CHAPTER OVERVIEW
CREATIVE WAYS TO INCREASE GUEST BOOKINGS
No Vacancy is designed to help you uncover new ways to increase your bookings by approaching your business creatively. Discover how you can stand out from your competitors and broaden your thinking by taking a different perspective. Learn to integrate your brand with your marketing and achieve efficiency with a consistent customer experience for your guests.
PHASE 1 Who are we talking to?
OVERVIEW Chapter 1
Define your guest audience and develop a kick-ass plan to attract them
Before we look at creative methods to increase your overnight bookings, we need to define who your perfect guest audience are. Defining your target audience sounds straightforward, but it’s amazing how many people get this so fundamentally wrong.
• Who is your guest audience?
• Think and deliver globally
• Tell a consistent and unique story
• Develop an ongoing relationship to increase repeat guests
• And much, much more....
“‘Listen’ and ‘act’ on what your guests are telling you they want; it seems so simple, but is surprisingly often not followed.”
PHASE 2 What are we saying?
OVERVIEW Chapter 2
How to EFFECTIVELY use your brand to stand out
Building the right brand strategy for your accommodation business is one of the single most important things you can do to stand out, attract the right guests and essentially increase your bookings potential.
But, what does that really mean?
• Build the right brand strategy for your business
• Sharing your brand story with the world
• Branding isn’t just a logo
• Execute your brand correctly through online, marketing, photography, interior spaces and much more
“Good branding is the one thing that separates you from competition.”
PHASE 3 how will we do it?
OVERVIEW Chapter 3
Be more effective with your approach to marketing
Once you have built a brand strategy that is right for your business and guests it’s time to look at a marketing plan to build awareness and attract more bookings. A good marketing strategy may take time, effort and understanding, but done right it will give you the competitive edge and ultimately increase your accommodation bookings.
• Think big but start small
• Personalization and marketing automation that saves you time
• Think outside the box
• Social, content, PR, paid, earned and much, much more
“Look for the times when your business kicked ass and ask yourself “what did we do that was so awesome?”
OVERVIEW Chapter 4
Make social marketing work for you
With over 2 billion active accounts in the world if you haven’t got a social strategy, then you are missing out on a huge opportunity to increase your bookings.
• How to develop an effective social media strategy
• Convert your 'likes' into bookings
• Use each social media platform for their correct purpose and stop treating them all the same
“Remember that your customers generally now all have networks that can be used to amplify your message. ”
OVERVIEW Chapter 5
Be found online or left behind
Finding your business online is one of the single most important objectives you will have as a business. As the internet grows in size and information every single day it becomes more and more difficult to stand out to potential guests. Luckily there’s some tricks to being found online so let’s go through them.
• Practical tips and advice on being found more easily online
• Get the most out of OTAs and AirBnB
• Many more practical tips and advice
“When you don’t have a large budget to be found more easily online, you have to make sure that the money you spend is effective.”
OVERVIEW Chapter 6
Develop the ultimate online reputation
I don’t think you need to me to tell you that the success of your business relies heavily on what your guests think and say about you. There’s actually very little difference between a bad customer experience and an amazing one. This chapter endeavours to give you practical tips and advice to achieve these amazing guest experiences, and exactly what to do if unfortunately you don’t receive a glowing report every single time.
• Customer experience is more than just old fashioned service
• Everything you need to know to get it right
• Online reviews: do's, don'ts and what to do if you get a bad one
“The digital age means that inauthenticity kills brands. If you’ve stuffed up, own it and respond.”
OVERVIEW Chapter 7
Case study: Kuma Lodge Japan
See how a three-phase creative approach works with this real life case study. From branding and experience to working to on a very tight marketing budget we gave Kuma Lodge, Japan the tools and advice they needed to increase their bookings overnight.
• Developing a brand strategy that set them apart and set the standard for their design and marketing
• Executing a marketing strategy that includes content, social and advertising
• Many practical tips and even the mistakes we made along the way
“No Vacancy gave me some real tools and skills to be focused on what was required and the expectations I needed to have to take our business to the next level.”
OVERVIEW Chapter 8
Things to stop doing immediately
Not everything to increase your overnight bookings is always about what you should be doing as a business, sometimes it's about what you should stop doing.
• Stop wasting people's time
• Knowing when not to advertise to people
• Avoid misrepresenting your accomodation business
• What to stop wasting your marketing budget on
“Make sure the conversation has a point. Once you have a rough idea of how guests perceive your brand, it’s time to decide what you want from the conversation you’re about to have.”
OVERVIEW Chapter 9
A practical step-by-step guide to marketing and ‘creative’
Today, you and your guests have increasing exposure and access to software, apps and digital technology that give greater knowledge and efficiency. However, with increasing access comes a feeling of confusion and being overwhelmed with the choices of what’s actually needed.
• Don’t get too excited and overdo your technology requirements
• All the best design and marketing technology you must have
• Get a ROI on your marketing spend with these simple tricks
“Have a strong website and social presence and continue to monitor and engage with visitors”
OVERVIEW Chapter 10
Technology and digital tools you must know about
So far, we’ve talked about attracting the right audience, how to create a brand to stand out and the importance of developing a great online reputation. Now it’s time to get practical. This chapter gives you easy and practical information to set up and/or improve your existing online and offline experience.
• The best works starts with the best brief
• Up the game with how you present your business
• Practical step-by-step guide to setting up and getting the most out of social media
“I am not hired by hotels usually. Perhaps it would be a good idea and hire someone outside the box to add some creativity to the project.”