Our Ebook to Help You

Overview of How to increase your online presence for your Bed and Breakfast

This Ebook will arm you with the necessary tools of e-marketing as it applies to B&B’s and small hotels. You will know what to do and how to get going. The book covers:

• Introduction and overview – the internet, the new consumer and the hospitality industry
• How to create your online marketing strategy
• Designing your website to build business
• Dealing with website developers
• Using search engine marketing to be more visible online — what are search engines, how do they operate, and practical cost-effective ways to increase your search engine rankings
• Linking strategies to grow visitors
• E-mail marketing for low-cost high-impact campaigns
• Online advertising
• How to work with travel site portals and aggregators
• Partnering and affiliate programs
• Using newsgroups, online publications, viral marketing, mobile marketing to stand out from the crowd
• E-commerce – features and issues (search and online reservations)
• The future – overview of Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0 (incl. communities, social networking, blogs, user-generated content)
• Attracting international customers
• Budgeting – getting the most for your money
• Measuring performance

Detailed Table of Contents

You are not going to find a more comprehensive yet easy to grasp and apply EBook in marketing your hotel or bed and breakfast. Below are the details of what you will learn.

Essential Background

• Overview of the Internet – what’s it all about – why the buzz
• Global trends – South Africa vs. International
• Understanding the new consumer, the online consumer
• E-marketing hype vs. realities for the hospitality industry

Online Marketing Strategy

• Online marketing vs. traditional marketing
• Components of an online marketing strategy

Your Hotel / B&B Website

• Definition of a great hotel website
• Choosing a web site developer (getting ready)
  • 10 point checklist for selecting a developer
  • How to work with your developer — who does what, what to expect, what to demand
• Planning your Bed and Breakfast website (laying foundations)
• Developing your B&B website (the meaty bits)
  • Developing a site for your customer — customer-centric, service- centric
  • Hotel websites checklist – what you must have, how you can differentiate yourself
  • Compelling content (writing for your online audience, images to die for)
• Example websites — raves, faves and rages
• Stickiness — what is it, why does it matter and how do you make your site “sticky”

Search Engine Marketing

• Why is it important, what are search engines, what do they do, how do they operate?
• Rules for developing a site that is search engine friendly that increases your rankings in search engines
• Keywords and MetaTags – What are they and how do you determine the most important for you?
• Learn about pay-per-click and how maximise effectiveness within a fixed budget.

Linking strategies

• Increase and improve the quantity and quality of external websites that link to pages on your site in order to enhance your site’s visibility within search engines.
• Explanation, rules and illustrated examples of link popularity and link relevancy

E-mail marketing

• Effective ways of using e-mail
• Integrating e-mail marketing on your website and in your offline marketing
• How to conduct an e-mail campaign respecting web etiquette guidelines and spam laws
• Creating effective e-mail messages
• Examples of e-mail campaigns that stand out from the crowd — raves, faves, and rages
• E-mail lists — how to create them, manage and cleanse them, when to buy/lease one and what to look for

Online advertising

• 7 essentials for creating effective banner ads
• Creating an online advertising campaign
• Critical look at examples of banner and online advertising campaigns

Travel site portals, Aggregators and Online Newsgroups

• Irish portals and aggregators
• International portals – Expedia, Travelocity, Hotels.com, others
• Newsgroups, Online publications, Mobile marketing – how can they be used effectively for tourism operations

Partnering and Affiliate programs

• How to use them

E-commerce — features and issues

• Online bookings — must have – why and how
• Trust, security and privacy — how to reassure your customers
• Examples of great sites — illustrating the 10 golden rules for online reservations
• Internal site search – how people search and how you can accommodate them

The Future – elements of Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0

• What is Web 2.0 and how can these elements be applied in hospitality operations?
• Communities, Social Networking, Blogs, User Generated Content

Making the most of global opportunities

• Attracting and serving international customers to your B&B Budgets

Options for small budgets

• Guidelines for budget allocation

Measuring the effectiveness of your marketing investments

• Web traffic analysis
• Metrics for measuring the effectiveness of my e-marketing campaigns