Hi Johan here. Welcome. Thanks. Knowing you are taking time to watch is really encouraging. Our Cape Town SuperHost team of memory creators Unhassle AIRBNB Management and Unlock Value For Absent Owners and Hosts like you.
Y ou have read the previous Airbnb Host tutorial articles (here) in the series?
How To Get More Direct Bookings To Your Website Strategy: Introduction
I am busy with a tutorial series direct booking strategies on how to get more direct bookings to your website.
We are mostly very dependent on Airbnb, Booking.com, Google, Facebook and others. These guys are our saviours but also squeeze to kinds of stuff out of us. This has to stop.
The first tutorial in the series is this one where I introduce our dependency on Airbnb, Booking.com, Facebook, Google and others.
We are so dependent on these saviours that we are willing to go through pain, agony and suffering when they make us pay.
Change their policies to make them more money while the host or operator draws the short straw. We will look at new direct booking strategies.
We will look at getting more direct bookings with viral loops. If have Airbnbs and want more direct bookings then join me. If you want more hotel direct bookings then keep watching. Or you are a guest house B&B owner this will do it. Even tourism operators and tourism guides, agents, agencies can get more Direct Bookings if we change our direct booking strategies.
Video Script Follows:
Direct Bookings. Is Your Dependency On Your Saviours;
Airbnb & Others The Reason You Ignore Your Own Obvious Autopilot Marketing Loop?
What?
Before I get to the loop details, let me share with you our risky marketing exposure and then a few questions.
My claim today! We are too dependent on our Saviours; Airbnb, Booking.com, Facebook, Google and others.
My aim is to show you, in future videos, how to redesign a more independent marketing loop.
As a host, many of us, drive traffic to our listings either by paying for it or constantly pushing content towards social media.
This means you exert effort; money or time.
The effort, although free, is time-consuming. And therefore also money.
Why do we always have to push and push and push?
There must be a better way.
To clarify my dependency argument, let me ask you a few critical questions and you answer yes or no:
Is there any excellent marketing you do that you set up once, and it runs freely on autopilot?
Is it even possible to set up such a free autopilot loop?
Is there anything in your marketing arsenal that is not dependent on Google, Facebook, Airbnb and others?
Is your direct booking website nearly as successful as Airbnb, Booking.com or others?
Can your website bring you, guests, without search engines?
For example; if Google changes it’s algorithms will it affect you?
Are you paying very little to Airbnb, Booking.com or others for the honour to list your accommodation?
(BTW: My conservative calculations show an average cost of $2000 or R35000 ZAR per year per listing.
Social media pushing; as you may know, Facebook, Instagram, and Google prefer that you pay to get attention.
Do they go out of their way to bring you many guests with free traffic?
Are you in charge of your destiny?
For example; when a guest has a fishy extenuating circumstances excuse to cancel a booking do you make the final ruling?
Do you have a clever email marketing strategy?
Are you in regular planned contact with your previous guests?
Can Google, or Facebook, or Airbnb pull all the guest contacts you made from your database and delete them?
If Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Booking.com etc die tomorrow will your business flourish?
If you have answered no to one or two then you are the lucky one and should be very happy.
If you answered no to more than two then together we have no choice but to find the missing independent-loop.
I am talking nonsense.
Some people are not interested in independence or at least don’t want to be less dependent on these saviours. That’s fine.
Even A Tepid Water Frog Has A Choice.
Yes. Only when the frog becomes aware of the heat. Some frogs tell me,
Don’t kill the goose laying the golden eggs. Don’t bite the hand feeding you.
Yes. True. And we should not close all doors.
However, these generalisations endorse dependency; hand-feeding me, the external golden goose.
I am not interested.
Why not at least question the water temperature?
Why not question if we can do a better job?
I am designing an autopilot, even scientific loop to be more independent. And you are invited.
Great stuff. I am committed and confident we can make the jump and find a less dependent loop.
To get there let’s look at our current dependency loop. This is what it looks like.
At the top, a guest sees your listing on Airbnb or other saviours.
Pay and reserve it.
Stay.
Share at Airbnb a 5 Star review.
Now? You agree to pay Airbnb. Or you stop the relationship with its consequences.
What this means is that most of us have nothing without saviours like Airbnb, Booking.com and others.
Going forward we are not going to stop our relationships with our dependency partners.
No. We are just going to take back some independence. Is that fair?
See where that noose hangs? It’s the dead end. Currently.
That is where our solution must start.
For the next few weeks, we will design such a loop.
It’s been used every day by Airbnb, Dropbox and others. We are just oblivious to these loops.
Next week more.
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