The first step toward a successful marketing strategy is to define your brand. What makes your bed and breakfast stand out from others in your area? What are your property’s values and highlights? For example, is your property historic or modern? Luxurious or budget-friendly? Do you make an effort to deliver an environmentally friendly experience? These characteristics will help you articulate what makes your property distinctive. 

This exercise will inform your brand identity: your property’s name, logo, color palette, font, photography style and more. Many B&Bs opt to work with a professional designer or branding agency to create their brand identity, but plenty of properties also do it themselves using graphic design apps like Canva. The most important piece is to pick your brand identity and stick to it; creating a consistent brand experience on all touchpoints, like your website, email templates, signage, and on-site collateral will make guests more aware of your brand.  Need some help developing your brand? It may be worth exploring a partnership with a reputable hotel branding agency.

With your brand identity solidified, you can build and launch your website. Your website has two main purposes: to educate guests about your property and to enable guests to book reservations quickly and easily. With these goals in mind, you want to create a website that’s as user-friendly as possible. Users should be able to navigate to your booking engine and through your various pages with ease. A good best practice is to have a “book now” button on every page so potential guests can always access it, regardless of where on your website they are. In addition, your website should be mobile-friendly, since at least 70% of travelers research their trips on mobile, and many of them book on their smartphones too. To make your website perform even better, consider making mobile payment options like ApplePay and Google Pay available.

While some B&B owners find success getting reservations through their own website only, most B&Bs are also listed on popular third-party distribution channels, such as Booking.com, Expedia, and Airbnb. These channels are some of the most-visited travel websites in the world, so you can tap into their huge user bases to get great visibility among potential guests. You can also list your property on websites that specialize in B&Bs, such as bnbfinder.com, or on niche platforms, like Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which caters to luxury travelers. Although third-party channels like these charge commissions or listing fees, they can still be lucrative additions to your marketing strategy because of the volume they can generate from their large audiences.

But it’s not enough to “build it and they will come.” Your website and third-party listings will not perform well if you don’t have a base of positive guest reviews. Guests can post reviews on the site where they booked (Airbnb, Expedia, etc.) or on review platforms like Google and Tripadvisor. To be able to respond to reviews on Google and Tripadvisor, you’ll need to claim your listings and verify your information. Then, you can begin to kindly ask guests to post reviews after their stays. Responding to reviews is a great way to show that you care what guests are saying, which helps to strengthen your reputation. These reviews are critical to your success; over 80% of travelers will often or always read reviews before booking a place to stay.

Asking guests to write reviews is just one excellent topic to incorporate into your email marketing strategy. After a guest books a stay and shares their email address with you, you can utilize that email address to immediately start building a relationship with them. A solid email marketing plan involves emails before and after stay; before their stay, you can email guests with inspiration to help them plan their trips, and after their stay, you can send newsletters or promotional offers to encourage them to stay with you again.

While not every B&B engages in paid advertising channels like search and social, these additional advertising opportunities can spread the world about your property and showcase it to a wider audience of potential guests. Even if you have a small advertising budget, you can still tap into paid channels that can generate good return on ad spend. Two popular options for B&Bs are Expedia TravelAds and Booking.com Sponsored Ads – pay-per-click ad platforms that give your Expedia and Booking.com listings an immediate boost to the top of the search results. Another beneficial channel is Google Adwords, which is Google’s pay-per-click ad product that promotes your website at the top of the Google search results. Social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok also offer paid advertising products, and they perform best for properties that have eye-catching photography and a younger guest demographic.

Developing and deploying a marketing strategy for your bed and breakfast can make the difference between a slow year and a busy, profitable one. No matter where your property is located and who your target guests are, a thoughtful marketing and advertising plan can put your property in front of potential guests and even drive loyalty.