banbraindrops
As the rain falls this January morning my mind drifted to raindrops and marketing.  Marketing is often seen as either a dirty word or we just don’t understand how it would work.  Having worked in Internet marketing for over 10 years I can appreciate it but it is quite like raindrops.

Let’s take Facebook and feedback as an example.  Let’s say you have a guest or guests who are just leaving your B&B and you see that they are happy and had a great stay.  You are happy they are happy.  A big win for you.  Once they leave your door it is practically impossible to keep in contact with them again.

Of course, they might speak well of you and this does happen of course.  But you can use them as your marketing “machine”.

I tell my B&B clients to do the following.  Ensure that your Facebook page and your Tripadvisor link is on your B&B business card.  When the guest is leaving just do the following with them.  Ask them to do the following

Will all of them do this?

Of course not.

But if even a small percentage do it then you will have activity on your Facebook, a positive review that others will see and their email to keep in contact for perhaps having them back to visit.

Looking at their license plate as they drive down the driveway is no help.

Just today I got an email from someone who I had initially contacted in March for some work.  Over 9 months ago.  I had not been pestering her by any means though.  I have a system where I set a reminder to keep in touch with all my potential customers who are often too busy at a particular time to do some work with me.

She came back today and we are building her a nice new website for her B&B business.  I don’t like a hard sell.  This person wanted the work but it coincided with the Easter period and once summer came like most of you she hadn’t a spare moment.

I now have a team in place who can even manage your Facebook page for you for pennies per day.  We monitor it for messages and keep it up to date with information from you.  Does it generate millions of euro in business.  Of course not but for the price you might get 3-4 new bookings and it immediately delivers payback.

Photo by Mike Kotsch on Unsplash

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