Fall is knocking at the door – Leaf Peepers await!!
It’s hard to believe that summer 2021 is in our rearview mirror. But, sure enough, we’re deep into September, Labor Day has passed, school is in session, pools are closing for the season and the cooler evenings are starting to come around more often. With those cooler evenings, trees slowly turn towards the up and coming winter and shed their leaves. That’s historically one of the most popular times of year for B&B travel, so be sure your bnbfinder listing is fully optimized and ready to capture all the interest from travelers looking to book their Leaf Peeping getaway. Here are a couple suggestions to ensure you’re taking advantage of all that’s available to you.
Welcome bnbfinder Gift Cards.
Back in November 2020, we eliminated commission on Gift Cards and moved to a small 3.5% processing fee -much like what you pay when processing a guest’s credit card. Be sure to accept bnbfinder Gift Cards from any guests asking. The more innkeepers who welcome bnbfinder Gift Cards, the better the gift they become. With our very low-cost approach, this is a great way for us to send you more direct business that you know came from us and they make the perfect gift to anyone that loves to travel and experience the uniqueness of our industry. In order to ensure seamless gift card redemptions and satisfaction from your guests, always confirm the amount on a bnbfinder Gift Card when taking a reservation. This ensures that neither you nor your guest are surprised if the amount on the card is different than expected. Feel free to email us at Giftcards@bnbfinder.com or call us at (212) 480-0414 for help.
Outside of bnbfinder gift cards, we also make a concerted effort to get the traveler over to your website.
Be sure your website link with us is accurate and that you’re able to track this traffic effectively with your analytical tracking software. If you’re not using Google Analytics, talk with your webmaster as this is a powerful and free tool that can help you see where your website’s traffic and revenue is being generated from.
In addition to the traffic we’re sending to your website, we’re also linking travelers directly into your booking engine where they can search and book with you directly and commission-free.
Be sure that the direct link we have going to your booking engine is accurate. Bnbfinder isn’t yet offering online reservations, but we offer the next best thing – a direct link into the booking engine on your website where guests can book and pay for reservations – commission-free! Peruse your listing on our site and check all your links for accuracy to ensure travelers have a seamless experience going from bnbfinder over to your website and booking engine.
You’ll also get reservations from bnbfinder the “old fashioned way” – that being, over the phone.
At bnbfinder, we encourage communication between you and your guest rather than trying to hinder that line of communication as so many of the bigger companies out there try so hard to do. With OTA websites, if the traveler is able to get to you directly, the OTA website is cut out of the commission and chance to generate revenue off of your business. This is something OTAs pay extremely close attention to and try very hard to prevent. Not bnbfinder! We think the best experience for you is working directly with your guest and vice-versa, that the best experience for your guest is to be working directly with you. That’s one of the reasons we display our members’ phone numbers and encourage travelers to call you directly. When you ask these guests where they found you and most of them say they found you on “the internet”, “Google” or “TripAdvisor”, just know that some of them may very well have found you via bnbfinder because we’ve made it so easy for that guest to get in contact with you – our member property!
Lastly, bnbfinder links to all of your social media channels including Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so make sure these links are correct and going to the right place.
By linking directly to your social media channels, travelers using bnbfinder can easily learn more about your property and “get to know you better” prior to booking. We try and feature our members regularly in our social media marketing efforts. When we do, we try to tag you and/or reference your property by name and include a link to your website, too. Be sure these links are accurate and keep your content fresh and interesting for travelers looking to learn more. And, remember to tag bnbfinder in your posts, too, so that we can try and help your posts reach an even broader audience.
With our vastly improved rankings in Google and more premier placement being acquired daily, we’re excited to be sending more and more guests to our members. We believe we will become your largest source for direct and commission free bookings and sincerely appreciate your membership with us. To help us reach that goal, be sure to check out our new member referral program where you can earn a free bnbfinder membership with just a couple referred members. Help us help you! Refer your friends and fellow B&B owners to bnbfinder and start saving today.
