Top 10 reasons your bed and breakfast desperately need a website :
1. Open 24hours
Your bed and breakfast website is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year long. This is the only marketing tool that gives you that much exposure. With this, you can reach potential visitors from all around the world, without having to worry about time zone.
2. A picture is worth a thousand words
On you website, you can show as many photos of your bed and breakfast as you wish. If you compare with print advertising, it is much cheaper to put pictures online then offline : no matter if you decide to add 25 pictures of your rooms, dining area, etc you don't have to worry about paper quality, number of colors.
3. Affordable customer service
By using the web to reach new clients, you can cut into your customer service expenses. Contacting people by email or sending a newsletter to a large list of potential clients implies only to spend a little time doing it. You cut on phone bills and postage expenses.
4. Reach a global audience at a low cost
To reach people from all around the world in print advertising would cost you thousands of dollars. You would have to buy ads in dozens of bed and breakfast books, travel guides, etc On the web, your bed and breakfast website lets you reach potential visitors from all around the world through search engines and specific directories. It also makes it easier for people to contact you. Before, people could contact you only by phone. With your website, they can reach you very quickly by email or on a form on your website, at any hour of the day. Great to reach international clients!
5. Let you send special offers quickly and often
Mailing a coupon or printing a special in a newspaper can become pretty expensive. With your website, you can do it at a very affordable price in two different ways. You can send a virtual rebate by email to your customer list or you can have a page on your website dedicated to your current special offer. You can invite people to visit this page every month to see the new "special offer" you have prepared for them.
6. Take online reservation
With your website, you can take online reservation, which makes it easier for customers that are far away to book a room at your bed and breakfast. You can offer a form on your website where people can ask for availability or you can add real time, secure online reservation, depending on what you are more comfortable doing.
7. Get more out of your print advertising
Once your bed and breakfast has its own website, you can use the address in all your other advertising. In a print ad for example, you can write less text and invite the visitor to take a look at your website for more information. This gives you more visibility for
your money.
8. Give as much information as you want
In other form of advertising, you always have a limited space because of the high printing cost. On the web, there are no limits! You can add as much information as you want about you, the owner, and your bed and breakfast.
9. Interactive advertising, easy to modify
It always happens to us at some point : you buy an add, they make a mistake in the phone number, and your hard earned advertising dollars spent go down the drain. With the web, this situation can be corrected very quickly! You can change the information as often as you want, so you can be sure there are no mistakes. Unlike an add in the yellow pages, no need to wait until next year to fix the error.
10. Build credibility
Having a professional looking website for your bed and breakfast will help you build credibility. Just think about it, when you see a lousy looking website, you assume the owners do not take their there business seriously. When you see a professional looking website, you feel you can trust the owner right away. Today, your visitors expect that every bed and breakfast owners has a website. To differentiate from your competitors, you need to look professional. And having a website, when your next door competitor does not have one, takes you ahead of competition!
