Advertising Auctions
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Featured Property Auctions
are an easy, affordable, and effective way to drive
traffic to your website. To make it even easier, we've
introduced AutoBilling, designed to help you maintain a
positive balance in your auction account at all times.
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“Every month that we have been the Inn of the Month, we have had
guests tell us that is how they selected us. It seems they have a
tendency to view Inn of the Month in detail, then go on to look at
others. Seems the first seen ‘sticks’ and it works!” – Becky and
George Fain, Inn at Iris Meadows, Waynesville,
NC |
Advantages of AutoBilling:
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Inn of the Month auctions are a
way for you to expand your market share!
Being the Inn of the Month gives your B&B or inn maximum exposure by
making it the top-listed property on the search results page for your
city/town on the BedandBreakfast.com website.
Depending on your marketing needs, you may participate in
Inn of the Month auctions to either supplement or alternate with Featured
Property Auctions.
Participating in an online auction sounds a lot more intimidating than it
really is. If you can click your mouse and type with two fingers, you
can do it. Here are the basics:
Online auctions are easy:
Log in
with your Property ID and password for
details. From your Home Base, click either Featured
Property Auctions or Inn of the Month Auctions. Click the buttons to get an
idea of how they work; accept the terms & conditions (sorry, our lawyers
make us do it); enter your credit card numbers; and it's ready, steady, go!
- Marketing messages enhance your photos: Both Featured Property and
Inn of the Month ads include your main photo on BedandBreakfast.com as
well as a marketing message. Make sure you have a great photo to drive
traffic, then use your marketing message to encourage potential guests
to click through to your website and reserve a room.
- Detailed statistics help you tell if your ads are working: Although
marketing gurus tell us customers need multiple message exposures before
they will take action, tracking statistics will show you both numbers
and percentages of page impressions and home page click-throughs.
- Placing a value on site traffic: You can determine how much to bid
by calculating your conversion rate. In other words, the number of
visitors to your home page who make reservations.
- Which auction is best for me? Depending on the time of year,
seasonal demand, and your marketing needs and budget, you may prefer
Featured Property ads over Inn of the Month, or vice versa.
Featured Property advertising offers you:
- Instant gratification - your ad goes up immediately if you're
the high bidder.
- Greater flexibility in placement - you can place an ad on
virtually any city, region, or state page you wish.
- 24-hour access - you can start or stop your ad at any time
- Lower initial costs - your minimum starting deposit for
Featured Property auctions is just $25; with many positions still
available at a penny a page-view, your investment can go a very long
way.
Inn of the Month advertising offers you:
Marketing messages enhance your photos.
Take the time to develop some effective marketing
messages that will enhance your photos, and entice potential guests to
click through to your own home page and pick up the phone or reserve online.
Featured Property ads have a 50-character limit; Inn of the Month ads allow
for 40 characters on two lines (spaces included). Here are some ideas:
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Fantastic midweek specials! (30 characters)
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Third night free midweek! (27 characters)
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Ultimate Romance Packages (27 characters)
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Breakfast in bed; you deserve it! (35 characters)
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Treat yourself to affordable luxury (37 characters)
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Country setting, in-town convenience (39 characters)
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The perfect base for exploring [area] (39 characters)
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Treat yourself to affordable luxury (37
characters)
You can only run one marketing message at a time on a Featured
Property ad and another on an Inn of the Month ad, but you can change them
as often as you like. If you don't already have a "marketing hook" to
entice travelers to learn more about your property, create one with these
goals in mind:
1.
Set your property apart from the competition
2.
Create a mood appropriate to your property
3.
Resonate with the guests' own fantasies
4.
Inspire readers to want more information
5.
Sell
your destination
Placing a value on
your site visitors
You can determine how much to bid in our Advertising Auctions by calculating
your conversion rate. For example, if you get two bookings for every 100
visitors to your home page (a 2% conversion rate), for an average of $300
per booking (2 nights at $150 per night) you have $600 in revenue for those
100 visitors. In this example, the value of each visitor is $6. Driving
traffic to your website is an effective way to get "heads in the beds" as
long as it doesn't exceed your break-even cost--or in this case, $6. If your
conversion rate seems too low, you may want to upgrade the design, photos
and/or content of your home page.
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This Month's Sponsor
Gift Certificates
Click here to read recent comments from gift certificate purchasers.
"The site is great--very easy to navigate city to city and find B&Bs. I
really like the 'nearby cities' listings. One area you could
improve would be to encourage more places listed to accept your gift
certificates."
Are you missing out? To join the participating inns, just
log in to your Home Base, or
click here
for more information.
Online Trade Show
Click here to view our Online Trade Show. Are you a vendor?
Click here to find out how to get featured!
Online Reservations
Traffic Statistics
Log in
with your property ID and password for details on the number of page
impressions and click-throughs your B&B has received as a result of all
BedandBreakfast.com online marketing, including property listings, Featured
Property, and Inn of the Month advertising. More
information
Member Information
To update your entry, post specials, and renew your membership,
please log in with your property ID and password. Can't remember your password?
Click here, then enter your
property ID and we'll email it to you. Don't like your password? Once you're
logged in to Home Base, just click "Membership," select "Change Password" ( No.
7 in dropdown menu), and choose another that's easier to remember.
More information
Inns for Sale
“You have the best site for
BnBers – hands down. Your staff stands above the rest in going the extra mile
for those wanting to market as well as sell their B&Bs. Thank you again; I’ll
definitely recommend the site.”
Pam, Historic Smyser-Bair House, York, PA
Read more...
Innkeepers Information Center
Need more
info? You’ll find lots of educational
articles on our site for your convenience.
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