Folks,
I would be happy to give you our thoughts on why we are worth it and how you should look at your return on your investment, not the investment, but it does not sound by reading this thread, that you guys care to hear it so I will save us both the time.
I am not sure what age has to do with understanding (or not) revenue and yield management, ROI, etc. You would be amazed (or maybe you wouldn't) at how many innkeepers do not even track their web traffic so they have no way to make an intelligent informed decision as to ROI of their various directories investments and we travel across the country at our expense to present a seminar on that exact topic.. It doe snot matter that some innkeepers are in their 60s or 70's. That does not mean they understand how to do this stuff by default. Fortunately for us, most innkeepers see value in having someone help them understand how ot measure their ROI for this stuff and they are appreciative. It's a two-way street. We have said ALL ALONG that you should only do what works for you. If we are not delivering business to you for what we charge - you clearly should not pay us as we don't deserve your money. But if on the other hand, we are delivering $8,000 a year to you, we don't deserve to only make $250...
Regards,
Eric.
Eric, You really need to think about how you address these topics on this forum, or any other medium. Your market is a small one with many new or hopefuls choosing this site to be one of their educational sources. Yes, you do get beat up on this site from time to time but you should have the _____ to be able to maintain a professional manor in your replies, which do not include personal attacks and whining.
Now getting to the topic at hand. Raising rates 30% in one year is drastic, not many businesses would last long with increases like that. One of your many reasons for the increase is your GC promotion, then you decide to raise your % on those, too. You are nickel and diming those that feed you at every turn and many, as stated on this forum, are beginning to feel the affects in their pockets.
There are many ways, I am sure, that you could cut your expenses and still maintain a great site and growing business. You state in your post that "
we travel across the country at our expense" well actually it is at the expense of your clients who are being charged more and more while you travel around the country giving seminars when you easily could place educational materials on your site as a 'bonus' to your members.
John has mentioned on this forum the high cost of those 'review' postcards, another expense passed on in the 30% increase no doubt. But as I am sure you have been made aware by post on this forum that the postcard idea is a mixture of success and failure. It would be wiser to put in place test markets to test out new ideas prior to a full (expensive) roll out. I am sure that you and your staff are only trying to increase the value of being a member but this does not pan out when the following year, your rates increase 30% +.
Your post also states "
If we are not delivering business to you for what we charge - you clearly should not pay us as we don't deserve your money. But if on the other hand, we are delivering $8,000 a year to you, we don't deserve to only make $250..." Are you toying around with the idea of going to a % commission rather than a annual membership cost? Hummmm, I have mentioned before on this site that most marketing classes preach the fact that for every $1 spent on marketing, you should make $10 profit for it to be considered a successful campaign. So for a Silver listing, each member should be content if
BandB.com solely produces $3,490 a year in revenue, and overjoyed if it produces more (this of course does not include GC, Featured Ads or any other of your tack ons). So if you are ready to put your site to the test, (your money where your mouth is, so to speak) change it to a 10% commission based site and see how you do - and then all those members that you are trying to educate on ROI will taught by way of your site and how well it produces.
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