Marketing Help, Please

[KatesCottage161]

You need to put rates on your room pages, most people won't bother contacting you if they can't see how much it will cost immediately. You don't have to put in the exact rate - put in a range: for example one of my rooms says $180 to $245 which allows me to put the rate for each season into my system and I can adjust as I need to. This at least shows the guest the range that they'll be looking at if they were to book so they can know you are reasonably priced.
I looked at your website and you mentioned that maybe guests will come after school gets out because of a local amusement park. Your two rooms aren't very large and each only has a king or queen bed. This isn't conducive to a family visiting so I would suggest you turn your attention to marketing to couples for a romantic weekend. We have tons to do in our area and I list all of those things but I focus on couples because couples come year round whether attractions are closed or not. Everyone has an anniversary and most go away to celebrate that. I would therefore suggest you add in romantic touches such as "Sparkling Cider and Chocolate Truffles Awaiting Your Arrival After Dinner." You can pickup truffles and store them in a cool dry place and cider is easily available at supermarkets. For about $15 you can put these in their room when they go out to dinner with some flickering (battery operated) candles so they return to a romantic room. You'll make some money charting $25-$30 and it's easy to do - guys love booking this because it's easy they don't have to do anything else.
Do you have any money to redecorate the rooms with new comforters and curtains? Relatively inexpensive upgrade and can have wow effect. And if you have any other chair you can pull in rather than the metal one it will look more comfortable. Remember, you have to create an experience for the guests and sitting in a hard metal chair in their room isn't appealing.
I know this is hard to hear but you're going to have to spend some money to make this work. We started brand new and didn't have great photos and lots of marketing money. We struggled the first couple years but I had another job to survive. It wasn't until I spent the money for professional photos $4K in our case for two days of shooting but you can do it for less than half that given your size and then I started pay per click campaigns. Right after posting the new photos the phone started going crazy and we made that money back in a few weeks. They really do help because PEOPLE DON'T READ - they look at photos and envision themselves there.
Don't spend too much time on Facebook - you have to pay now for your posts to be seen; I did a post the other day and have over 1000 people - it only was sent out to about 200. So I do put stuff up occasionally but don't focus on that any more. I recently paid $15 on FB to boost my post for the biggest local attraction with great photos I took there last year and got over 30 new likes and a booking so it can be worth it but be strategic.
Good luck - with so many properties as competition these days you need to be aggressively marketing to get a new place up and going..

Thank you for your time and input. The rooms are rather newly decorated, but maybe I need to look again. I can cover the metal chairs with fabric and cushions (or replace them with upholstered ones). I do have an antique wooden rocker in storage but thought the table and two chairs might be more practical. Maybe this Arbor Room needs to look more luxurious. The green (Wildflower Room) was just recently upgraded when I added a bathroom to it.
I'm not in the market to attract kids. There really isn't any room here at the inn for them, and aside from that amusement park, there isn't much for them to do in this town. I was hoping to attract people who want to enjoy the natural resources that are all so close to me. I do like the sparkling cider and chocolates add-on idea. I know I need to come up with some package deals, too. I have contacted my web designer and have asked to have the rates posted on the room pages.

 

[gillumhouse]

You need to put rates on your room pages, most people won't bother contacting you if they can't see how much it will cost immediately. You don't have to put in the exact rate - put in a range: for example one of my rooms says $180 to $245 which allows me to put the rate for each season into my system and I can adjust as I need to. This at least shows the guest the range that they'll be looking at if they were to book so they can know you are reasonably priced.
I looked at your website and you mentioned that maybe guests will come after school gets out because of a local amusement park. Your two rooms aren't very large and each only has a king or queen bed. This isn't conducive to a family visiting so I would suggest you turn your attention to marketing to couples for a romantic weekend. We have tons to do in our area and I list all of those things but I focus on couples because couples come year round whether attractions are closed or not. Everyone has an anniversary and most go away to celebrate that. I would therefore suggest you add in romantic touches such as "Sparkling Cider and Chocolate Truffles Awaiting Your Arrival After Dinner." You can pickup truffles and store them in a cool dry place and cider is easily available at supermarkets. For about $15 you can put these in their room when they go out to dinner with some flickering (battery operated) candles so they return to a romantic room. You'll make some money charting $25-$30 and it's easy to do - guys love booking this because it's easy they don't have to do anything else.
Do you have any money to redecorate the rooms with new comforters and curtains? Relatively inexpensive upgrade and can have wow effect. And if you have any other chair you can pull in rather than the metal one it will look more comfortable. Remember, you have to create an experience for the guests and sitting in a hard metal chair in their room isn't appealing.
I know this is hard to hear but you're going to have to spend some money to make this work. We started brand new and didn't have great photos and lots of marketing money. We struggled the first couple years but I had another job to survive. It wasn't until I spent the money for professional photos $4K in our case for two days of shooting but you can do it for less than half that given your size and then I started pay per click campaigns. Right after posting the new photos the phone started going crazy and we made that money back in a few weeks. They really do help because PEOPLE DON'T READ - they look at photos and envision themselves there.
Don't spend too much time on Facebook - you have to pay now for your posts to be seen; I did a post the other day and have over 1000 people - it only was sent out to about 200. So I do put stuff up occasionally but don't focus on that any more. I recently paid $15 on FB to boost my post for the biggest local attraction with great photos I took there last year and got over 30 new likes and a booking so it can be worth it but be strategic.
Good luck - with so many properties as competition these days you need to be aggressively marketing to get a new place up and going..

Thank you for your time and input. The rooms are rather newly decorated, but maybe I need to look again. I can cover the metal chairs with fabric and cushions (or replace them with upholstered ones). I do have an antique wooden rocker in storage but thought the table and two chairs might be more practical. Maybe this Arbor Room needs to look more luxurious. The green (Wildflower Room) was just recently upgraded when I added a bathroom to it.
I'm not in the market to attract kids. There really isn't any room here at the inn for them, and aside from that amusement park, there isn't much for them to do in this town. I was hoping to attract people who want to enjoy the natural resources that are all so close to me. I do like the sparkling cider and chocolates add-on idea. I know I need to come up with some package deals, too. I have contacted my web designer and have asked to have the rates posted on the room pages.
.

Posting rate, changing rates, posting packages are things you should be able to do yourself. These are the kinds of things that can change on the fly and it is not a difficult thing to do. Even if your site is in HTML (my old one was), you can learn to do things with it by doing a copy/paste to a WORD blank page (make 2 copies so you still have the original) and make the changes on one and then copy/paste your changes into the program (your web site coding). If something does not work, you can always go back and replace with the original until you find out what was wrong. That is how I learned to make the changes on my original site. Noe I just make the changes (thankfully) although there are still things that are beyond my pay-grade that I beg for help with. Practice will give confidence.

 

[EmptyNest]

You need to put rates on your room pages, most people won't bother contacting you if they can't see how much it will cost immediately. You don't have to put in the exact rate - put in a range: for example one of my rooms says $180 to $245 which allows me to put the rate for each season into my system and I can adjust as I need to. This at least shows the guest the range that they'll be looking at if they were to book so they can know you are reasonably priced.
I looked at your website and you mentioned that maybe guests will come after school gets out because of a local amusement park. Your two rooms aren't very large and each only has a king or queen bed. This isn't conducive to a family visiting so I would suggest you turn your attention to marketing to couples for a romantic weekend. We have tons to do in our area and I list all of those things but I focus on couples because couples come year round whether attractions are closed or not. Everyone has an anniversary and most go away to celebrate that. I would therefore suggest you add in romantic touches such as "Sparkling Cider and Chocolate Truffles Awaiting Your Arrival After Dinner." You can pickup truffles and store them in a cool dry place and cider is easily available at supermarkets. For about $15 you can put these in their room when they go out to dinner with some flickering (battery operated) candles so they return to a romantic room. You'll make some money charting $25-$30 and it's easy to do - guys love booking this because it's easy they don't have to do anything else.
Do you have any money to redecorate the rooms with new comforters and curtains? Relatively inexpensive upgrade and can have wow effect. And if you have any other chair you can pull in rather than the metal one it will look more comfortable. Remember, you have to create an experience for the guests and sitting in a hard metal chair in their room isn't appealing.
I know this is hard to hear but you're going to have to spend some money to make this work. We started brand new and didn't have great photos and lots of marketing money. We struggled the first couple years but I had another job to survive. It wasn't until I spent the money for professional photos $4K in our case for two days of shooting but you can do it for less than half that given your size and then I started pay per click campaigns. Right after posting the new photos the phone started going crazy and we made that money back in a few weeks. They really do help because PEOPLE DON'T READ - they look at photos and envision themselves there.
Don't spend too much time on Facebook - you have to pay now for your posts to be seen; I did a post the other day and have over 1000 people - it only was sent out to about 200. So I do put stuff up occasionally but don't focus on that any more. I recently paid $15 on FB to boost my post for the biggest local attraction with great photos I took there last year and got over 30 new likes and a booking so it can be worth it but be strategic.
Good luck - with so many properties as competition these days you need to be aggressively marketing to get a new place up and going..

Thank you for your time and input. The rooms are rather newly decorated, but maybe I need to look again. I can cover the metal chairs with fabric and cushions (or replace them with upholstered ones). I do have an antique wooden rocker in storage but thought the table and two chairs might be more practical. Maybe this Arbor Room needs to look more luxurious. The green (Wildflower Room) was just recently upgraded when I added a bathroom to it.
I'm not in the market to attract kids. There really isn't any room here at the inn for them, and aside from that amusement park, there isn't much for them to do in this town. I was hoping to attract people who want to enjoy the natural resources that are all so close to me. I do like the sparkling cider and chocolates add-on idea. I know I need to come up with some package deals, too. I have contacted my web designer and have asked to have the rates posted on the room pages.
.

Yes you need to attract couples. Don't play up the fact that you are near Kings Island. People will want to bring kids. Put something on your site ie: we are a Couples getaway. Feature romance packages etc. Things to get couples to look not families.
I know we put you through the wringer when you first showed up here. But putting in that extra private bath will pay off. Maybe reconsider decor just a bit and things may take off. Don't worry about Facebook. Doing a blog will be good for you. There is so much of interest around you..remember I used to live near there Check out JB's blog and follow her lead...things will start to happen. It may just take a bit. Make yourself stand out from the others. Do something special. Things they don't do. Talk to all the merchants in town. Drop off some rackcards or business cards. I don't remember if you said you were local already or just moved there.
You might even do some sort of "shoppers special" or "antiquers special" etc. etc. Check with the ladies at the fabric store..maybe they will work with you to do something. MARKET MARKET MARKET..you have the location...go for it!

 

[jmj]

Hi Kate- have a really good friend that just moved 15 minutes from you. Told her to get over there with her hubby and have a romantic getaway for two- seems the move to Ohio from Colorado wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and they need some R&R! You're place seems to fit the bill.

 

[KatesCottage161]

Hi Kate- have a really good friend that just moved 15 minutes from you. Told her to get over there with her hubby and have a romantic getaway for two- seems the move to Ohio from Colorado wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and they need some R&R! You're place seems to fit the bill..

jm - Thanks a million! I can imagine a move from Colorado to anywhere else would be a jolt! I'll do my best to make them comfortable. Even if they just come to town I would take them out to lunch and show them around. My pleasure.