Following our recent posts on Google Analytics, How to Evaluate Your Paid Listings in Five Minutes or Less, and How to Take Charge of Your Online Marketing Statistics, we presented two sessions on Google Analytics at the Professional Association of Innkeepers International (PAII) annual conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, in January, 2012.

The slide deck below is from the first session, Google Analytics – Beyond the Basics. Our other presentation, Measuring the Success of Your Online Marketing, was posted yesterday.

Below is the slide deck from the presentation. Below the deck is the link to the downloadable custom report (make sure you are logged in to your Google Analytics account, using the new GA, then click on the link and you should get the custom report in your list of Custom Reports. As mentioned at the presentation, the report assumes that your GA goal for Booking is Goal 1 (in Goalset 1) and your goal for Engagement is Goal 6 (the first goal in Goalset 2). You should modify the report to use your actual goals, if they are different.

If you only wanted the link to the custom report, called the Source Efficiency Analysis report, you will find it at http://goo.gl/Cx0VG.

As a follow-up to our recent posts on Evaluating Your Paid Listings and Taking Charge of Your Online Marketing, we presented two sessions on Google Analytics at the recent Innkeeping Conference for the Professional Association of Innkeepers International (PAII) at its annual conference in Little Rock, Arkansas.

At the conference, time made it necessary to hurry through some of the slides, near the end of the presentations, in particular. As a result, we are posting the slide decks here, so you can revisit them and copy down any necessary information, links, etc.

The first of these is the session called “Measuring the Success of Your Online Marketing”, and the slides are below.

RezOvation GT began as a re-creation of the very popular Munsenware GuestTracker software. It aims to be a full-featured program, providing a simple interface, and all the features necessary for daily lodging operations.

Some six years ago, when RezOvation GT was in its infancy, we researched and tried several different programs for use at our Freeport Maine Bed & Breakfast, and settled on RezOvation GT as the best choice. In all honesty, we were not excited about choosing it, as it was relatively untested, and had a number of significant blemishes and a very high price tag, but we considered it to be the best choice despite many shortcomings. In the ensuing years there have been many improvements, and a few miscues, but there is little doubt that RezOvation GT is now a much more mature product, and is one of the top choices available today.

Overview

Unlike most reservation systems released in the past few years, ResOvation GT is stand-alone system, installed on your local computer, rather than a web-based system. The primary advantage of a stand-alone system is that they tend to offer many more powerful features than web-based systems, especially in the area of the reports you can obtain, and also generally allow for more user choices and preferences. The primary disadvantages of most stand-alone systems are (1) the need to back-up your data yourself, and (2) they can be difficult (or impossible) to access remotely. RezOvation GT deals with the back-up issue by mirroring your data remotely (at their facility), and suggests using LogMeIn as a secure way to access the system from a remote location. There is also an online option, called RezOvation GT Online. We have not tested that version, and have heard sharp criticisms of it, so thorough testing is recommended before signing up for it.

User Interface

RezOvation is a Microsoft Gold-Certified partner, so it is no surprise that RezOvation GT is a Windows-only product. It is deeply integrated with Windows components, which means, for Windows users, it will have a familiar “look and feel” and menus and other items will usually behave as expected, providing a nice comfort level.

The Occupancy Map (or calendar view) is excellent, providing a view of all rooms over a 90-day period (or you can set a longer or shorter period), with a slider bar at the bottom, allowing you to scroll up to 90-days forward, or back through the preceding month. If you move to a date other than “Today,” you can scroll through the following 90-days. You can also jump to virtually any date using the pull-down selector.

As is common with calendar views, entries are color-coded (you can define the colors, if you wish) to show whether or not a credit card has been used to hold the reservation, and whether some or all of the amount has been paid. There are also graphical cues to show whether or not the guest has checked-in or checked-out.

Creating new reservations are straightforward and logical. If you begin with the calendar view, you can drag your cursor across the dates and room to be selected, then either press Enter, or right click and choose “Book Reservation” to enter information. If the reservation is for an existing guest, typing part of the name will bring up matching suggestions. If it is for a new guest, there is a “Create New” button next to the guest name.

When getting started, RezOvation GT allows you to import historical guest information from a spreadsheet, using a template they supply. The default template allows importing of more guest information than many competing systems, plus some custom information can be imported. RezOvation support will assist with the importing, if needed.

Rate Capabilities

Booking systems should allow for different rates for each room, seasonal rates, specials or discounts, packages, additional items to add to a reservation, and have a way of handling bookings for multiple rooms, such as a group booking. If larger properties are also to use the booking system, the group booking capability becomes even more significant, and there should also be the ability to create rates by room type.

When you first install RezOvation GT you are asked to choose whether you want to organize your property by room type or by individual rooms.

RezOvation GT allows for seasonal rates through its “Rate Seasons and Adjustments” configuration screen. This screen allows rates to be set up to two years from the date you are working on it. It works by highlighting the rooms and dates you want to set, and then click to make the adjustments. You can set minimum stay requirements, seasonal rates, individual date rates and stay requirements, and blackout dates. You can also add multiple rate types, in case you have rooms which can be set up in different ways, or rates to be used for other purposes, such as connecting with RezOvation sister company BedAndBreakfast.com’s online booking or GDS connectivity.

Setting up Specials (called Packages) and Add-on items is straightforward, for the most part. In the Packages screen, you add the rooms to which the package applies, and adjust the room rate, if necessary. Then you add the additional items to be included, and again, adjust rates, if needed. Then when a guest books a package, all the items will be added and shown on the reservation. Restrictions, such as day of the week, minimum stay, and availability dates, are also configurable. The one (significant) negative in this process is that the screen does not display the total price for the package. This is unfortunate, as the adjustments to the rates of the component rooms and additional items is often done to achieve a particular total price.

Groups can also be set up, with additional rooms and items added to the group or to the individual reservation. Group rates can be created as an additional rate type.

Guest Communications

Modern booking systems allow for a number of guest communications to be sent from within the system – usually as emails. The most common are confirmation emails, cancellation confirmations, reminder and follow-up emails, invoices, and marketing emails. We feel that all these items, with the possible exception of marketing emails (due to the common use of stand-alone email marketing programs, such as Constant Contact and others), are sufficiently important that they should be included in the booking system.

To its credit, RezOvation GT offers not only confirmation and cancellation emails, but configurable reminder and follow-up emails, as well. Assuming a guest is not booking using the RezOvation Booking Engine (more on that, below), the confirmation and cancellation emails are sent manually, but from within the program. Once configured, the reminder and follow-up emails are sent automatically.

While we do not feel that sending marketing emails, or other emails, to guests from within the property management system is particularly valuable, it can be done in RezOvation GT. All emails (like other documents, such as reports, folios, etc.) are generated through Microsoft Word, which must be installed, and you must edit the template to include your own logo, your own language, etc. RezOvation GT does work with the free office software, OpenOffice.org’s Writer (a Microsoft Word equivalent), but we found the formatting to be difficult, and not all features rendered satisfactorily.

Reports

To evaluate performance, properly report taxes, and track marketing results, reports are a key source of information for the innkeeper. Different booking systems provide for different numbers and types of reports. Of course, if the system doesn’t capture the information in the first instance, it will never be able to report on it. At a minimum, a booking system should be able to generate reports of reservations for the coming month/day/week/year, revenue for specified periods of time, occupancy (total and by room) for specific periods of time, and revenue by date (and by room). Many innkeepers also require reports of gift certificates sold or redeemed, housekeeping issues, and additional financial reports, such as taxes collected.

As mentioned above, the reports are generated in Microsoft Word, and include the RezOvation logo. If you would like the reports to show your own logo, you will need to edit the template. There is quite a large array of reports, from financial to taxes to revenue sources, gift certificates, reservations, occupancy and housekeeping. Most have several variations, and all can be customized by modifying their Word templates. Changing the template to get additional information is possible, as the data fields available to each report can be seen by clicking a “View Template Codes” link at the bottom of the “Manage Templates” screen.

We see two (minor) issues with this process. First, if you are not familiar with editing Word templates, and how this works to get information from the customer database, this can be an intimidating task. Second, the codes available differ from template to template, so sometimes the code you would like to include is not available for the report you are editing.

We think some effort should go into making all codes available to all templates. In addition, the reports can be exported to a spreadsheet (like Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.org’s Calc), so you can do your own analysis on the figures, but, only by exporting them from Word. However, many innkeepers would be quite happy with the default reports.

Accounting

Most booking systems provide some way to use the revenue data in an accounting or bookkeeping system, such as Quickbooks or Peachtree. In a few cases, the revenue data is directly linked to the bookkeeping product, but most booking systems export the data to a file, which can be imported into the bookkeeping software.

RezOvation GT allows for exporting the accounting data to a file to be imported into Quickbooks, using the “Export to Quickbooks” menu item. Before this can be used successfully, Quickbooks settings must be properly configured so the accounts and items in RezOvation GT can be properly mapped to entries in Quickbooks. We found the mapping process to be confusing because of terminology differences between RezOvation GT and Quickbooks, and the help screens and online information to be very limited. Once we completed the import (after manually editing the output file so that Quickbooks would accept it), we found that Quickbooks was now littered with all our guests as “Accounts” in Quickbooks, and we found that our accounts in Quickbooks were now 100% out of balance. The reason for being out of balance is that the new “Accounts” (our guests) were showing payments, that duplicate our deposits from our credit card processors. To get it in balance again would require us to manually track down every guest receipt and match it to a batch credit card deposit. Some innkeepers may be willing to do this, but we suspect that most will not.

RezOvation’s solution for this is to use Intuit (Quickbooks’ parent company) for credit card processing, and then a direct import from RezOvation GT to Quickbooks. Then the batch deposits can (at least theoretically) be automatically matched. While Intuit’s credit card processing rates are competitive, they are not the best available. However, if matching every payment to a batch deposit is important to you, this is the best way to see that it happens correctly.

Online Booking

Modern web-based booking systems generally provide their own online booking interface, and rarely interact with other online booking systems (such as Webervations or Availability Online). By contrast, most stand-alone guest management systems will interact with third-party online booking systems, even if they provide their own online booking module as an option. A significant drawback to not interacting with other systems is that the property is precluded from taking advantage of group booking and availability opportunities, unless they pay an additional fee for a second system.

RezOvation provides the best of both worlds with their online booking options. RezOvation GT can import and export reservation information with Webervations (which was acquired by RezOvation a few years ago), or you can use the RezOvation Booking engine. We have used both successfully.

With Webervations, RezOvation appears to update availability on a regular basis, about every 30 minutes or so. The result of this is that your online availability is quite reasonably up to date, but not perfectly synchronized. With the RezOvation Booking Engine, the updates are made immediately, so the online availability is immediately updated on any change. The Booking Engine is a tremendous improvement over Webervations, having a much more polished appearance, conforms beautifully to your website, and has a logical flow for users.

There are two drawbacks to the RezOvation Booking Engine: (1) there is currently no way to sell “gift shop” items (Extras, in RezOvation GT terminology) online to a non-guest; and (2) when a visitor books a room or purchases a Gift Certificate, the CVV2 number from the credit card is not transmitted. Some credit card processors require the CVV2 number to be included with keyed charges, so this eliminates the ability to use those processors.

The RezOvation Booking Engine creates only a confirmed booking (though you can change some of the terminology of the email that is automatically sent to the guest), so some innkeepers may be disappointed if they would prefer a request for a reservation, instead.

Pricing

RezOvation GT pricing is based on the number of rooms, per month, with a 5% discount for annual prepayment. If you want to use the RezOvation Booking Engine with it, there are additional charges. For RezOvation GT, a 7 room B&B would pay $50 per month, or $570 per year. Adding the RezOvation Booking Engine would change those rates to $90 per month or $1035 per year (based on the prices on the RezOvation website at the time of this writing).

Additional Features

Technical Support from RezOvation is generally excellent. In addition to helping with setup and importing historical guest information, they are helpful and responsive when issues arise, often remotely accessing your computer to check settings and make sure configuration is correct, patching and updating problems with the software quickly, and otherwise helping to insure that everything is working as it should be. The one drawback is their support service hours, which are limited to 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., US Central time (RezOvation is located in Texas). Experience shows that getting help in the evenings or on weekends or holidays is more effective by raising the issue on the PAII Innkeeping forum, as some staffers are regular readers there.

RezOvation offers a “Double-down” return on investment guarantee on its Booking Engine, that you will receive at least two time return on investment in online night charges each year (we couldn’t find a definition of “night charges”). That’s still an impressive guarantee.

In addition to a seamless connection to the BedAndBreakfast.com Online Booking (for those who use it), RezOvation also provides an option for those who want GDS connectivity. Rates are competitive, with a setup fee, an annual maintenance fee, but no commission payable to RezOvation other than a $15.50 per reservation. Reservations made through third parties (like travel agents) who charge a commission, also result in commission charges.

Mobile Booking

There is an increasing need for booking capabilities specifically designed for mobile platforms. While RezOvation told us they thought their Booking Engine appeared to work reasonably on mobile devices, we think the embedded availability search is too small to use effectively with fingers on a phone, and the availability calendar is too large for small screens. If there was even an optional link to a version designed for small screens that could be used from a mobile site, it would be a huge improvement.

RezOvation GT also offers an iPhone app for managing bookings remotely. This app works nicely, but has limited abilities (for example, you can not modify a booking). When installed on an iPad it is obviously designed for the smaller iPhone screen. We would love to see (1) a real iPad version, (2) an Android version (the extremely limited mobile web access is almost unusable other than to create a “placeholder” booking), and (3) complete ability to create reservations, modify or cancel reservations, as well as the current information about check-ins, check-outs, etc.

Final Thoughts

Our experience with RezOvation GT has generally been a very positive one. RezOvation GT is far more expensive than less complete products, such as those that provide online booking only, but because it includes automated reminder and follow-up emails, it is less expensive than its close competitor, ResNexus, which provides comparable features but adds almost 50% to its base cost just for automated emails.

We’re fairly satisfied with the RezOvation Booking Engine, as well, though we would like to see a true mobile version, as that is a growing need, as well as the ability to sell “gift shop” items through online purchasing.

Shortly prior to preparing this review, we learned that RezOvation is working on a new release. We certainly look forward to seeing the new features, and we particularly hope to see improved mobile capabilities.

There is no question that, when it comes to managing guest reservations and bookings, one size does not fit all. Most systems provide an evaluation copy of the software, or a free trial account. We strongly urge anyone considering purchasing a booking system to evaluate several different products before making a decision.

Sometimes looking at your analytics data, you can get the information you need from just the referring source of the visitor to your website, or by using Advanced Segments to compare results from groups of referring sources. Sometimes you need more specific information than that will provide. Using Google Analytics, you can easily tag links to your website, so you can get different information about different sources, campaigns, etc., and learn more about what is working (and what is not!).

How can you get more specific information than the referral source?

The answer is to use the UTM variables available in Google Analtyics. Now, I can see your eyes glazing over, but don’t give up yet! We’ll see that it really can be quite a simple thing to do!

What are UTM variables?

UTM variables are put at the end of a URL, to give additional information to Google Analytics. For example, if we want to have a link from About the Inn to our Freeport Maine Bed & Breakfast, that identifies it as coming from this post, we could use the variable utm_source=AboutTheInnMarketingStats. The utm_source is the variable, telling Google Analytics to track the value we have created, “AboutTheInnMarketingStats” as a campaign (to GA, pretty much everything is a campaign).

If you use an email marketing service, like Constant Contact, MailChimp, or others, the links in your emails may be automatically tagged with information about that email (as a campaign). To find out, in GA, go to Traffic Sources -> Sources -> Campaigns. If you click on the Source/Medium link at the top of the list, you’ll see the sources and may find the email “campaigns” in that list.

There are several UTM variables available for us to use. The most common are utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign. You do not need to use all of them. You can use any of them you feel are helpful to identify how a visitor got to your website.

For example, suppose you send out two different emails in one month. One email goes to all prior guests, while the other goes only to guests who have stayed within the past year. You might use utm_medium=email for both mailings (to differentiate those visitors from others who come through other means), but use utm_source=allguests for the mailing to all guests, and utm_source=recentguests to identify the guests who have visited in the past year. If we mail to each of these groups every month, then we might also add to each of them utm_campaign=2012_January so we know they responded to the January 2012 email.

For another example, your analytics may show a number of visitors from Twitter (or Facebook, Pinterest, Foursquare, etc.). However, you ordinarily have no idea if the visitors came to you via the link in your profile, or from a link to your website in something you posted. To differentiate the link in your profile from other links from Twitter (or others), you can add utm_source=profile to the link in your profile.

OK, so how do we use these UTM variables?

You can type in the values yourself, which is not difficult at all, but Google has made it even easier, with a tool called URL Builder, which will set it up for you automatically.

We’ll show you first the manual way to use these variables, so you’ll be able to see what the URL should look like (and thereby be able to check for errors, typos, etc.). There are two versions – one where your link goes to a specific page, and one where you just link to a site (such as www.abouttheinn.com).

If you’re linking to a page, you add a question mark after the page address, then add your variables, with an ampersand (&) between each variable, like this:

http://www.brewsterhouse.com/facebook.html?utm_source=AboutTheInn&utm_medium=BlogPost&utm_campaign=MarketingStats

To link just to a site, you must end the domain name (the .com, .net, .org, etc.) with a forward slash (/) and then add the question mark, followed by the variables you want to use:

http://www.brewsterhouse.com/?utm_source=AboutTheInn&utm_medium=BlogPost&utm_campaign=MarketingStats

To build the same thing using Google’s URL Builder, we simply enter the page or site we want to link to, then add “AboutTheInn” in the Source field, add “BlogPost” to the Medium field, and “MarketingStats” to the Campaign Name field, and it generates the full URL for us, as the accompanying graphic shows.

When these links are inserted as links in a page, social media profile, or whatever, Google Analytics will track not only the referral source, but will identify the campaign, medium, or other variable that you include. The full list of UTM variables is provided in the Google Analytics help section on variables.

After setting up your links to use these variables, it may take a day or more, depending on how much traffic you receive from the sites you put the links on, to see results in your analytics. When they appear, you can view your Sources, Mediums, and Campaigns in most of the standard analytics reports, as well as in the Campaigns section, to identify how each campaign has performed, including how well they convert (using Goals and/or Ecommerce tracking).

When should you use UTM variables?

There is little value in using UTM variables to replace something you’re already getting. Consequently, replacing a referring source with utm_source=theSameSource will not provide new information.

Instead, use UTM variables to provide additional information – information you aren’t already getting. Two examples were given above (separating links from marketing emails by audience and date, and separating links from social media profiles from links in social media posts). If a B&B directory offers multiple links (perhaps an “Inn of the Month” link or a “Featured Inn” link) that can be different from the link in your general listing, a UTM variable (perhaps utm_medium) may be helpful to differentiate visits from that link.

Another use of UTM variables is to include them in the link built into a QR code. If you just use your home page as the URL in the QR code, you can not determine how many visitors came via the QR code. If you put utm_source=QRcode (or perhaps get even more detailed), you will have the ability to identify the source of those visitors.

Stopwatch by Casey Marshall

Segment Everything

Google Analytics ninja Avinash Kaushik points out the value of Advanced Segments, saying, “Segment everything.” This is great advice, and it is the approach we will use to clarify the results we see from our directories or paid listings. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Log in to your Google Analytics account, and click the Advanced Segments button near the top left.

2. To the bottom right of the new section which appears is a button reading “New Custom Segment” – click it.

3. Give the new segment a name that will help you identify it by filling in the Name field at the top.

4. Add the Source fields you want to include. This will be the domain names of the directories or paid listings you want to include. First set the green section to Source, then add the domain name to the directory to be included. Google Analytics will suggest domains from your existing Sources as you type.

5. Continue by adding “OR” statements, set the “dimension” (the green part) to Source for each additional Source directory you want to track.

6. If you want, you can test your segment by clicking the “Test Segment” button to see how many matches each of your conditions (sources, in this case) it matches.

7. Save the segment by clicking the Save button, and you’ll see your usual search results are now limited to only the sources listed in your new advanced segment. To turn it on or off, go to the Advanced Segments button and check (or un-check) the box next to the segment you want on or off.

If you want to create another segment for other paid listings, just create a new “Paid Listings” segment, and repeat the steps above.

Once you have the segments set, if you activate one or more, all your Standard reports will show the segmented information, so you’ll be able to see referrals from the paid listings and compare them to each other directly. You can also compare goal conversions and ecommerce data from one paid listing to another. Great information!

For more information, Google’s Help Center can provide more details on Advanced Segments and other topics of interest.

We’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about Pinterest lately, but surprisingly little of it comes from within the Innkeeping community. I say it is surprising, because Pinterest seems almost as if it was made for innkeepers – it is easy to use (we jumped in for our Freeport Maine B&B, and were happily pinning away in minutes), plentiful graphics grab the attention of the visitor, and it is so addictive that users stay connected for a long time.

According to comScore, Pinterest ranks just behind Google+ in number of visitors, and third (behind Facebook and Tumblr) in the amount of time a visitor spends on the site. This is very impressive for a site that is not yet open to the public (you can join using a Facebook login, or you can request an invitation on the Pinterest home page).

So what is Pinterest?

Pinterest describes itself as a virtual pinboard, but we think it is being far too modest. From where we sit, Pinterest is a fantastic tool for sharing interests, or ideas, with others. It seems to be a combination of bookmarking sites (like StumbleUpon, Digg, or Reddit) with photo sharing sites (like Flickr, Panoramio, or Photobucket), with the added ability to comment, share, etc., that you find on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Why do people share?

The reasons for sharing seem as varied as the backgrounds of the people sharing. Some are sharing their own memories or activities, much like other sites. But since Pinterest allows (even encourages) sharing of sites you visit (they retain info attributing the original source), you can also share your interests, dreams, and ideas.

Why would an Innkeeper use Pinterest?

There are several reasons to use Pinterest. First, as Heather Allard notes, “If you had the opportunity to make your business part of someone’s vision board, would you do it?” Of course you would.

Second, you can use it to share not only information and photos about your B&B, but about the entire experience of a guest at your property (OK, maybe not the entire experience, but you get the idea). An excellent example is provided by Whole Foods. As noted in a recent ReviewPro article, Whole Foods isn’t just sharing the food, but the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. B&B’s can share the accommodations and the experience, as well.

Several other uses for innkeepers, as well as some basic ‘how to’ information about using Pinterest is shared by Heather Turner in her recent article on Pinterest.

Another benefit of using Pinterest is yet to be realized, but could be among the most valuable of all. According to SearchEngineLand, Pinterest’s traffic has grown 100% since August 2011, and now carries quite significant authority from the perspective of search engine SEO value. They note that every pin of your content is a link to your website. When a Pinterest user repins your content, you get more links. While the value is uncertain, social cues do impact rankings, so it is difficult to conceive of having more social links being a bad thing.

Ready to Pin?

As mentioned at the beginning, Pinterest is very easy to use. However, Heather Turner’s article has some quick steps to get started, and there is a very complete article from BlueGlass, called Everything You Need to Know About Pinterest.

Happy pinning!

This week’s post is a guest post from David Mitchell. David is the founder of webmarketing4hoteliers.com – a website dedicated to B&B owners and Inn Keepers serious about ‘getting more beds filled’ and ‘making more money’ through effective marketing on the internet. For those seeking ‘how to’ information on QR codes, you may want to look at our article on getting started with QR codes.

B&B marketing can be quite a challenge as the competition is always tight no matter what star rating a B&B has or in what country it’s located. Marketing your B&B is no longer just about letters, email flyers and an effective website. A very high number of B&B searches and bookings are completed on Smartphones and Tablet PCs – these are the new ways of the world.

The ‘age’ of the simple “mobile phone” that cannot connect to the internet is nearly over. Smartphone shipments exceeded those of “basic mobile phones” for the first time in the most recent three months and accounted for 52% of the 42m units sold. Professionals, businessmen, students and working Mum’s all have these high tech communication devices. Not like the old Jurassic cellular phones or worse, the pagers, a Smartphone can literally do everything your desktop PC can. You can e-mail, chat, make a phone call, surf on the Web, listen to your kind of music, watch videos, create documents and spreadsheets etc.. and all these features in a machine that’s just about the size of your hand.

The latest mobile marketing trend is the QR code. Abbreviated from Quick Response code, it is similar to a barcode where an information or a text is encoded in it. QR codes can be read when scanned by a Smartphone or a QR barcode reader. This kind of code has made website tracking more convenient where one can be directed to a website by just scanning it on their phones. Here are five ways how B&B’s can use QR codes.

1. Create guest referral cards with QR codes on. Have your customers give out referral cards with a QR code on which leads to a special friends and family rate page.

2. QR codes are the new business cards. Aside from websites, you can place contact details on QR codes too. You don’t have to hand out small pieces of cards to everybody because all you need is your mobile phone. All it takes is to scan the B&B’s code. Other than fast and easy, it saves a whole lot of paper. And no one can make an excuse that they lost your business card or else, they have lost their phones.

3. QR codes rather than commercial slogans. Instead of creating the traditional and sometimes old, catchy phrases, place your B&B’s QR codes on shirts, public places, posters etc. It’s a new way of enticing people. For all they know, they’re on your website already.

4. QR codes make Smartphone usage easier. Instead of typing the contact details and URL on the mobile phone’s keypad, scanning it helps make things easier and faster. No misspelling, no wrong URLs and no frills.

5. Mobile marketing has never been this fun. Using the latest marketing trends for your B&B creates a great impression for your potential customers. It means you’re not only keeping up with technology, but making a statement that you’re keeping ahead in the B&B industry as well.

Webmarketing4hoteliers is a private, members-only, resource for B&B owners who are serious about ‘getting more beds filled’ and ‘making more money’ through effective marketing on the internet. The latest strategies and tactics are catered for – as well as ‘hand-holding’ for complete newcomers. Contact David by email.

Closing the circle in this series on the process guests use to book lodging properties is what WIHP Hotel Marketing calls the Second Moment of Truth – the arrival of the guest at your property. We have already discussed the four-step booking decision process, how the guest becomes aware of your property (the Discovery or Stimulus step), how guests make the decision to visit your website (the Zero Moment of Truth), and the process of deciding to book with your property (the First Moment of Truth). In this article we consider the guest at your property (and beyond).

Ready to share?

How do you get word of mouth recommendations that will bring more guests?

If review sites and social sharing are the sources of discovery, then we definitely want our guests to have a positive experience, and to share that experience. How do we go about doing that?

1. The Positive Experience

People usually have a good experience when it meets or exceeds their expectations. Conversely, when the experience falls short of their expectations, it isn’t usually a good experience.

How are expectations set for prospective guests? Proceeding through the booking process we’ve been discussing, some expectation is created by the initial recommendations or reviews. These are refined further by the visit to your website and booking process. The Second Moment of Truth is when the guest arrives at your property and learns whether or not those expectations will be met.

What can you do to set expectations?

You can not do much to affect the word of mouth recommendations, but you can affect online reviews. You can respond to the reviews to

• thank guests for positive comments,
• clarify any misunderstandings, or
• explain (and show sensitivity to) any problems.

Photos have the most impact, both because they tell the story most completely, and because they can be viewed quickly. On your website you can set expectations by making sure the photos accurately show what the guest should expect. Naturally we all want to show our property to best advantage, and to use the best photographs we can in order to do so. However, if your rooms are on the small side, and you use and extreme wide-angle lens to make them look a bit larger, you are setting the expectation that the guest will have a larger room than you are actually providing. This is a recipe for the guest to be disappointed.

Make sure the website information is current. If you no longer provide an amenity, make sure your website doesn’t say you have it. If you’re close to an area attraction, certainly say so. If you’re not too close, don’t pretend you are!

Make sure your service exceeds expectations, wherever possible. You already know how to do that! There is no substitute for a guest who checks out saying, “You’ve thought of everything!”

2. Getting the recommendation

Ask for it! If you send a follow-up email, be sure to include a gentle request for a review on TripAdvisor (or any other site you feel is appropriate). Don’t be rude, or hit the guest over the head with it. Please don’t try to make them feel guilty (“If you don’t review us, we’ll go out of business”), but do ask, and ask nicely.

Let people know about your presence on the networks they are on (Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Goole+, or whatever). Ask them to follow you. Ask them to recommend you. That said, don’t forget to check the rules of the review sites you request guests to use – some discourage asking for reviews, and even penalize you for rewarding positive reviews.

Not only do their recommendations reach their friends (who may remember to check them again when they plan their next trip), but they also will appear in searches for a long time to come. One of the aspects of posting things on the web, for better or for worse, is that you have no control over how long they remain available on a site operated by someone other than you.

Going around again

The cycle has the excellent potential of repeating itself. Potential guests discover your property through reviews, social media and word of mouth. They investigate further with search engines, reviews and maps. Once they have the basics, they visit your website, where your excellent site quickly convinces them to book. Once at your property, the experience is so good that they can’t wait to share it with their friends, family, and other connections. Those people learn of your property, and the cycle begins again.

By having a good presence on social media (the platforms where your target demographic(s) are found, of course) and on review sites, encourages discovery of your property. Good search engine, local, maps and review presence encourages the investigating guest to dig deeper and visit your website. A site that shows the guest the three things they are looking for (value, location and comfort) encourages them to book. And a great experience (supported by a website that has accurately presented your property – especially in the areas of value, location and comfort), encourages the guest to share that experience with the next potential guest.

This is the fourth article in a series examining how B&B guests proceed through the decision process for booking a stay. Based largely on research from WIHP Hotel Marketing, the first article describes the four-step process for booking, the second describes how a guest discovers your property, and the third examines how to provide information to get the guest to your website. This article discusses how to get the conversion – to capture the booking – once the guest has come to your site.

What is the purpose of your website? Have you ever given that some thought? Is it to (a) show off your beautiful property, (b) get people to call you for more information, (c) get people to call to book, (d) get people to book online, or (e) other? For most lodging properties, we would venture to say that the primary purpose is to get people to book online, and, secondarily, to call to book. Is it doing those things well?

The Guest Arrives at Your Website

Our guest has decided where they want to go for their getaway, they have discovered your property (and, probably, up to 10 others), they have done some initial research and learned a little about your property, and have now arrived at your website. WIHP calls this the First Moment of Truth.

What happens in the next few seconds will determine whether you get the booking or not.

What is the Guest Looking For?

Again, WIHP’s research indicates that the prospective guest is looking for three things:

• Value
• Location
• Comfort

They also found two other things that are very important: Quality websites sell better, and better booking engine design results in more bookings.

How should your website be designed?

A search on “web design mistakes” will yield many articles on poor choices in website design. Some even contradict each other. As mentioned in our previous post, Acorn Internet Services has prepared a series of checklists, accompanying their Smarter Innkeeper Series, to assist with selecting a web design company and/or SEO firm. The first article in that series includes a checklist to ask your prospective web developer, and makes a good list of things you should be planning to address with your website.

There are lots of examples across the internet of websites that are attractive and effective. For some examples, view the portfolios of design firms in our industry, such as Acorn Internet Services, Whitestone Marketing, or Insideout Solutions. While you probably don’t want your site to look just like another site, you’ll notice some similar elements on each site designed by these professionals. Large, high quality photos of the property, the rooms (comfort) and of the food (and other amenities, if appropriate). Clear, straightforward, navigation. Clear statements of rates and what you are getting for them (value). Clear descriptions of location and nearby attractions or points of interest.

If your website looks less “polished” than the competition (who may not be your neighbor, but in another location, entirely), you are not encouraging your visitor to book. If you aren’t showing them the things they are looking for (value, location and comfort), you are making it harder for them to find the information they are seeking.

Finally, if your booking engine makes it difficult to see what they want, and to easily and conveniently proceed through the booking process, you are making it less likely that they will complete the booking process (you can validate this using Google Analytics and checking to see where the visitor leaves the booking system, but that is a topic for another post).

What should your website do?

The guest has chosen about 10 properties to consider, and will visit the websites of all of them. Each will have 3-7 seconds to answer their questions. The questions will primarily be (1) is this property a good value? (2) is this property well-located for my planned activities? and (3) is this going to provide a desirable level of comfort?

There may be other questions in the mind of an individual guest, but virtually all prospective guests will be asking these three questions. Consequently, your website must answer them, and answer them quickly.

1. Your design must look professional and current (the portfolios of the industry web design firms listed above will show you what is both professional and current).
2. Your site must load very quickly (this is a priority for Google, and the slower it loads, the less time a guest will wait to see if you answer their questions).
3. Your photos must be professional, beautiful, and must show the comfort and the value the guest will find at your property.
4. Your rates must be prominently displayed, so the guest can easily see the value you are providing.
5. Your location – especially your proximity to the most commonly visited attractions and points of interest – must be easy to find.

If your site answers these questions for the guest, and does it quickly, and if your booking engine makes the booking process clean, simple and easy (including on mobile devices!), you will be capturing the booking you are seeking.

Our first post in this series provided an overview of how guests find and book a lodging property, based on research from WIHP, a hotel marketing agency. The four step process assumes the future guest has selected a destination area and then proceeds through the steps of (1) discovery of a particular property, (2) seeking information about the property to see if it is a good prospect (the zero moment of truth), (3) the guest on your website (the first moment of truth), and (4) the guest at your property (the second moment of truth). Our second post discussed the process by which a guest “discovers” (or learns of) your property as a possible place to stay.

Our topic today, then, is the “Zero Moment of Truth,” or the time when the guest has decided on a location to visit, has learned of your property as a possible place to stay, but has not yet seen your website, and wants to find out more about your property.

Another 7.3% seek information from a review site (such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.). After that the numbers fall off radically for travel guides (3%) and social media sites (0.8%). Just a side note – if you’re counting on your social media sites (Facebook, Google Plus, etc.) to provide the information, at the current time you’re reaching less than 1% of those who want to find you.

We would ordinarily expect Google to be the most commonly used search engine, so we won’t be surprised to find that it is. Although many articles remind us not to forget Yahoo, Bing, and others, and other articles talk about Google losing market share at the expense of Bing, in particular, these statistics don’t match up with the results of WIHP’s research. They found that 89.8% of searches leading to a property’s website came from Google, while Yahoo and Bing brought 4% and 3.6%, respectively.

Before booking, the average guest will have viewed 10 different hotel websites over 6 days, and will have visited the one they ultimately choose at least 3-4 times. This is where your competition truly exists. Your goal, at this point, is to be one of the sites (perhaps the top site) the guest will consider, and to get them to visit your website.

We talked about how to help yourself be found on TripAdvisor in our previous post, and much the same advice would apply to other review sites (though no others provide the exposure in the lodging market that TripAdvisor does). Consequently, our focus here should be on search engines – particularly Google – and map sites.

How do guests find information through search engines?

Try it yourself. What search terms would a guest, knowing the location and the name of your inn, use to search? If you’re having trouble, pick a place you’d like to travel, find the name of a property there, and try to find out more about the property using your favorite search engine. Then use those search terms for your own property and location.

What do you see in the results? In the case of our Freeport Maine bed and breakfast (while signed in to Google, which may affect the results), I see our website, then our TripAdvisor reviews, then a couple of B&B directories, a news article we are mentioned in, etc. Verify these results while logged out of Google. They may also differ by your location, so you may want to have someone repeat the search using a different location.

One thing you’ll see in all (or nearly all) the search results is a description of the page the result will link to. Although Google, at least, reserves the right to re-write the description, you can “help” by putting a well-written description META tag in the head section of a page. If your description provides an accurate summary of the content of the page, it may well be the description that is used in the search results.

Bear in mind that just because your own website is the first result in the search results, that does not necessarily mean your guests will click on it first! They may choose one of the B&B directories, TripAdvisor, or something else. Our goal is to provide information for our future guests in all of these sources, so they’ll find it regardless of where they look.

Getting found on search engines (search engine optimization or SEO) is a topic that would make an extensive series in its own right. Fundamentally it breaks down into on-page SEO (signals on the page that help the search engine determine how to index the content), and ongoing SEO efforts (such as building incoming links to your website, dealing with local listings, maps, etc.). We are planning to break out this topic, and part of the next post in this series (on the First Moment of Truth) relating to your website, itself, into a short series of its own. Consequently we’ll just hit some of the high points here. Bear in mind that our brief discussion of SEO is not meant to say it is not important. Just the contrary. It is so important that it deserves a more complete treatment than we can include in this post.

In an excellent series entitled “The Smarter Innkeeper”, Acorn Internet Services has devoted two of the three topics to on-page SEO and ongoing SEO (the third point is on the web design itself, which we cover in our next post). In each post is a checklist of tasks you can perform (or have done for you) to make your website more easily found by the search engines and to make it more likely to be indexed for the relevant search terms. The checklists are written as something you might ask your web designer or SEO firm, to be sure they don’t miss anything, but they will do very nicely as a list of the tasks you should plan to perform, as well.

Both of the two SEO checklists make reference to creating and maintaining local listings. In addition to any local listings sites, such as Chambers of Commerce, innkeeping associations, area marketing groups, etc., the search engines have their own local listings pages. Properly setting up and maintaining these pages will help you be found – especially on the mapping websites.

What about maps?

If you have followed the steps on the SEO checklists, and your local setup is correct, you do want to be sure your location is correctly specified on mapping sites. Most will allow you to claim your listing (you did that long ago, didn’t you?), then to edit the location if it is not correct. Again, most will allow you to specify business name, phone, website URL, etc., as well as other details, much as the local sites will. Keep in mind that the search engines have a specific format for business names, addresses and telephone numbers, so you want to follow those formats and keep the information the same from place to place. If the information is not identical (for example, saying “B&B” in one location and “Bed and Breakfast” in another), you run the risk that a search engine (which is only a computer, after all) will think they are two different businesses.

When your guest searches on a map, it is likely that they want to know how close (meaning how convenient) you are to a particular location. To help them out, tell them how close you are to various attractions. There is no substitute for making it easy for the guest to find the information they are seeking!

If we’ve done all these things, we’ve made it easy for the prospective guest to learn more about our property before they come to our website. In fact, if we’ve done our job well, we have whetted their appetite to see our website! We’ll talk about what happens on the website in our next post.