Any ideas or tips how to get more customers, have you been in a similar situation ?

[whitbycottages]

A couple of years ago I bought a holiday cottage in the UK and I couldn't afford to have it stood empty which lead me to get into search engine optimisation and marketing and now I'm hooked by most of the people on this forum and it's become a hobby and a way of life.

I'm getting good search results on Google for terms like Whitby holiday cottages, which is one of the major search terms traffic wise and I'm appearing above the fold on page 1 of Google along with some of the big boys.

http://www.endeavourcottage.co.uk/

I've managed to get somewhere in the region of 95% occupancy throughout the year for my own holiday cottage so I decided I would like to branch out into small letting agency represent the peoples properties.

Over the 12 months I've managed to acquire four clients on my new letting agency website but I found the hardest bit is getting new customers for the website. The main holiday letting agency in Whitby has well over 100 cottages on their books and they according to various sources do not  provide high occupancy rates and this is probably down to the fact of the sheer number of their clients.

My idea is to just manage a small number of 10 or 20 properties in a more personal way and provide a good service for each client.

The four clients I now represent only came to be because I physically met the people in the town and got to know them personally and they are getting much better occupancy rates from my website and marketing campaign.

If I could get a few more customers I could spend more time and money on my marketing campaign and make the business hopefully an intimate successful affair for all parties.

I lived 80 miles away from the seaside resort and I very rarely stay there is my cottages mostly occupied so the chances of meeting people is quite slim at the moment.

You can e-mail people till you're blue in the face but they don't seem to want to trust you and give you their property to represent as an agent when you've never actually met them and you don't have a physical bricks and mortar frontage or a history in this type of business.

Basically the town is full of holiday cottages with very low occupancy rates, and even though I'm advertising to take on new clients with no red tape and contract I have attracted no new customers from my website.I also tryed the local paper and just
the same nothing, you are advertising againt big agancys.

Anybody got any ideas, or been in a similar situation and found some practical solutions?

Cheers alan

[whitbycottages]

At the end of the day I think your suggestion is a very good one because producing a situation where you could physically meet people that are there because you could, good business relationship has got to be a good one. I think I probably will hire a small venue and advertise the event and see what happens. I upate on this later cheers.

I am surprised that when I am have a website which is quite high profile and its nitch and offer a situation where there's nothing to lose but only to gain by providing bookings for suitable properties and you're not even trying them into any contract as most of the large agencies do, there is no interest even in these recessional times when the bookings are down from any of the holiday propery owners.

[BenFox]

I've not done it myself but I've seen it done a couple of times and it can work. but you're rigt - there is the risk that if you don't promote it well enough then people might not turn up.

[whitbycottages]

Thank you for your suggestions I can see some possibilities.

But i once went to a business networking breakfast and found it very uncomfortable, I'm not sure why because I'm not introvert person.

If invited another seo to the event, I don’t think they would be interested because the attendees would not be  possible clients for their business.

I've never hosted any events but that could be a good idea?

Maybe I could advertise the venue and then just invite people to come along and try to make it an honest helpful kind of situation. Maybe if people are actually going to meet the person that could help their business there would be some interest rather than no interest of the remoteness of the Internet.

In my other main business ( CCTV ) people sometimes want to meet me not because they want to know the technical issues but just to see whether they trust me or not.

I cannot approach people to ask them why they're not interested because my only advertising I have placed has been through the internet, my website, or e-mail.

I can imagine hiring some venue, providing some drinks and food and nobody turning up

Good ideaa ? have you done this ?

Best alan

[BenFox]

Have you tried hosting an event? Something like a networking breakfast or maybe an advice session on how landlords can improve their marketing.

Make sure you're offering something that people want at the event and then invite people. I'm sure that you could convince a local SEO agency to send someone to give a presentation (more exposure for them) and maybe get another expert in the holiday lettings industry to give a quick tutorial. It gives you an opportunity to meet people and build some reputation.

Also have you tried approaching people to find out what's putting them off?