place which no-one else seems to know or visit , you will be able to persuade others to see the undiscovered attractions of the place and come to stay in your B & B . It seems plausible , after all : “ this place is so lovely , all I have to do is tell people - advertise it – and they will come , and fall in love with it as I did ”.
NO ! If this is what you are telling yourself , then the next sentence alone will be worth many times the price of this book . You cannot create a demand for an area on a B & B ’ s marketing budget , you can only capture a share of the existing demand .
Think about it . Local and regional tourist offices spend millions of pounds over periods of many years to achieve a marginal increase in visitors . What chance have you got ? The sort of budget needed to change people ’ s travelling habits is way beyond what you could viably spend to promote your B & B .
This may seem depressing and defeatist . Nevertheless , it is true . You have been warned ! Examining why this is true is worth a detour , as it provides a very fundamental lesson in marketing which may help you in planning to promote your B & B .
To reach the undecided and change their behaviour , you have to indulge in very expensive , mass-media , intrusive advertising . TV is the ultimate example . McDonald ’ s and Coca-Cola put their branded ads on TV to make their brands enter the consciousness of viewers so that , next time those viewers want a burger or a soft drink , they are more likely to choose the heavily advertised brands rather than their competitors ’. That kind of mainstream , high volume , high impact advertising – call it “ big ” advertising for short – can change behaviour , and if you had McDonalds ’ advertising budget you might have a chance of persuading people who have never heard of you or your area to book a holiday at your B & B .
If you haven ’ t got McDonalds ’ money , however , you can ’ t do “ big ” advertising . The good news is that “ small ” advertising can be very effective – and for less than the price of one daily “ Big Mac ”. “ Small ” advertising does the opposite of “ big ” – rather than put a new thought into people ’ s minds , it tucks itself away waiting to be found by people who already know where they are going . An example : people wanting to buy a second-hand car will look in the used cars section of their local paper : placing a three or four line classified ad there will reach those self-selected readers . The ad will be read by far fewer people than see the colour Coca-Cola ad on the front cover , but almost all the 50,000 people who see the Coca-Cola ad will take no notice of it , whereas all the dozen or so people who do actually read the car ad will actually be in the market for a car . That ’ s why they ’ re looking there .
So the type of advertising we can do as B & B owners is limited to “ small ” – but smart – advertising . Think through all the places where your potential clients will be looking to find somewhere to stay in your area , and try to get a cost-effective presence in the most promising of them . More on this later , in our chapter on marketing – Chapter Five .