Advertise alone or with my Association?

[Bigbid]

I had another forum topic which brought me to this one. When should I advertise with my B&B association or go out on my own. Our association has about 13 inns and about 8 of them through money in for advertising. Those eight show up on the association website that we use for advertising.
Cooperhead said that they sent out refrigerator magnets and they worked for them. Now, do I use my harder and harder to come by advertising dollars and send out as many as I can with just my Inn or advertise the association site and send out about eight times more.
Cooperhead also said he still gets reservations from the magnets they sent out 6 years ago. Thanks for the tip. I guess another thing to consider would be if my Inn shows better than the majority of the other seven inns so someone looking at the association page would be more apt to choose mine giving me a better bang for the buck. Although, something about an actual picture of just my inn on a fridge sounds better to me.

 

[JBloggs]

Big bid do you blog? If so if you allow me to see your blog - I am happy to exchange links on blogs as well, this is just a little extra oomph. I will also tweet your place and any specials you have when I twitter. Just a suggestion. You can email me from my user id.
Anyone interested in this, let me know. THIS IS an Association, we should unite here when we can to promote one another. Each inn has their own rhyme or reason and do not want to press anyone to promote another inn "willy nilly" (sorry I like that term!)
Perhaps a new thread where each who would like to, can list their blog/website if others are interested in promoting? (Just an idea I thought of as I read your post).

 

[Morticia]

Big bid do you blog? If so if you allow me to see your blog - I am happy to exchange links on blogs as well, this is just a little extra oomph. I will also tweet your place and any specials you have when I twitter. Just a suggestion. You can email me from my user id.
Anyone interested in this, let me know. THIS IS an Association, we should unite here when we can to promote one another. Each inn has their own rhyme or reason and do not want to press anyone to promote another inn "willy nilly" (sorry I like that term!)
Perhaps a new thread where each who would like to, can list their blog/website if others are interested in promoting? (Just an idea I thought of as I read your post).

.

Good idea about sharing blogs! Should we get another post started?

 

[Copperhead]

Bigbid, you bring up a good point and one to really consider hard regarding your advertising especially the idea regarding magnets. Magnets are NOT cheap! And to add mailing to that ads more $. I brought up the magnet idea because of the pool of your group bring the amount into a reasonable amount for each B&B. I am strictly going by my (poor) memory here but I think we were looking at about $1200 for 1000 magnets and mailing. You have to have special (USPS approved) magnet styles in order to mail.
- side note - reason many small businesses use the value mail outs etc, is that they are mailed to 'select' areas which they have determined to be the best market for their advertising. They used mailing lists with demographics to choose these areas. Mailing lists are not cheap unless you plan to do quite a lot of mail outs.
The first ones we did, we hired our son and a his friend to had carry them to homes in the 2 large subdivisions and contained a brief letter and magnet which were rubberbanded to the door knob. As I said this worked and we saved $ by hand delivery than through the mail. Times have changed in those 6-7 years and it may be more difficult to capture the subdivisions you would be interested in this way so if you want to try this, check the places out to make sure it can be done as you would like. You can NOT place these in or on mail boxes.
Magnets do work! They even work well for real estate agents as we get several a year like that and I they are less used than a B&B.
I also just though of another method of delivery...with the phone book. Do not know the rate but for the last few years there have been at least one magnet attached to our phone books, and since they are hand delivered, there would not be worries of the type of magnet.
I know I left you with more questions than answers, but lots to think about...either between the two of you or with your group.
Wishing you the best of luck with your advertising.

 

[Innkeeper To Go]

Bigbid, you bring up a good point and one to really consider hard regarding your advertising especially the idea regarding magnets. Magnets are NOT cheap! And to add mailing to that ads more $. I brought up the magnet idea because of the pool of your group bring the amount into a reasonable amount for each B&B. I am strictly going by my (poor) memory here but I think we were looking at about $1200 for 1000 magnets and mailing. You have to have special (USPS approved) magnet styles in order to mail.
- side note - reason many small businesses use the value mail outs etc, is that they are mailed to 'select' areas which they have determined to be the best market for their advertising. They used mailing lists with demographics to choose these areas. Mailing lists are not cheap unless you plan to do quite a lot of mail outs.
The first ones we did, we hired our son and a his friend to had carry them to homes in the 2 large subdivisions and contained a brief letter and magnet which were rubberbanded to the door knob. As I said this worked and we saved $ by hand delivery than through the mail. Times have changed in those 6-7 years and it may be more difficult to capture the subdivisions you would be interested in this way so if you want to try this, check the places out to make sure it can be done as you would like. You can NOT place these in or on mail boxes.
Magnets do work! They even work well for real estate agents as we get several a year like that and I they are less used than a B&B.
I also just though of another method of delivery...with the phone book. Do not know the rate but for the last few years there have been at least one magnet attached to our phone books, and since they are hand delivered, there would not be worries of the type of magnet.
I know I left you with more questions than answers, but lots to think about...either between the two of you or with your group.
Wishing you the best of luck with your advertising..

Bigbid, you bring up a good point and one to really consider hard regarding your advertising especially the idea regarding magnets. Magnets are NOT cheap! And to add mailing to that ads more $. I brought up the magnet idea because of the pool of your group bring the amount into a reasonable amount for each B&B. I am strictly going by my (poor) memory here but I think we were looking at about $1200 for 1000 magnets and mailing. You have to have special (USPS approved) magnet styles in order to mail.

Vistaprint has good prices on magnets. And just as with their postcards, they can do the mailing, too. For a fee, of course.
I've generally handled my own mailings when I got their postcards (which I've done rather frequently) but I know folks who use their mailing services and have been happy.