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Marketing Proposal


Wilko
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Hello All,

I have been reading through the site at some length today, it's cold and wet in Provence today. The germ of an idea has occurred to me. As we are like minded people, ie we like to increase our occupancy rates, would it not be a good idea to "pool our resources" in some way.

A Living France B&B guide on the web, advertising showing complete B&B coverage of France. I hope that this might stimulate some discussion and perhaps something might come of it that is a benefit to all concerned.

Wilko

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[quote]As a user of B&B's I would endorse that thought. When we were property hunting and using B&B's we got more help from B&B's recommending competitors than we did from web directories. Good ...[/quote]

These directories are rather dubious. Quite often they are marketed as independent views when they are just advertising. You know, for example, the Independent School Guides you can buy ; it's a fib. You pay for advertising.

Can't see a basic website being a problem.
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The French "guides" like Petit Futé and the like are just complete rubbish simply because there is essentially no editorial control over them. On the other hand, the French do use these guides...

I suspect that the best way to start is a simple directory with links to the website of each B&B ie no editorial. That would be fairly quick & easy to set up. Cost-wise, it would run to about £15 a year for the domain plus something like £10 a month for the webspace ie even a fairly small group of B&B's could fund it for next to nothing. I certainly wouldn't mind paying £10 a year for something like that so all you need is another dozen or so people prepared to pay that kind of money and that's the start-up finance covered.

I'm sure the best way to go is a simple start - just a listing grouped by region. That way we could get up and running within a few weeks ie well ahead of the summer season. Here's the first entry:

France (so that it could be extended later)

   Languedoc-Rousillon

      Perpignan area 

            Maury, Mas Camps (www.mascamps.com)

Note: no prices on the listing to minimise hassle in updating (that would be a full-time job if/when it ever reached anything like national coverage with hundreds of entries).

Any comments on that kind of format?

 

Arnold

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I'm game to register a suitable domain and point it to somewhere (I could host it on my own site short-term or perhaps somewhere neutral like tripod.com might be better; both at no charge but tripod comes with popup ads). There are some suitable domain names available but I can't discuss them here, of course (I can do by e-mail if you like).

If that format I suggested above is OK (at least initially), it wouldn't take much effort to type the entries up (unless we get hundreds, of course, in which case I'd suggest doing a page per region and delegating the maintenance).

Financing might be relatively easy these days once we get enough hits on the site as a google ad would probably make the whole thing self-financing fairly quickly (I get US$5 or so a month from ads on my own pages which is about 1/3rd of the money required to host the thing in its own webspace: a B&B/Inn listing site would pull in more than that).

I guess as above it would effectively work like a B&B association for France.

 

Arnold

 

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A broad range would be fine. I'm very keen on going with this if there's a good chance that we could collect together, say, 100 or so places fairly quickly (I think that many would be required to get the number of hits up high enough for it to be worthwhile for everyone).

I'm confident of being able to get quite a good page ranking on searches with a few days work on it (after we get the site populated with a few dozen or so places).

OK, moving on re the content, I think it's best to do some kind of geographic structure as per above but the individual entries could be more detailed, eg, pour moi:

     name: Auberge Mas Camps

     low season 1/10-31/3 (yeah, I know sometimes Easter's in there) EUR 39-EUR 55

     high season 1/4-30/9 EUR 43-EUR 70

     e-mail [email protected]

     website www.mascamps.com

     phone 04 68 29 10 77

     tollfree 1-800-571-6392

Possibly also a brief description, probably languages spoken (our website might be in 8 languages but we actually only speak 3; I suspect most people are in the same boat).

The phone is required basically because I find that the French look me up on the website but phone for reservations.

Might be an idea to say whether or not online booking is available.

Suggestions for other information?

Also, would each of us have enough contacts to rope in another two or three places for this project? ie could we hit about 10 already?

Last, but probably not least, what's the inclusion criteria? Well, that's basically asking if gite-only places are to be included. If they are, then another column is required to say whether places are self-catering or not.

Timing-wise, I suggest that we aim for a yes/no decision no later than the end of Feb (and preferably by next week). That's because it will take us about a week to get the site up (day or two to get a decent domain registered, day or two perhaps to get the initial entries typed up), but more importantly, it can take several weeks to get properly listed. In practice, the site would appear on google within a day or two if we each put a link to it from our own sites but a full listing takes several weeks. Anyway, all told that would be about a month so kicking off at the start of March gets us fully live at the start of Easter which is just about far enough ahead of the summer season.

 

Arnold

 

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Hi Arnold,

I think it could be a good idea but as I have written to you on this kind of matter, personally I would keep it exclusively for B&B.  Again as I said, if you put B&B's in a gîte guide or on the internet, then that is what people will be looking for. We advertise our B&B on sites that are for B&B's, we put the cottage where people will look for them. If you make this site and push it as a B&B site, then people looking for B&B's, well you get what I am saying I am sure. Aim purely for a certain market and that is what you will get. I suppose that if you push the site as mainly B&B and have gites as a secondary section (in reverse of the normal) then people will be sure that it is a site for B&B but where Gites can be found should be OK.

There are sites out there that could well have ideas pinched from them as I do feel it will need a professional touch as well. I am up for it, in so much as we feel if someone like yourself is willing to encourage something like this, then we should back them. It can't really benefit us in the high season but out of season, well who knows, it's an adventure I guess. How will we all count as far as input Arnold ? Will you make a page up showing us how it will look for each individuel and then cheekily perhaps we all say how about adding or discounting this or that ?

He who dares wins Rodney !

If it pans out OK, then I will cajole some friends to come along for the ride, even though they would be in direct competition but having said all that, we are in the same guides anyway and we simply pool our extras around,  so I guess you could say at least 4 inc us and Chris (Quillan) get your hand in and C o co and Will ?

I think you will struggle to get 100 off the LF site from just B&B but with the gites added in the way as I stated before, then who knows and before anyone with gites gets the strops, I have one as well but Arnold is really wanting to get his (and others) B&B marketed along with any others and without them, his idea is not going to get off the ground. It is the B&B market that in this case can really help a few on here, whereas gites have an endless selection of sites and anyway I am sure you will get as good an airing as the B&B's.

I just hope this doesn't turn in to a serious commercial affair Arnold and the originals are ousted in a climb for the world wide B&B market as can happen so often with ideas like this ?

Any ideas on it from others ?

 

 

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How does something like: www.mascamps.com/region/trialgroup.htm grab y'all?

A photo would be a doddle to add but would need to be resized so they're all the same size (I can do that if need be).

I think that it would be best to add about a paragraph of information about each place. Does anything else need to be added? The general idea is to let people see what B&Bs are in the area they're going with a little bit of information on the site but most of it being on the websites of the individual properties. That being the case, a little paragraph at the bottom of the page saying that the descriptions are the responsibility of the individual owners would need to be there too.

It's not necessary right away, but in due course a paragraph about each area would be useful.

In that we don't know how many people would be involved, I think that it's best to start with broad regions as per the example initially (possibly not even bothering with the Department). If we ended up with 100 people in the PO, it would need to be subdivided but I don't think there's much point in chopping it up so finely that there's only one or two places under each heading.

 

Arnold

 

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I thought as much re the gites. There aren't an awful lot of B&B/Inn sites around and the vast majority are primarily American ie, as we've all found, there's something of a gap in the market here.

The site will acquire a professional look in due course ('twas my job in a previous life) but, I think that it's much better to get "something" up and running quickly. Each day of delay is another day when someone looking for a B&B can't find it.

Input from you guys:

   1. most importantly I need as large a number of people listed on the site as possible as quickly as possible. I will have trouble getting the site indexed if there's only four or five people on it; if there's 100 or more it will start appearing on searches quite quickly.

      Directly from this website, it's true that we are unlikely to hit 100 anyway fast. However, I think that the way to go is:

          a. rope in your existing contacts. That should pull in around 20 entries immediately (ie 4 or 5 from each of us). If those people in turn can contact their friends that should take us to close to 100

          b. if we each put a posting on sites that we use (and I figure that I look at 4 or 5 similar places myself) we should get rather more (although I think that might be a slower way to grow)

Once the critical mass is achieved I would expect to get the usual "add a site" e-mails but I think it's important to reach around the 100 mark if we can (it depends on our geographic spread: 10 in the Pyrenees would probably be enough for instance).

   2. almost as important: I need to know that the info as per that webpage I mailed you the link for is fine. It's a major pain to have to go back to people to add some vital bit of information later.

   3. your entries!

To [email protected] initially, following the format:

region

department

town, name of your place

season(s) and price ranges

contact details ie e-mail, website and phone/fax numbers

about a paragraph of description

a photo (JPG if possible, no bigger than 800x600 resolution if you can resize; I'll drop it down to something like 135x80 ie about the size on my own pages)

Anyway, the theory is that, depending on numbers we may have the site running by tomorrow (if yourselves and your friends are quick enough replying) and, in theory, indexed on google by the next day.

As far as indexing goes, it's for one of us to have a link to the site for google to pick it up although as the ranking on google depends on the number of links TO a given page, it would be better if everyone added a link to the site.

To cover costs, I'll plonk the google ads link on the page and see how that goes. I think that it would be pay back the initial registration cost over a few months (depending on the number of entries, of course).

And just to be clear: 1) there shouldn't be any subscription charges (says he hoping that google pays off!) for an entry 2) it's for B&B/Inns ie small, owner-run, places that offer meals.

Anyway, comments and entries awaited!

All being well, as of tomorrow you can see the draft version of the site at www.ourinns.org ; the registration of the domain is in progress as you read this.

 

Arnold

 

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It looks like a good idea - I might have supported it with an entry, but we don't do meals (other than breakfast of course). Also we don't seek passing trade or tourists - a conscious decision as we both have full time jobs, often meaning we have to be out of the country, and the B&B is linked closely to one of those jobs so we get clients through that, usually pre-booked well in advance, which suits us much better.

If you aren't that fussed about meals (there is a vast choice of good, reasonably priced eateries near us so we don't feel the need) then I could probably let you have our details.

One possible confusion - I believe many French tend to regard the term 'gite' as a generic term for any sort of holiday-type accommodation, including B&B, whereas to most English speakers it has a much more specific meaning, i.e. a self-catering holiday cottage or apartment.

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Will,

Breakfast counts as a meal. I must tidy up the wording - the intention is just to exclude self-catering accomodation as we've all found ourselves totally lost in the midst of the self-catering sites.

I wouldn't count yourself out of the listing either. You've pointed out an extra thing that needs added: an indication if people are mainly about providing "activities" rather than mainly accomodation. It could be covered in your description though.

I'd really appreciate if you could get your local contacts to sign up irrespective of whether or not you do yourself.

 

Arnold

 

 

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Somewhat ahead of schedule, www.ourinns.org is online, with the first three entries.

Any comments on the content? Is it enough, too much, just right?

I think we probably need to add in the postcode or perhaps even the full address as I guess a fair number of us are in little villages.

Any thoughts on the layout? (it'll get tidied up over the coming weeks as the numbers grow)

Incidently, it's not necessary to have a website or even an e-mail address to get listed although obviously some means of contact needs to be listed. In principle, entries could be faxed or even posted to me.

 

Arnold

 

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Hello All, 

I posted this thread just over a month ago. I am pleased to see that Arnold has brought it to life.

Given the costs provided by A. I can't quite understand why all the B&B owners that pass thru this site are not clamouring to send their details.......... or am I missing something? I would love a posting with any relevant argument.

I feel that a map of France should be shown so that people can go directly to regions, for instance in our case PACA. Cheap flights have made this even more important.

I think that the photographs should be bigger.

Advertising eg: a two line ad. in the S.T. showing the web address would be cost effective given the number of people.

Come on you chambre d' hotiers, pitch in!

Wilko

 

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Somebody mentioned advertising so here's our very first "advert" as posted on the channel4 travel forum:

If you've ever been looking for a B&B/inn listing site for France and not found a decent one, you aren't alone. Us B&B/inn owners have spent a LOT of time looking for one too.

Anyway, a few days ago we decided to do something about it and make a start on creating our own comprehensive site. Very early days as you can imagine but we're confident of getting there in due course and will have a good selection of places listed well before the summer.

So if you're looking for a place now or are an owner who would like to add your own place, checkout www.ourinns.org .

We don't charge for listing places and tourists staying with the places listed don't pay any extra either (we hope to make enough money through the single advert on the page to pay for it all).


I was thinking that it would be worthwhile if we could each put that, or something similar on any other forums that we frequent?

 

Arnold

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I've been trying to build up a B&B/ Hotel/ campsite data base here at http://www.franceinfocus.net/vlc809.html going a little slow at the moment but the site in general gets 500-800 pages views per day at the moment and page hits are growing day by day ( December page views, 300 per day, January pages views 450 per day). All are wecome aboard.

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Emm, I think you'll find that your stats are a bit flakey and aren't related to the accomodation page itself. I had the same problem with my own site originally because raw stats count every single object on the page so if you've got a page with three photos, that would count as four hits (the page itself plus each photo separately). Also, the hits themselves are very, very misleading as you have filled one of your pages with keywords which are, currently, totally irrelevant to the site contents. In my own case, for my regional guide page I could count something like either about 17,000 hits for January or 170; I think 170 is a lot closer to reality and that's on a site with only relevant keywords.

If we counted ourinns.org in the same way, we would already be quoting about 250 hits per day from a standing start two days ago. In reality, it is more like a half dozen per day (and, of course, since it is only starting to arrive on the search engines, most of those are from members of the site).

The aim is that ourinns will have the look and feel of a professional site in due course (because in a previous life I used to do such things), but without any of the costs. We already have regional maps (as of this morning) and will be adding a fully clickable map of France once we get a little more coverage of the country.

Anyway, sorry for "ranting" feel of this post; it's just that I feel it's best to paint a realistic picture of things.

 

Arnold

 

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