Direct bookings? Why marketing matters

Now, that's not to say that getting yourselves on a listing site is bad for business, but it's taking money out of your pockets that could be used elsewhere, on the things that matter. Marketing is not only effective in getting your brand seen, but it proves to people why they should invest in your product or service.

Don’t get us wrong, marketing is tricky and requires the expertise of people who know what they’re doing. One of the biggest rules in marketing is that you need to know your audience; every strategy begins and ends with the customer in mind - you can’t successfully market a product to a group of people who don’t want it. That’s why investing your time and money into excellent marketing matters, and shouldn’t be missed.

Glampsite owners often believe that they shouldn’t be ‘wasting their time’ on marketing and that it’s not worth it. But the reality is that it gives your brand a voice, one that is not only heard but also creates long-lasting connections with your customers. As a small business, your time is precious, you want to focus on the things that matter most to you, like keeping your customers happy.

As a glampsite owner, you don’t want to have to worry about taking lots of time out of your day to try and convince people to stay with you; you want to look after the people who are. The point is, marketing does all the work for you. Let’s dig a little deeper into how and why…

How does marketing help your glampsite get direct bookings?

You may or may not be familiar with some of these challenges, but they exist and are why marketing is so important in helping your glampsite to overcome them.

Website optimisation

Nobody wants to click on a website, eager at the prospect of booking their next summer trip, only to be met with a slow loading page, annoying bugs and no clear indication of how they can book their stay. All of these issues are a no-go and may be the reason why most users exit your site - why bother with a website that’s taking too long to load when you can head straight to the top OTA and book there with no issues? This is exactly why website optimisation is at the top of the list within a marketing strategy. It’s the epicentre of direct bookings, so why not make it perfect? Smartphones are everywhere you look nowadays, we use them to connect with one another, find our way around and purchase nearly all products and services. Website optimisation ensures that your site is mobile-friendly to keep up with the times and not lose out on important customers.

SEO (search engine optimisation)

SEO sits under the website optimisation umbrella but is often seen as its own strategy, incorporating various elements aimed at improving your site's chances of ranking highly on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s the process of ensuring that your site is visible to search engines, namely Google. Think of it like this, Google is a spider that crawls the web, it does so by ‘crawling’ the pages of your website looking for new content so that you can rank on its search results. The more relevant your content to the service you provide, the more trustworthy you’re seen as by Google, therefore resulting in a better ranking. Marketers use several techniques to improve your website SEO, including keyword research, link building and analysing user intent. It’s not just about using the right words in your content, as well as on-page SEO you’ve also got to think about off-page SEO. When you get these right you have a much better chance of people noticing your glampsite in their search results, thereby increasing your chances of maximising direct bookings.

PPC Advertising

In a nutshell, a PPC campaign involves displaying ads on a search engine or social media platform and paying a fee each time a user clicks on the ad. When the ad is clicked, the user is redirected to a specific landing page (usually designed to showcase an offer or invite you to book a service) and you are charged the per-click fee. How does this increase your chances of guests booking direct? When you run a PPC campaign, your ads will be displayed right at the top of Google’s search results, guaranteeing that they will be seen (by some, if not many users). This gives your glampsite the opportunity to advertise deals and incentives that attract potential guests to book directly with you. The ads will target the right keywords that users will be searching for and the offers will draw them in!

Social Media Marketing

In the words of the author Dave Willis, "Don't use social media to impress people; use it to impact people." The use of social media to interact with one another, share snippets of our daily lives and discover new businesses is now commonplace. You can rest assured that a large majority of your target audience will be active on various forms of social media - which is why it’s crucial that your business solidifies a strong presence. It’s not just about posting regularly, it’s about posting content that drives traffic to your site - content that impacts people and motivates them to connect with your brand on a personal level. Social media marketing is an outlet for storytelling, and the more you show a personable side to your brand, that interacts with audiences and knows what interests them - the more likely they are to convert to customers. Ok, so you know all this...but it's hard, right? Well, that is exactly where Glamp comes in. Our new platform takes the hard work out of getting direct bookings, making the stress of dealing with marketing your glampsite a thing of the past.