[00:00:00] Hi, it's Karen here. I'm the founder and owner of Bed and Breakfast Academy, helping aspiring and existing B& B owners to create a B& B lifestyle you'll love living and to attract guests who become loyal fans and repeat customers. If you're new to this podcast, hello. I've been running B& B Academy since 2006 and have trained many hundreds of B& B owners over the years.
Pre COVID, I ran classroom training courses but now deliver all of my training online. The great advantage of training online and some of the feedback I get from, uh, course attendees is that you can do the training at your own pace and I'm able to deliver much more consistent content. The classroom course was a very intensive two days.
And it was impossible for me to say everything I needed to and for people to remain focused for the whole time. I now have an online signature course on how to set up, run, and [00:01:00] market a B& B, as well as a mini workshop on the first steps to running a bed and breakfast. The mini workshop is ideal if you're still thinking about whether running a B& B is for you or to learn about the first steps you'll need to take if you're setting up.
And it comes with some tasty bonuses. Head over to bnbacademy. co. uk where you'll find both courses on the menu bar, as well as my blog with hundreds of blog posts about setting up, running and marketing a bed and breakfast. In last week's podcast and blog, I introduced you to the idea of taking on the challenge of doing 52 things this year to gain more control of your B& B marketing.
That first step was to create a smile file. If you missed it, please listen to podcast number 19, the last podcast. [00:02:00] If you prefer to read, check out the blog post taking control of your B& B marketing in 2024. It's the same sort of content in the blog and the podcast. I just elaborate things a bit more in the podcast just to make it a bit more interesting.
Thinking about everything you need to do to Taking control of your B& B marketing can feel overwhelming. That's why I'm breaking it down into small, manageable steps. Remember, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You don't have to immediately stop using online travel agencies, the OTAs. These tasks can be done alongside gradually increasing your direct bookings.
Since it's a quieter time of year for many B& B owners in the northern hemisphere, Now is the perfect time to sit down in front of the fire with a cup of freshly brewed tea or coffee and start reading through and compiling all the lovely [00:03:00] things your guests have written about you. into your smile file.
Apologies if you hear any funny little squeaky noises. Uh, Saffron the B& B dog is, or the ex B& B dog, is currently uh, under my desk, nuking her blanket.
Who knew that dogs had comfort blankets?
Last week I discussed what to do if you already had a great number of reviews for your existing BNB. But if you're new to running a BNB or have yet to set up or buy one, there are a couple of things you can do. Do some research and find B& Bs that are similar in style and quality to the one you want to run.
See what their customers are loving about their stay and write that all down. The other thing you can do is imagine that Your BNB has been up and running for a while. Visualize what your customers are saying about your business. What sort of reviews are they [00:04:00] writing? Describe the experience of staying at your BNB from a customer's perspective, starting from when they're looking online to the moment they leave.
Write it all down. I talk a lot more about how to go through this process, uh, in the. The big online course, if you're interested in that. While it may sound a bit unconventional, visualization is actually used very effectively by some business owners and a lot of athletes to improve performance. When you visualize, your brain doesn't actually distinguish between real and imagined experiences.
The same area of the brain lights up whether an experience is real or imagined. So spending a short amount of time each day visualising your ideal bed and breakfast can actually help you identify the steps and the actions you need to turn it into a reality.
[00:05:00] Back to marketing your B& B. Knowing what to write a blog post about or to put in your newsletter to guests or posts on social media can be one of the hardest things about marketing your business. If you've ever looked at a blank page or post and just didn't know where to start, you're certainly not alone.
Writer's block is a real thing. And it is easy to fall into the rut of posting the same things over and over again.
I was guilty of this when running my own B& B, Hopton House, the B& B I ran in Shropshire for 17 years. There were an awful lot of posts with views, breakfast photos, and cute dogs. And I really had to bring myself back into line to post about all the other stuff that my guests needed to know about. So I'm talking about social media here, but the same principles apply to your blog posts and your newsletters.
One thing to keep an eye on is your Instagram profile, [00:06:00] if you have one, and your last top nine posts. This is how many posts you'll typically see on Instagram on your phone when you're looking at someone's profile. And the idea is quite simple in that you want these last nine posts to reflect your business and answer questions that prospective customers might have about your B& B.
I'll give you a very recent true life example of how I use Instagram to research a business. We were looking for a midway place to eat and meet up with some family that we hadn't seen in years just after Christmas. Someone recommended a pub that I hadn't visited for 30 years, so I went to their website.
The menu looked good, but there weren't many photos, so I headed over to their Instagram page. I wanted to see what the starters, mains and desserts actually looked like, what quality of wines and beers did they serve, what was the ambience like, was there a log fire? But their top nine posts included four posts about quizzes, [00:07:00] two about their Christmas party, their New Year's Eve menu, one outside photo of it snowing, and And one picture of a main course.
I had to scroll some way to find any food or pub interior photos. And the posts they'd been tagged in weren't much better. They were nearly all of weddings. There were just no food photos at all. If you do have an Instagram account for your business, you know, have a look right now and see how accurately it reflects your entire B& B experience.
So last week we talked about the smile file as a way to start to identify content for your marketing. And next week I'll suggest a few more ideas to use alongside the smile file. But once you have your smile file, how would you actually use it? And this is where content buckets come in. A content bucket is like a virtual container where you organize and categorize your content based on specific themes or [00:08:00] topics.
It helps you plan your blog, website and social media strategy to ensure that you're covering everything your customers need to know about what makes your B& B special and why they would choose to stay at it. Again, let's look at another real life example. Let's look back at a smile file I compiled for my own B& B to see how I identified my own content buckets.
So here are some snippets from reviews. Amazing place to stay. We couldn't fault it at all. Karen has thought of everything you could need. plus more in the room. It's well furnished and has a super comfy bed with views that are breathtaking. The breakfasts were all delicious. Karen is a great cook. From that I can identify four potential buckets.
We have B& B rooms. We have the breakfast. We have the attention to detail. Something else I talked about last week about smile files [00:09:00] was looking at the type of language and phrases that guests are using so that you could use that in your own copy as well. Not as direct quotes, but just as a style of writing.
And, you know, I've just picked one up there as I was reading that review out to you. Karen has thought of everything you could need plus more in the room. You know, everything you need plus more in the room could be a phrase that you could use when you describe your rooms, for example. So let's go on to the next review.
No effort was spared to make this a comfortable and welcoming trip. The breakfasts are ridiculously good. worth visiting for the Arriva trains walks as the station is just a few minutes away and takes you to the heart of the countryside. There are two potential buckets here. Breakfast again, and things to do, e.
g. walking, taking the train and taking, doing walks on the train. And another phrase there that I quite like that you could use, you know, [00:10:00] heart of the countryside. The next one, Karen made our stay a great one, her attention to detail is second to none. The breakfast was to die for, and the room was lovely, cosy, clean, and missed nothing.
We would definitely recommend Hopton House, and we will be back. The whole weekend was relaxed and enjoyable. Karen is also a great dog lover, and will pamper your dog too. Special mention for the dog bed, dog towel, bowls and biscuits, lemon drizzle cake, real Heinz beans, HB and Heinz tomato sauce, rubber duck, and lovely cuddly teddy.
So again, when you're thinking of words there, um, we've got cozy, which would be a good word to use in your marketing. I also like relax. And in terms of potential buckets, again we have B& B rooms, we have breakfasts, we have dog friendly and we have attention to detail.
And the last review we're going to [00:11:00] look at now is an excellent place to stay with a touch of luxury. I like that phrase, touch of luxury. Breakfast is amazing, Karen is a wonderful host. Our last visit was the third time we've stayed here and we look forward to visiting again. a visit to Ludlow is a must, we can recommend the Lion at Lampardine for an evening meal, it's advisable to book.
Again we've got three buckets here, breakfast, local towns and places to eat. So these are the themes, if I read through my reviews, these are the themes that came up again and again. So I knew what it was that guests loved and valued and that's what I needed to put in my marketing to let new guests, new prospective guests know about.
Another important element of marketing is to show something of your own values, personality, and potentially make connections with prospective guests. Marketing is all about making connections these days. It's not about selling, it's about making [00:12:00] connections and giving value to your potential customers.
And you need to think about how you can share some of these ways of connecting with guests with potential, um, with potential customers. So think about what's important to you. For me, you know, it's family, wildlife and knitting. So that's three more buckets. So I've actually identified 11 potential buckets here.
We've got B& B rooms. We have attention to detail, views, breakfast, local towns, places to eat. dogs, things to do, knitting, wildlife and family.
I decided to merge those last three because they were more about me and my values than about my B& B guests even though their, their values are most of my B& B guests shared. So what I would do is just rotate those, , last things, so knitting, wildlife and family, throughout my, , marketing. So what I suggest you do now is [00:13:00] go through your SMILE file if you've already created it and think about what your main content buckets would be.
So how do you use these content buckets? So now you've defined them, it's time to put them into action. You can use your SMART file as a sort of springboard for generating ideas within each bucket. For example, under the B& B rooms bucket, you can write blog posts about the unique features of each room. or create social media posts showing cozy corners, the lemon drizzle cake, uh, the luxurious toiletries that you offer.
Likewise, for the breathtaking views bucket, you could share stunning photos, views from the house, views whilst you're out walking,
you could share stories about local history, about local wildlife, about local events.
I have actually written a whole blog post about how to market your [00:14:00] B& B using your lemon drizzle cake. If food was one of your content buckets and you just thought it was a case of posting your lemon drizzle cake, there's a lot more you can do with it. So if you head over to my blog at bnbacademy.
co. uk forward slash blog, you'll find that there somewhere.
So content buckets can really help you prioritize your marketing efforts by focusing on what truly matters to your guests. You're consistently highlighting the themes and aspects that guests value the most. You create a stronger connection with them. Connection is so important. And encourage prospective guests to choose your B& B over others.
And content buckets can provide a framework for organizing and elevating your B& B marketing strategy. You're identifying themes that resonate with your guests and reflect your own values.
And hopefully they'll make it much easier and help you overcome the writing block because you've got all those ideas ready to go.[00:15:00] In the next podcast and blog, we'll explore more ways to find content inspiration and to take your B& B marketing to the next level.
Stay tuned for more valuable tips and tricks. Thank you very much for joining me today and do head across to bnbacademy. co. uk to check out those other blog posts. Bye for now.
