Advertising - share?

[fudge]

Hi

Just wondering if any of you would be up for sharing what websites you advertised on and more importatly worked for you last year! We had a terrible year last year and really need to pick up the pace this year!

Thanks

[Quillan]

I won't share mine but I'll give you a few tips.

First set an advertising budget, two three or four thousand Euros and keep to it. If you are at the limit and want to advertise with somebody then drop one (or more) thatyou already have. Make sure you know where your guests come from, a simple question, "Oh how did you find us?". Keep a log of this and dump any company you pay to advertise with that you don't get at least double what you spent.

Where to advertise, well keep your best performing companies and dump those that give you no or little leads that you can convert to reservations. Now spend an evening in front of your computer using Google and/or Bing (the two most popular search engines) to search for places to stay where you are. Try and think like a prospective guest, they may not search for your exact location but may type in just your region or department, local big towns etc, make a note of which companies come up for each search (I did a little spread sheet). Try different combinations of searches just like a guest might. The companies that consistently come up on the fist page of every variance of search you type in are the ones you want to advertise with. You should do this with Google.co.uk and Google.fr (assuming you don't ant just English), you can even go further afield say Google.com for the US market or .be for Belgium and .nl for the Dutch.

Cost wise more often or not those that are the best charge the most, good advertising and Google placement costs so it's not often you will find one of these companies that will advertise you for under 100 Euros per year, some cost a lot more. Abritel, for instance, that has several websites in different languages costs 239,99 Euros per year but sometimes they have special offers, last year they offered a 40% discount in January and did again this year.

You will find most people won't tell you where you get the best leads from because it's business and the more people joining in a particular area the guests 'pot' becomes diluted. Having said that last year was a very bad year. At our annual meeting we were told France over all was just over 30% down, our particular area was almost 40% down. The Brits and the Americans just don't have the money, the exchange rate is very bad for them making France a very expensive place. The French, well you only have to look in the travel agency windows, 299 Euros fully inclusive for a week in Morocco, it's a no brain-er really.

[Quillan]

Whilst looking for something else I found THIS article in which it claims France is the third most expensive place to holiday in after Japan and Brazil, What is just as interesting is reading the comments at the bottom.

[pitway]

The same question comes up regularly on the rental forum laymyhat.com loads of discussion on which rental sites are working and the ones that aren't. Plus loads of other useful info too.

Tim

[Cendrillon]

I was going to suggest Laymyhat as well, it's a very useful site and people are mostly very helpful.

Bonne chance[:)]

[Quillan]

Laymyhat is very good but it is for rentals only and not B&B's so most of the sites they suggest are just for rental properties. That aside there are some good tips and some good information like how Google has changed (via a link) in the way that it carries out it's searches.

[Cendrillon]

http://www.laymyhat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9575

The link above is not recent I know but there is still a section for B&B owners on laymyhat

[LEO]

[quote user="Quillan"]Whilst looking for something else I found THIS article in which it claims France is the third most expensive place to holiday in after Japan and Brazil, What is just as interesting is reading the comments at the bottom.[/quote]

The comments were very interesting. It seems the only cheap thing in France for tourists is, a glass of wine!

[NickP]

[quote user="LEO"][quote user="Quillan"]Whilst looking for something else I found THIS article in which it claims France is the third most expensive place to holiday in after Japan and Brazil, What is just as interesting is reading the comments at the bottom.[/quote]




The comments were very interesting. It seems the only cheap thing in France for tourists is, a glass of wine!
[/quote]

And you'd know all about that Leo [:D]

[LEO]

Hi NickP, all Scot's like myself , know the price of fish!

[Catalpa]

[quote user="Quillan"]Laymyhat is very good but it is for rentals only and not B&B's...[/quote]

It covers B&Bs too...

http://www.laymyhat.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=37

[Dordogne Landlady]

The best thing we ever did was create a FREE website with Independant Owners. So easy to create and really is free. Although we did choose to pay a small sum of around 24 Euros to obtain the web stats which is really helpful. You can see where the enquiries are coming from and where they are seeing you (even if they do not enquire). So really useful. As for spending thousands on advertising, we would be broke if we did. We are only with 3 paid sites and spend less than 400 Euros. The last 2 years for us have been excellent. We have been on first page of google for B&B in our area for most of last year. On most type of searches people enter we are usually somewhere on the first page. All seems to have happened since we joined i.oweners. Agree with previous tip, do several searches and only choose those companies who regularly appear on 1st page. Get on as many free sites as possible too (we are on approx 34), some really do produce the business and every click helps. Search for Free Advertising B&B and it is amazing what you find. Only takes your time to add your details. Good photos are essential. Good luck for 2011.