based.

That's also where our own vacation rental businesses are based here. So this is where we are operating from. And but yeah, Bookly is global. So we tried to reach a global audience and we kind of quickly understood that once we release Bookly, that there's actual need for this, that there are other hosts within our community. And then we also talk with Liam that on our Facebook groups. Right. We are engaging our Facebook groups a lot. They're just spreading word about the tool. And yeah, a bunch of people globally are trying to use it. Well, are we to use it? And there's need for that. So we are based on global.

Nice. And we were speaking just before we went live, where I literally, before coming on here, I've seen one of your. One of the people who use your product already just say, hey, we use Bookly. And this was in an American, one of the big US Groups. And they said, somebody asked about guidebooks or what should you use? And Bookly came up. So can you explain a bit about the differences so people listening understand that's a link at the moment, but how does it work and how does it help hosts when it comes down to what does it look like basically once. Once people go to set it up?

Yeah, that's a good question. So let's jump into this. So what we really, really wanted to do with Bookly is that it's super simple, super flexible, and super customizable. Right. We want to offer this possibility to hosts who want to try this to build out their online presence so they can really make it personal to them. Right? So when guests see their page, they see a brand. They don't see an Airbnb, but they see a brand. So how we came about that is that. So once you create an account on Bookly, so the like, third stage, I think you simply just paste in your existing OTA listing link. And what we do is that essentially our software, our program goes to your listing link, gathers all of the data that is there listed about your property, and takes it and dumps it on an existing small booking landing page, if you will. Right? And that happens in like 30 seconds. And then you kind of jump into it and it's a simple drag and drop. Change up the colors, add some emojis, add your listing links, or. Or add your book direct website. If you have. I mean, if you have a Boostly website that is like functional live, you can easily add a book direct link onto that. That guests, once they visit your link in bio page, they can finish the booking journey within the Boostly site that you have already live, right? So how it actually looks is that you just paste in your existing OTL link and it gonna generate you a simple booking landing page that you can later on just drag and drop, change up the colors, add emojis, add the links. You want to have YouTube videos, images, whatever. It's a simple fast playground there and within 30 minutes you're essentially done with a simple one page booking. Landing pages you can easily put up and put up on your social accounts. It can also be found on Google. You can link it, I don't know, send it on WhatsApp messenger, on your email communication, whatever the possibilities that are endless.

Quick break from the podcast to let you know that the two Boostly books that we brought out, the Book Direct Playbook and the Book Direct Blueprint are two of the top rated and the best selling in the hospitality category on Amazon. For just two pounds you can grab both of those books right now the foundations and the structures that you need to put in place is in the blueprint and then for 101 marketing tactics that is in the Playbook. So go and grab a copy on Amazon now just type in Book Direct Playbook or the Book Direct Blueprint and we'll see you on the other side.

It's a cool way to really give people a taster of your business. And I know there's going to be people out there who are saying, well, why don't you just put a link direct to your website? What would you say to those, those people as I know why I'd rather have a Bookly link. But what would you say to those people, right?

This is a good question because so how I see myself as a guest, so I measure myself in the, in the shoes of my potential guests, viewing my social accounts or somehow finding about my, my business, right? And if I imagine that I click a website, the Book Direct website, and there's like a bunch of information kind of drops out all of the amenities, bunch of pictures, 30, 30 pictures, whatever. List of things to do and attractions, multiple tabs. It's kind of overwhelming, right? I'm bombarded with a lot of information. And then I mean I'm just browsing the Internet, right? I'm just, I'm just trying to find cool stuff, I'm trying to get the inspiration where I'm gonna go next and all that stuff. And what Bookly does here is that it gives you the means, gives you essentially the power to display the most important information about your property so that you're Quite sure that the guest is going to be inspired, incentivized, more to explore about your property and go to your full fledged booking direct website, right. To actually finish the booking. So imagine that the guest lands on a simple booking, sorry, Bookly landing page. The very first things he or she is going to see is the. Your real reviews, whether or not you have your super help status, your beautiful crisp pictures on the booking Bookly page, right. And some quick ideas on what he or she can expect when you're within your local area. Right? Some cool experiences, main attractions, whether there's a pool or not, some cool amenities. Those are like kind of the three main pillars that makes guests get them all hyped up, right. To explore more about your property. And essentially this is kind of the main difference. I would say that the Bookly is kind of like a really strong entryway into your existing full fledged booking site. It really narrows down on presenting your own big booking site with some core, core features you have there. Just to kind of avoid the issue of your potential guests being bombarded with a lot of information.

Got it, got it. And ultimately, I mean, when we walk around supermarkets, right, they give appetizers, tasters and things like that, and that is the reason they're doing that is not everybody wants to dive straight into whatever it is. And that's exactly how hosts can think about this, where you, you, you click the link, you get a taster of what the place is more about and a little bit more information and then like you say, they can dive into all the links you've got. And the other thing is sometimes what you're trying to do, especially with social media, is sometimes you're trying to get people across to your website, sometimes you're trying to grow your email list and just depending on what link you want to drive them towards, you wouldn't always just drive them necessarily towards your website boosting or not. It's just a case of having that extra step where you can point them towards where you want to, which is cool. And I love the idea of that appetizer. That is really cool. What happens if a host's got more than one property, then is say they've got, say the property manager or they've got a bunch of properties. Does it still work the same?

Yes, this is a good question. So on Bookly, you have the option to display as many properties as you want on a single Bookly landing page, right. But obviously we kind of fall into the same, same trap if you have, I don't know, 1510 properties and you list them all on a single page. It's still kind of analysis paralysis. Right. A bunch of properties, you scroll pilum you, you like this one or perhaps this one and you essentially get nowhere. Right. As a guest. So what we've seen from existing users of Bookly, they actually created so multiple pages for their existing portfolio of properties. Right. If you have 10 or 5 properties within your portfolio, we see that a lot of them actually create separate pages for each of the properties and they essentially play around with them. Right. One of the pages has, I don't know, a different, different vibe if you will. Right. Displaying some, certain features about the property or some cool amenities, like really, really narrowing down on the amenities. But I don't know, the default property kind of takes more of a holistic view about the actually the local area or the experiences within the area. Right. So yeah, that's kind of been what others have been trying to do here. Just playing around, experimenting with the tool and that's, yeah, that's, we, we have noticed that they're doing so. Yeah, cool.

So they've got everybody covered. So where if somebody's in the us if somebody's in the uk, however many properties you've got, this is a tool that you can utilize on your social media accounts. And when, when I think of social media, I mean in my head as, as you're saying I'm picturing especially on Instagram where you've, you've just got the one link but there's no reason why it can't be, you know, some of the other ones out there, you know, like on your Facebook page, it could go through to, to the Bookly link, couldn't it? And also when you're in social media groups, if somebody is saying where shall I go and stay? Or especially I mean one of the hacks that we say, one of the tips and tricks that we say at Boostly is join every local community Facebook group within about two hour period. So note down all of the cities and, and all of the, the places where most of your guests are likely to travel from. As, as travel times for most locations are coming within about four hours and you can pick out those big cities, the places where the most people live, go and join the community Facebook groups and there's always one person saying, looking for recommendations on where to stay or X, Y or Z. And then of course you can post your Bookly link which is a nice intro to the business, isn't it? So yeah, I really like that.

Exactly. Yeah. You just want to essentially we kind of touched a cool subject here is that others have been using it as a simple like digital business card for their properties. Right? Yeah. For the simple reason, as you just mentioned, whether there's someone looking for, for a cool place to stay, they share their bookly link and it functions as a simple digital business card for them. They list their direct contact contact details, email, phone number, WhatsApp or whatever they have there where they click fast links to their actual site and some images and then that's it.

You've reminded me of a quote which is a confused mind never buys. And sometimes when I'm talking to hosts, I'll go on their website and it will have things like we'll manage your property, you can stay here, join our email list. And that's like I don't know what I'm trying to, trying to get people to do, you know, like I don't know who I'm talking to or who the website's talking to me is it talking to the owners? You know, like so it's one of those things. We're having this very simple calling card. Like you say, the appetizer is so important. So moving on to you guys as a business, what would you say has been the biggest wow moment so far? When did the company start and what's been the biggest wow moment for you so far?

Yeah, sure. So we officially launched to the public at the, at the end of July this year. So. So we are fairly new. We are super new here. But one of the largest wow moments for us thus far is. Yeah. How flexible the tool is. Right. We have, we had a certain idea of how the tool would work. We imagined how hosts would use the tool itself. Right. We had some ideas and hypothesis for that, but once we released it we saw that wow, the hosts are getting like super, super creative with it. Right. They're doing some stuff we couldn't even imagine it's possible with the tool itself. Right. So the probably the most. One of the largest wow moments thus far is the fact that it's super customizable to the extent that we didn't even know that it is that like much of a personalization there is possible on the tool itself. So that's, that's probably one of the wow moments for us here. That's cool.

It reminds me my, I've got a little six year old boy and he plays Minecraft and I actually looked at the history of Minecraft. Sad enough to do that. I like to find out what the history is behind stuff but. And they were surprised themselves when they put it out there. Just how creative people are with. With it. And when you get something which is the minimal sort of viable product and you put it out there, people will test it, they'll find stuff, they'll do stuff, they'll break stuff, you know, like, and, and they'll.

Exactly.

They'll give you so much more information about what something's capable of, which is really cool. And flipping that same question over. So what's been the biggest challenge since you started, like you say you guys are fairly fresh into, into the hospitality world for. Or sorry, software world for, for this. What's been the biggest challenge so far and how have you overcome it or how are you dealing with it?

Yeah, sure. So us, for us as a business, obviously one of the challenges is reach. Reaching the hosts. Well, we all are super busy, right? Like we, we have to take care of our guests. Whether there's someone, something's damaged on the property, we need to take care about it. So finding that like that sweet spot when the host is actually like, like free and willing to explore more, more, more solutions or ideas or opportunities is, Is a bit tricky. But we have kind of found ways on how to work around that. That's one of those. And, and yeah, simply from the business, business perspective is the, the pace for development. Right. We have a bunch of features within our development pipeline, but from the existing, existing users and other potential clients we have here on Bookly. Yeah, I mean we are being bombarded with a lot of feedback on our features. They want to see within Bookly, they want to see this, they want to see different colors, fonts, I don't know, the ability to actually process their payments, booking payments, connect with this and that. Integrations. Yeah, it's crazy. And kind of juggling, juggling that development process, all of those bits of feedback and features that when I see on Bookly is another challenge, but it's a fun one. So. So yeah, well, for that one I'm actually happy.

But yeah, yeah, I mean this is like you say it's good fun for that see, and the trouble is you can't please everybody with every single request, but it's picking out those ones which will help the most people or will make the product most awesome, isn't it? So I'm excited to see what happens there.

If you're struggling on how to get direct bookings and overwhelmed on where to start, then I recommend you go and book in a call with Boostly and our team right now. We can walk you through exactly what we're offering, how we can help you and give you a portfolio of websites that we have worked with that are matching not only your niche but could be in your location as well. Boostly has helped over 2, 000 hospitality businesses all over the world increase their direct bookings. And if you are interested then all you need to do is go to Boostly. B O O s t l y.co.uk call and booking an appointment with one of our sales team.

That brings us on to a nice question, which is what are you most excited about at the moment? So is there any of those. This can be obviously about Bookly, so any of those features you think you might put into or it can just be about hospitality in general, what you excited about?

Right, so Bookly, our business here, what I'm really excited about is the actual direct booking payment processing. So there's a lot of, a lot of hosts who want to just have simple landing page and the ability to process the payment within Bookly. So we are really, really working hard on, on, on pushing that out. Just another alternative to all of the OTAs and other possibilities to process the booking payments. So yeah, that's what I'm really excited about and that's within our makings and then we see that we could release it. I don't know, hopefully in upcoming three to four months the future is going to be out. So yeah, actually the ability for guests to complete the booking journey on the Bookly sites, that's one of the development features that has been most requested for us and is in the makings. And what I'm excited about any Bookly.

Sort of clients at the moment watch this space for awesome feature coming soon. So got sounds good to me. One of the things we talked about at the start was and the reason that Bookly came about was that you're looking to try and get more people away from what we call the slow lane social media and onto your booking page, you know, into the fast lane or onto your email list. Is there any tips or tricks or any kind of secrets that you can share with the audience, people listening as to how you managed to do that, how you can get more people to go across to your link or anything that you can do to what do you do to market your business? What's some of the tricks and tips that's worked for you?

Sure. So for me personally as a host for web properties, what is really, really powerful and I think hasn't been fully utilized is simple email marketing. I'm actually Amazed how, how many people, how many hosts actually do not take it seriously. But it's super powerful. I mean once a guest visits you, you simply collect their, well, I mean there's a bunch of tools to collect their emails, right? But if you kind of disregard the whole ecosystem of the tools that help you do that, if you simply gather their emails, I mean you created a simple database and send them out a simple email, I don't know. Hey Sally, six months ago you visited by my property. We had a, had a nice time together here, a small discount for the upcoming season. Take your family, come visit us again. I'm going to sprinkle in, I don't know, free sauna as well. Come visit us. It works like a charm, right? And a simple, simple email marketing. The simple strategy of collecting your past guest information and retargeting them, engaging with them, trying to get them book again, delivering them an even better experience for the next day is super powerful. And that's what works really great for our business. And I strongly recommend others hosts to taking start taking advantage of such a simple yet effective strategy. I couldn't agree more.

Honestly. That is something which Mark Simpson talks about all the time, which is email your guests. And so many people are so worried about coming across this salesy or coming across, you know, like hey, I don't want to be that, that guy who's in the email box. And you just go, well why not? You know, did they have a terrible time? Were you the worst host in the world and they never want to hear from you again? If so, fair enough, give it a swerve. But for 99.9% of people listening to this right now, if you was to go and just collect that email or look at your email list that you've got that might be sitting there where people haven't sent an email for a little while or has never sent email. Like you say, it doesn't have to be salesy, it can literally be, hey, just checking in, you had a great time, would you like to do it again? It's not that complicated, is it?

Spot on. I mean people buy from people, right? If you're, if you're just being, just being human, checking in, showing genuine interest, genuine care about your clients, your guests, they're going to see and they're going to feel it, they're going to feel welcomed, they're going to feel they want to visit you and they're going to feel they're going to want to be friends with you, right? As simple as that. It's no rocket science here.

No, exactly. And it reminds me of what I was looking for. I was looking for another VA to add to my team recently in a virtual assistant. And I get pinged messages all the time, emails and stuff like that. And I ignore them because I'm not ready to look at what the, you know, what I need at that stage. And this is something which everybody listening to this can take notice on, really. And that is that it's not that email. You send it and then that's the last time you ever send it. You want to keep emailing people because, just because they don't respond because they're busy, you know, they've got busy lives as well. They're not being mean about it. They're just not ready for whatever the, the question or the offer was. So they might not respond. But as long as you keep going across a few months, they'll soon tell you, right. If you, if they don't want to be emailed or, you know, they'll ask to be removed from the list or whatever it is, but for the majority of it, it just means that they're not ready. And a bit like me when an email came in recently and that caught me at exactly the right time and I emailed them back saying, yeah, I'm actually looking for somebody else to come on as part of the team. And it was the perfect time. And for that. Now, that person we didn't, didn't go forward with, but it's just that person had every opportunity by sending that email, they were more likely to get a response or a sale, you know, and that's so same for us as hosts. If you don't send that email, you miss 100% of the goal of the opportunities you don't take. So ultimately, you know, I think that's a great tip for hosts is to really refocus on email marketing and how successful it can be for your business. So is there anything else you want to share around Bookly before we share how people can get in touch with you guys?

I think we covered it pretty nicely. So yeah, Bookly is a simple one page booking landing page for your social media accounts or just a business digital business card? One simple link digital business card. You can share whatever you want just to kind of leave the best possible impression on your potential guests with Bookly and yeah, that's essentially what Bookly is.

Nice. Just before we share your details, Adams, where, where do you go for fun? Where do you go on holiday? You know, like where, where is the Place which, you know, gets you, gets you excited about going. Yeah, I can't wait to go there. Yeah.

So actually I'm leaving in four, I think four or five days. I'm going to Germany, Munich and then we gonna take a shuttle bus and I think we are going to Austria. So we're gonna go skiing and that's, that's one of the trips I've been really, really looking forward to with my mates here. Yeah, I can't, can't wait for that.

Austria is one of my favorite countries to visit in, in Europe. I absolutely love it. It's. I don't know whether it's just the food, the, you know, there's places to shop, there's, there's mountains, there's waterfalls. There's just so much there. I love the, just the whole feel of the place. So. Yeah, I think it's beautiful.

It's beautiful. Yeah.

I hope you really enjoy that. So how can we get in touch with you? Sure.

So our website is Bookle ee. It's double E at the end. Or just simply Google Bookly and you're going to find, find us there or just email me. Adams Bookley. And yeah, I'm going to. Can I jump, jump, jump into, into that. And then if there's anything.

Yeah, so reach out and of course we'll have those. However you consume in this, if it's on the podcast or if you're watching on YouTube, it will be in the show notes. So you'll be able to look at the link to the website there as well. So that leaves with the last question, Adams, which is what has been the kind of motto or a mantra or something which is really resonated with you on either your hospitality journey or the journey since launching Bookly.

Sure. So one of the kind of mantras and ideologies, if you will, I kind of stick to, for our own hospitality business is that simple, simple storytelling, brand building. It's creating an experience right at the very end, at the end when guests come to us. Right. It's like an emotional experience for them. It's an emotional buy for them. They're taking their family, their friends on vacation. They're going to have a good time. Right. And if you kind of take a step back and look at that, it's a story. They're trying to write that. Right. That they're trying an experience and experiencing a story. And if you kind of narrow down on that and you try to build that brand, that experience, write that story for your property, it's going to connect on a whole new different level on your potential guests. So that's, that's kind of the mantra, or the rule of thumb, if you will, the strategy that we kind of really double down on once we kind of have an idea or, or some opportunity or stuff we want to implement into our business. Building a brand, building a story. I got.

Yeah, I mean, there is something which everyone buys with emotion, like you say. And I loved how that tied in nicely with the question before that, which is, where do you want to go? And this, like you say in your head, you're just going, well, I want that experience with my friend somewhere fun, somewhere awesome, doing some skiing and stuff like that. And that's that story. That's exactly what you've just, you've just brought together there. So I loved how that really ties together. And for anyone listening, if you do want to dive into that concept, there's a great book by a chap called Donald Miller called Story Brand. And it really extends the. It talks about how you can think of your business as a story and the guest that is coming to stay with you, in our case as hosts or the customer, if it's a normal business, is the hero of the story of their own story. It's a, it's a great book and one that's really worth diving into. Well, Adams, it's been really fun. I've really enjoyed this, certainly. I'm going to go and find out more about Bookly, and I advise if you're listening to this, go and search Bookly. It never hurts to find out more and perhaps, who knows, you'll be able to see the pricing and sign up on the website. Just to end is www.book l ee so it's bookly, as is the URL that you need to go to. Thank you so much, Adams, for your time today. And thank you too for listening to the Boostly podcast. We'll be back with another episode soon.

Tara.

For now.