Advertising (again!)

[Richard and Alex]

We have been sent details of the Association Francaise B&B France - also known by their website bedbreak.com.  Does anyone have any experience with this organisation?  Its not cheap - 100 euros to join and 120 euros subscription but it apparently also gets you an entry in Petit Fute and the Thomas Cook publication "Selected Bed and Breakfast in France" publications although these won't appear until 2007 now.

The website doesn't look brilliant but the publications are possibly worth it.

We are already listed at a few other sites including the excellent ourinns.org.

[Miki]

Hi,

Sorry but if it works for you, that will be cheap ! We pay 6 times that subscription with Gîtes de France !

To get in either of those publications before, you would have had to

pay that much anyway but now you get in guides from several other

countries, as well as being on the net. They do help you with labels to

put on your entrance door or wherever (just helps make a place look

that little bit more professional) and also sometimes finds you clients

who want to book through their HQ in Paris, unfortunately they will

charge you 10% for the privelege.

At that price, it is worth a gamble, nothing ventured etc and after

all, it is a specialised Bed and Breakfast organisation. If it works

great, if not, well that is the nature of advertising, one can ask

others if something works of course, that is probably the best way but

one mans meat and all that. We do far better than many of our

neighbours who do B&B but we advertise all over the place. We are

in business and what was that saying, a place with no signs, is a sign of no business ? Well you can adapt that for advertising on the internet or in guide books.

Bed and Breakfast France, have been around a while and we still keep up

our membership with them, even though, according to G de Fr, we should

not be doing so (another story and known by other G de Fr members) it

may only pay for itself or perhaps it more than pays for itself. I

really must get round to getting people by the throat and demanding

where they found us from [;)]

Good luck for 2006.

[Richard and Alex]

Thanks Miki - its useful to hear your experience.  We are spreading our advertising net fairly wide this year just to see what works and what doesn't.  Obviously we have a target market - walkers, country lovers, veggies etc - but hey lets not categorise everyone.

We did get a bit of bad feedback on Petit Fute from one local who ran a "posh" B&B.  He said he got fed up eventually with continual pestering about add-on services etc - but I suppose they are in business just like the rest of us.

We haven't gone the GDF route yet but the house was Clevacances before we bought it.  Perhaps later in time for the 2007 brochures?

Best wishes for 2006

[Quillan]

Just to add to Miki's post that you also get in Gremese Bed and Breakfast (Italia/Italy), Gut & Preiswert (Deutschland/Germany). We get Italians down our way so we shall see. We are registered with them for 3 years which works out at 200€ per year which we thought not bad considering the books you get put in. I am afraid you will get all sorts of adverts come your way for sites and books to advertise in, we had three in the post today.

If your B&B was with Clévacances before you will find getting in to GDF quite easy but as Miki says it is expensive. I view all of these purely from a marketing point of view and will quite happily dump anyone who does not give me value for money i.e. bums in beds against money spent. We have a good computer based system that tracks all this for us and helps us decide at the end of the year who gets to stay and who gets the chop. Sorry about the font.

[Coco]

I've been putting off joining the B&B site/book you are talking about because of the price and the lead time (being an impatient person and always wanting a quick fix!)  However, this year I decided that I really should bite the bullet and pay to go in for 2007.  I've sent off for the relevant forms but when I was looking at the website again I was a little shocked to see that not only do I have to pay to go in it but users of the website have to pay £5/8€ every time they want address details of a B&B.  That seems a bit steep to me!!  I certainly wouldn't pay it if I were looking.  You've only got to have two or three that are full on the dates that you want and it starts to become a very expensive process.  I know that they promote that you buy the book for £12.99 but really, it hardly seems worth having a website on that basis.

Has anyone actually received any bookings via the website?

Just how do you manage to work out where your bookings come from Chris?  No matter how many times I ask people they never remember how they found me.  They always give me the really enlightening news that it was on the web - well as I only advertise on the web that doesn't really help me much.  When I first started out I was only on one French website, so could more or less guarantee that my French bookings were coming via that.  A couple of others I have chosen not to have a link to my own website, so that people have to contact me by that particular site's enquiry form.  Otherwise, I really have very little idea where my business is coming from.  Which makes it very difficult to decide who to ditch at renewal time and who to remain with.