Promoting The Industry

Our goal is to generate great publicity for BedandBreakfast.com members specifically, and for the B&B industry as a whole. In this issue we cover:

Ask the Pros

Let’s Hear It From Innkeepers

Recent Media Coverage

Ask the Pros

Thank you to innkeepers who have sent questions for the “Ask the Pros” section; we promise to respond in future issues. This month’s question is about photography. Sandy Soule and I speak at B&B conferences throughout the country, and each time we reiterate that one of the most important marketing tools an innkeeper can have is good photography.

Recently, I traveled to the Bed and Breakfast Inns of Colorado Annual Conference. I struck up a conversation with my airline seatmate, and when I told her where I was going, she asked, “What’s the most important thing you tell innkeepers?” My instant answer was: “Good photography is more important than any other marketing tool.”

Good photography is the basis for strengthening every piece of online or printed collateral you use. We’re a visual society. Most people don’t have time to bother with words, and they let pictures tell the story. Your website visitors will quickly move on if they’re not immediately “wowed” by your photos. You pick up brochures with beautiful photos, not those with a collage of miniscule thumbnail photos. Email newsletters are equally strengthened by the quality of your photos. Compelling photography produces reservations—just ask any innkeeper who’s made the switch.

Many innkeepers are unconvinced of the importance of investing in good photography. Let’s examine and discuss some of these innkeeper fallacies.

Fallacy #1: I know my pictures don’t do my inn justice, but I would rather have my guests be pleasantly surprised when they arrive.
 

  

Sunset Room, Brampton Inn, Chestertown, MD                 Photo credit: Jumping Rocks

Take a careful look at your photos as they appear on the Internet. Are they in focus and correctly exposed? Remember: your pictures are a reflection of the quality of your property. The better their quality – in terms of focus, definition and clarity – the better your look-to-book ratio will be. Check your Web stats for your “bounce” or “click-away” rate; that will give you a good idea of the effectiveness of your website photos. You want photos that allow prospective guests to project themselves into the room.

Fallacy #2: My rooms just don’t photograph well.
The best way to get great photos of your inn is to use an experienced professional photographer who can show you samples of his/her work, both online and in print. Some of the photographers we regularly recommend are Dawn Higgins and Adam Policky from Rare Brick; Mark Smith and Matthew Lovette from Jumping Rocks Consulting; and for New England-based inns, Tim Shellmer. Visit their websites to get a feel for the kind of photography that generates reservations, and study their photos to get a feel for what’s possible at your B&B. If you've worked with a terrific photographer, please spread the news – our list is way too short.

If using a pro is not an option, consider these tips:

• Use digital photos, so you can instantly review them on your computer, and fix what needs changing.
• Turn on all the lights in the room; add supplemental lights if needed.
• Take pictures at different times of the day, then select the images that show off the room in the best light.
• If photographing bathrooms, fill the tubs with bubble bath to make them more inviting.
• Always show the fireplaces with a fire burning, even if you just need to light some crumpled newspapers to get the shot.
• If you are not able to get a great photograph of an entire room, or your whole inn, concentrate on smaller interesting features.
• Shoot guestrooms from different angles, not just a straight shot of the bed.
• Take a careful look at the photos on the websites of other inns, and pay attention to what works and what doesn't. Then apply these lessons to your own pictures.

Photos still not up to par? Maybe the problem is not just the photography! Consider freshening your décor with new curtains, bedspreads, lamps, paint and/or wallpaper. Use fresh flowers, not faded artificial ones. If you can't see the forest for the trees, reduce the clutter that's crept into your rooms over the years.

Fallacy #3: All I need to show are photos of a couple of guest rooms.
You’ll need an excellent exterior photo, shot during different seasons, plus small and large-size photos of every guest room (yes, guests want to see where they’ll be sleeping, so each room should be photographed and displayed on your website). It’s also a good idea to offer shots of things to do around the inn, to remind guests that one night is not enough to fully enjoy your inn and the area.

Guests want to see the grounds, the common areas, the inn's exterior, the innkeepers, and even the pets. Photos of area attractions in different seasons are important as well. Stay focused on the guest's point of view. A close-up image of a garden flower is beautiful but irrelevant. If the inn's gardens are a highlight, then take a photograph of the garden, with a garden chair and a book open on the seat in the foreground, with a glass of iced tea ready to be sipped.
 

Windham Hill Inn, West Townshend VT      Runnymede Country Inn, Fredericksburg, TX

Your picture can tell such intriguing stories that guests want to find out more, and the media will too. Whether it’s a newspaper, magazine, TV or online story, your pitches utilizing good photography will always get more attention than words alone.

What’s the story? Look how the Historic Inns of Rockland have used photos by Tim Shellmer to entice the media.




 

Fallacy #5: Once I get pictures online, I can forget them.
If you put your pictures online a few years ago, you need to update the old shots and add some new ones. Did you redecorate the honeymoon suite? Landscape the swimming pool area? Add a whirlpool tub? Get a new puppy? These marketing features can only bring you new guests if people know about them!

If your website is several years old, it may utilize tiny thumbnail photos to minimize download time. Experts explain that faster connections make this unnecessary. Select a happy medium: photos that are large enough to be clear, but small enough to download quickly. For best results, show a photo of each guest room, with a link to another Web page that shows more photos of the same room and bath. Include rate information, a description of the room's amenities, and a link to availability information right next to the room photos, so folks can:

• Select the room they want

• See if space is available

• Find out the price

• Make a reservation (which is, after all, the point!)
   

Let’s Hear It From Innkeepers

We really appreciate your support. Here are some of the comments we received last month.

”BedandBreakfast.com is a wonderful marketing tool for us!” – Lynne and Mike Amery, The Inn at Bowman’s Hill

“BedandBreakfast.com is ALWAYS one of my top two referring directories... I bought the most expensive listing they had… and it has paid for itself many, many times over… I know that I had 468 click-throughs to my site last month from BedandBreakfast.com, and since they are already partially sold by the time they get to my site, I figure I get about one in 40 bookings. Last month I had 4,900 unique visitors with multiple click-throughs to different pages. (I did not count quick hit visits). That means that BedandBreakfast.com accounted for better than 10 percent of all my useful visitors.” – John & Sallie Cwik, The Old Brick Inn, St. Michael's, MD

And also from the media…

“My name is Sandra Pilla; I'm a subscriber to your online B&B newsletter, and now I'm writing a travel piece for Philadelphia Magazine. And of course I'll mention the website as a resource and indeed have used it successfully myself!” – Sandra Pilla, travel writer, PA

Recent BedandBreakfast.com Media Coverage

BedandBreakfast.com stories resulted in over 18.5 million media impressions in November. If this coverage had been purchased as advertising, the value would exceed $10,000. Here is some of the recent coverage:

Elizabeth Arneson recently featured BedandBreakfast.com gift certificates in her About.com B&B Guide.

Kim Komando, tech-guru, whose radio show and newsletters reach over 4 million listeners and readers, is promoting BedandBreakfast.com Gift Certificates in her 10th Annual Great Holiday giveaway.

Recently, MSN Money featured BedandBreakfast.com’s Hot Deals: “To find 11th-hour bed-and-breakfast getaways, sign up for free weekly emails from BedandBreakfast.com. Every Wednesday, you’ll receive a list of places offering deals of 20% or more off regular rates for the upcoming weekend in the city, state or region you prefer to visit. For instance, on three days’ notice you could have recently booked a weekend stay in a first-floor room at the Bayberry Inn, in Newport, R.I., for $125 a night, versus the regular rate of $215 a night."

As we say, “media begets media.” TMCNET, publishers of high-tech magazines, picked up this information from MSN and published it in November for their readers, too.

Sandy Soule has been live on the radio throughout November promoting B&B stays. She did a 15-minute interview on the Long Island Dating Show that was heard live worldwide via the Internet.
 

This Month's Sponsor

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Inns for Sale

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Innkeepers Information Center

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