When it comes to money there are a few universal truths we all understand. A few are:
- The more money you set aside the more you will have in the future
- The more you save early on the quicker it can compound and grow later
- The more you focus on investing the more likely you will be successful
That’s why the majority of us put something aside each month for our retirement or investments. We understand we will need them down the road.
The marketing you do for your boutique hotel or bed and breakfast inn has the same principles at work. Here are just a few:
Make the investment early in integrated content marketing
Integrated content marketing starts low and slow and builds over time. There’s a lot of work involved to start blogging or posting several times a week to social media. For many it is almost agonizing to build and send an email that goes out into the ether of the internet or do some keyword research for a website page. However, making that investment early begins to build the traffic to your site and the momentum of your business and it only builds from there.
The volume of your effort early on is important too. Putting 4 blog posts out there this month will mean there will be more content out there for your audience (and Google) next month (and next year) to engage with. 1 blog post a month is a great start but it won’t have as much value as the 4 out there. These are like little employees working for you 24/7, the more the better. And the earlier the better.
Perhaps most importantly, it starts the habit to perform these actions well into the future. That early success from good habits will keep you going when you don’t feel like blogging or sending that email.
Use the principal of compounding momentum
Having two young kids often prevents my wife and I from the luxury of cleaning up after dinner together. So one of us slogs away at putting the food away and doing all of the dishes by ourselves. But in the rare case that we can work together on the task it gives us greater momentum and we finish the task in a quarter of the time it would have taken one of us by ourselves.
Integrated marketing puts the principal of compounding to work much like this. When you pull separate internet marketing tactics into one system you find that they all give each other momentum making them grow more and be more effective. A strong responsive website, effective SEO strategy, regular blogging, active social media channels, an engaged email list, and responsive reputation management can all feed off one another.
Having a good resource for people planning their trip allows you to give your blog a call to action or social media posts a goal that will help drive more business. When people sign up for that resource (visitors guide) with their email. That email can then be used to share more about your property and the surrounding area over time and give them several more opportunities to book a room.
The point is that when the tools you use are integrated into a system they become more valuable and compound the results greatly.
Track your marketing investments and watch them grow
It’s a fact in life that the things we focus on tend to grow. If I focus on what I eat I tend to eat better food and feel healthier. If I keep a close eye on my investments it’s more likely I am going to focus more on ways to make them grow. It’s the same for your bed and breakfast inn marketing efforts. We have a tremendous amount of tools available to us for internet marketing. Use them to focus on what matters.
It’s safe to say this is one case where a “watched pot does boil.”
A well-built system will sustain you for the slow periods
Building your own platform in this crowded world is great when business is good but it’s essential when business is slow.
Last year a client had some things go out in the press that hurt their business. They weren’t bad things but competitors used it against them and it hurt their business costing them thousands of dollars. It would have had even more of a crushing effect on their business if they hadn’t invested in building their marketing platform during the good years.
They were able to recover because they had a loyal following of people and they continually nurtured those relationships. Plus they had a strong Facebook page, email list, and lots of traffic to their website that kept people coming back to their online presence and ultimately their property.
Stay focused on your bed and breakfast marketing goals
Success for marketing your property results when people book rooms and then become so loyal that they love telling others about you. Stay focused on these things instead of distractions like what Google is doing this week and you will have a nice nest egg for your business over the long haul.
Start making your investment
My encouragement is to start now and take action on your marketing investment. It may be one of the most important things you can do for the long-term health of your business whether you do it yourself or work with an integrated content marketing company.
What other principals are at work that we missed? Share with us on Google Plus, Twitter, or by contacting us.
If you don’t know where to start for your hotel, vacation rental, or bed and breakfast inn; contact us. We offer a free marketing audit of your online presence that will give you quick things you can start doing today to drive more traffic to your website and bookings for your property.
