Should You Give That Influencer A Free Stay?

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Hello, hello, hello.

And it's great to welcome you back to the Get Fully Booked podcast, the show that is on a mission to help short term rental owners master their marketing to get more direct bookings.

And I hope to grow a business that actually feels good to run.

It's great to have you here today.

I'm your host, Sarah Orchard, and thanks for joining me.

So today we're diving into one of the most common questions that I get asked in my marketing club membership, the Fully Booked Business club.

And that is, should I give an influencer a free stay?

Yes, you've probably had zillions of those DMs or emails and I've been getting tons of them since one of our TikToks went viral.

You know the ones, hey, I'm XYZ and I'm a travel influencer and I'd love to come and stay with you and shoot some content for you.

You guessed it, in exchange for a complimentary stay.

Now, it can feel really flattering, right?

But also a bit awkward because you get so many requests and you start thinking to yourself, would this actually lead to any bookings?

Obviously you're going to have to give up a stay.

So is it worth the cost to your business?

And how do I even tell if this person is legit or are they just looking to blag a free holiday?

A freebie.

So today we're going to get really clear on how to handle those requests and more importantly, how to tell the difference between an influencer and a content creator stay.

Because believe me, they're not the same thing.

And that can make a huge difference.

It can make or break, whether it's a really good marketing investment and you're being really savvy, or whether it can be a costly mistake that doesn't get you any bookings.

But first, I thought it'd be good to give you an interesting fact that sort of sets the scene, because I'm not arguing that social media is not hugely influential, but there is a bit of a but, and we'll come to that later.

But here's a thing that might surprise you, that actually they've estimated now that three quarters of all travelers now use social media for dreaming of or planning their next day.

But when you actually consider the conversion data, it's actually very small.

They think that round about less than 20% of the influencer type campaigns actually lead to any bookings.

So, you know, when we're on social media, I've said this before, we are looking for entertainment inspiration.

It's very easy to scroll and to like content, but that doesn't mean that we're actually the right person to be your ideal guest or that we're actually going to book.

So it's not just about being seen, it is about being seen by the right people at the right time and in the right way.

And that's a huge gap.

And it's one of the reasons why I think many hosts feel that they've been burned by possible influencer collaborations.

Because the truth is that not all influencers are created equal.

And some can genuinely move the needle for your business and have a massive impact.

And sometimes it isn't the ones that you were expecting, but others, they're really creating the content for themselves because obviously they get the free stay, they probably get more brand collaborations off the back of it and they're growing their audience to monetize it and, you know, to make a living.

So how do we tell the difference?

Let's have a think about how we sort of break this down.

So let's start with my point about an influencer versus a content creator.

I really sort of hate the term influencer because I think it has been sort of labeled incorrectly and I think because some of us have been burnt by it, there's a bit of a negative connotation.

So an influencer is just someone who's built up an audience.

It's usually on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube.

And they make their money by influencing their followers to take action, often through sponsored posts or brand collaborations or partnerships.

And their power lies in the size of their audience and the reach.

So really that's their ability to get in front of a large number of people.

Potentially it could be an audience that is much bigger than your audience.

But here's the problem really, reach doesn't always equal results.

And for you, that doesn't mean it's necessarily going to translate into booking.

So one influencer might have 50,000 followers or maybe make that 500,000 followers, but if their audience is made up of budget, cost conscious travelers, maybe a huge percentage of international followers, or just people who love scrolling but never actually book a UK stay, then a collaboration with them is never going to drive you a significant number of bookings But a content creator on the other hand, might have a much smaller audience.

So my definition of a content creator is someone who is not trading on their influence, skills or ability or their size of their audience.

They're actually pitching more on the content that they can create for you.

So they could have a much smaller following, say like 3,000 followers, but they're skilled at creating beautiful on brand content.

That's images and video clips, could even be blog posts that you can use in your marketing.

And obviously, you know, things like blog posts can be great for search engine optimization and being found by Google.

So they're not selling their reach, they're selling their content creation skills, their photos, their videos, their ability to tell stories.

So think of a content creator's day as hiring a mini professional photographer or videographer.

Some of them are great with drones, which obviously, you know, with accommodation type businesses, particularly if you've got, you know, a glamping type business that can be really powerful.

Most content creators want a, a fee in addition to a free stay.

And I know that this often puts a lot of people off because they're like, well, I've got to give you a free stay and I've got to pay you.

So it can be tempting to go with the influencer that wants the free stay but actually won't charge you any money for creation of some content.

Now you normally find that that content is quite limited and they will probably be quite restrictive in terms of how you can use it.

Whereas a content creator will actually give you probably, you know, if you negotiate with them and have it written down that they will give you perpetual rights to use that content in your own marketing.

So you will get a lot more assets.

Some of the content stays that we've had, we've ended up anywhere between like 100 and 200 images and somewhere in the region of 50 to 100 video clips as well as some really high quality drone photography of videography.

So, you know, that is incredibly valuable to our business from a marketing point of view.

So influencers promote your stay to their audience and that's all they do.

And you probably will only get like one feature.

Whereas content creators will give you high quality assets that you can use to promote your stay to your audience.

And like I said, you'll probably be able to use them on an ongoing basis.

So it's a bit of a double whammy if they're a good fit.

So both can be valuable and, but they serve very different purposes in your marketing strategy.

And I think it's Just really important to understand at the beginning the sort of differences.

So let's say you've had One of those DMs that's slid across into your messages asking for a free stay.

How do you decide whether to say yes, no, or tell me more, or maybe go away?

So I thought I'd share with you a sort of checklist to run through.

I think the first thing is to understand, like, does their audience match your ideal guests?

So you want to look at their demographics.

Are their followers based in the countries where your guests would typically come from?

And do they match the demographics and the profile of those ideal guests?

For example, couples, families, dog owners, you know, that think about their age profile, their interests, their income level and that sort of brand fitness.

Don't be afraid to ask them for a media kit or some insights.

Now, often they'll share this as screenshots just to show you, like the breakdown of their audience.

Now, a genuine creator won't hesitate and sometimes you'll find that some of the influencers, they don't really have a handle on this.

They'll just tell you something like, I've got 500,000 followers on TikTok, you know, and they, they expect you just to go, wow, let me, let me give you a free stay.

Secondly, look at their engagement, not just the follower count.

So as I said, the follower count can be very numbers, which can be easy to get swooned by and think, wow, if I could get, you know, I've only got 5,000 followers, what if I could get in front of 500,000?

But it isn't just the total number of followers, it's if they have 500,000 followers.

But actually on most of their posts or reels, they have very little what we call engagement.

So they actually have very few, few likes, maybe only a couple of hundred.

They're not getting comments or shares.

Actually, that's a big red flag because that means that they may have a large following.

You don't know how they've made that following up, how they've achieved that.

But it would suggest that their audience is not very engaged, which means they're unlikely to see your content.

So you could have an influencer or a content creator with a much smaller following, something like 3,000.

But if they're having huge numbers of engagement and their audience is very into them and checks out their content regularly, that could be much better for you.

Thirdly, you want to review the content quality.

So I would go onto their grid or their feed and like look back at the last sort of 10 to 20 posts and reels, does it align with your brand?

Does their style or the style of their content fit with your own?

And also think about if they're going to be a content creator and they're going to create you some assets, would that video clips and photography actually fit well with your current brand assets that you've got that you're using, say on your website or on your socials?

Because if they don't, you're going to end up with a load of content that you can't really use.

And would you be proud to repost their images or videos on your own feed or grid and not feel like you want to hide it it because you're going to want to be able to use the content number four, make sure you're really clear up front about what the deliverables of your agreement are going to be.

So I think it's easy when someone approaches you on like a DM or an email and it all seems very chatty and friendly and they just send you a message that you forget that this is like a comm, this is a commercial agreement and you need to know exactly what they're going to create for you and share for you.

So how many posts, reels, stories, blogs, what length of blog are you going to get?

Certain types of video clips, whether it's drone user generated content, you know, what are you actually agreeing with them and what rights will you have to use that content?

Afterwards I got my fingers burnt slightly by a creator who came and they were probably deemed to be more of an influencer, had quite a large audience and I didn't think I would want any of their images or videos from my own marketing.

But actually they did shoot some quite nice content.

So then when I went back to them and said, actually, could I have like these 10 images?

They came back with a ridiculous price.

I think it was £1,000 for 10 images.

But I could only use them for 30 days on my social media and I'm like, well that's no good to me whatsoever.

But because I had agreed only another set of deliverables, which was about their stay and the number of reels and stories and, and you know how they were going to share it.

And I didn't think that I would want the other assets, we hadn't negotiated that.

And if I'd known that that was the costs up front, I wouldn't have actually given them a stay because if I'm honest, I didn't get anything from that stay and it did Get a little bit awkward with the negotiations afterwards when they gave me quite silly prices for that, you know, restricted use of the content.

And that's the point if you don't negotiate it up front and you do, because they will retain the copyright.

So, you know, particularly in UK law, obviously whoever creates the content in the first place, the creator, whether that's like your brand identity, a video clip and a photograph, they retain the copyright, but they should assign to you the perpetual rights to use it in a specified types of marketing.

So you need to be quite broad if you want to use it on advert socials, you know, across your website, maybe in your email campaigns, you need to say like all marketing and you need to work out, you know, the value exchange.

So if you know what your stays are worth, obviously they're going to probably quote you a fee as well.

So you've got to add all of that up and work out whether it's actually worth your while.

But I do think you get what you pay for.

And you know, we get requests all the time where people are sort of like, I'd love to come and stay and actually they're prepared to do it for free.

Now sometimes that's because they're starting out and you can not take advantage.

But you can both have a very mutually beneficial agreement where they want some content for their portfolio.

You need content for your business and therefore you both help each other out.

And I think that's the thing, you have to view it as a collaboration, it is a partnership and hopefully if you build good relationships with content creators or influencers, they, they could end up coming back to stay at your property multiple times because you love their work.

But I would say that always get all of this agreed in writing and if they're unwilling to put stuff in writing or they seem a bit flaky and they only want to send you like DMs and messages, for me that's a bit of a red flag that they're not very professional and they're not approaching this as a proper agreement.

It doesn't need to be a really formal, lengthy contract, just a simple email or a deliverables document.

And because this is such a big area, if you join my membership, the Fully Booked Business club, I have a training called how to find the Right Influencer.

And in that training I also give you a off the shelf ready made template with an influencer agreement so that you can download it and actually have that ready to use whenever you get these sorts of approaches.

And I'll put the link in the show notes so you can take a look at that.

So finally, let's assume you found the right person.

It seems like a match made in heaven and you've agreed to collaborate with each other.

So here's how to make it really work for you.

I think the first thing is make sure you brief them well.

You know, if you're not clear in your own mind what you want to get out of the collaboration and what assets you want to create, the likelihood is you might be disappointed at the end.

So I think you should send them a short guide or like a mood board and some examples of the sorts of shots that either you've existing your content that you've got, but also the types of shots that you're aiming for.

So if you've got gaps in your assets in your image library, you know, if you're thinking like I had some shoots when we had new things like the sauna and the lookout bar at the hideout and it was like I was very specific about the shots that I wanted to get.

So if you want to get a hot tub at sunset or a breakfast basket on or breakfast in bed or a woodland view or sunrise from the sauna, you need to be really specific about that shoot list and what you want.

And this helps them to create content that fits your needs and you're less likely to be disappointed.

And the problem is once they have done the shoot and you've got all the content back, if you don't like it, it's too late.

And you know, if you haven't given them a good brief, you can't really shoot them for it.

It's your own fault.

So do always create.

I always create a photography or if I have a someone that I'm agreed that they're creating some content for me, I will do normally just like a PDF Word document with a, with a shoot list of what I'm after and they will have bring their own creativity and you can't expect them in a way when they're a content creator to stick to it for the letter, but they should deliver the number of deliverables as a minimum and the type that you're wanting from the relationship.

Also, if they are sharing content like during their stay, some people don't like to.

I've heard people say that they don't like the content being shared during the stay and they'd prefer to have the content and then agree how to share it afterwards.

That can be a little bit of personal choice.

Obviously if they share stuff during their Stay and you're not happy with it, it's a, it's a bit too late.

So it might be that you want to see the content first and, and then you agree how you're going to sort of share it and when it may be that it fits in with something that you're launching or that you specifically seasonally want to put out there on socials.

So be clear with them also about tagging and mentions.

So I often my content creators will have quite a big social following themselves because they're generally professional photographers or videographers.

So they will actually tag you when they create a reel, probably on their own account.

You know, tell them if you want them to use booking links or website URLs, not just your Instagram handle.

But do give them your Instagram or your other social handles in the briefing document because again if you don't give it to them, they might not use the correct ones.

And I have seen instances on socials where someone has collaborated with another business obviously who was hosting them and they've tagged them and it's been incorrect in the actual, you know, the real or the post.

And that's obviously unfortunate when that happens you need number three, you need to plan to reuse and repurpose the content.

So you know, they will probably collaborate, invite you to collaborate, say like on an Instagram reel.

But you know, don't just rely on that.

Make sure that you take that content and you use it on your website, on your emails, on your blogs, add it to Pinterest boards, reels, stories, you know, all of the different areas that you can of your marketing that you can, you can use that content so that you can leverage the value from it.

You could also number four, create an offer for their followers.

So I've seen this done before and it works really well in that if they have got a good size audience you could give them like a reader type offer for their followers so that if anyone books who is following their social account, they get some sort of special offer or a discount when they actually book.

And that means that you can also track it and it is more of a longer term, it's probably going to have longer legs than just be like one reel or a few stories that go out.

Number five, do make sure you track the results, create this unique booking code or an offer code, use UTM links which are these unique URLs that you can add instead of just like your normal web address so that you can actually track it in Google Analytics.

And even just asking like how did you hear about us?

We have that on our Glamp manager booking system and it does mean that we can track how people have heard about us.

And people do fill in quite detailed descriptions of how they heard about you, so you can actually measure whether this has worked for you.

And number six, I've mentioned this.

Think about long term relationships.

The best creator partnerships are ongoing.

Maybe they'll come back seasonally to shoot different content for you, which will give you a consistent look and feel in your marketing.

You may decide to collaborate with them again when you add a new cabin or an experience like a sauna.

We've worked with one of our content creators four times and we've had another, what you might deem to be an influencer who's already had two stays and is planning to come back for a third.

So I very much approach it as long term relationships where they are helping our business to represent our brand and to be more visible.

And if you find someone that you, you know, they get your brand, they get your experience and nurture that relationship because they can become a very powerful ambassador for your holiday business, for your property.

And actually sometimes if they've really had an amazing experience, I can think of two of my visits that I've had from content creators and they have gone on to subsequently post more content about our business without me paying them further or, you know, negotiating with them further.

They've just had such a good time that they want to share it.

So, okay, let's, let's just run back through what we've covered off today.

So to wrap things up.

So the next time you get that hi, I'm an influencer message, I want you to remember, influencers promote your stay simply to their audience, whereas content creators give you professional content for you to promote to your audience.

And they may also promote to their audience as well, which is a bit of a bonus.

And thirdly, if you find the right collaboration, it can be absolute gold, but only if you're all on the same page and you understand what the expectations are and they're a really good fit for your brand.

And if you're ever sort of unsure about whether to go ahead, I think there's a key question to ask yourself.

Would I still do this if they didn't post anything and just to get their photos and their videos?

So if they didn't share it and you were just getting the content, would you still be happy with the relationship?

Would you still be happy with the agreement that you've struck?

And if the answer is yes, then you're probably talking to a great content creator.

Well, I hope you found that useful today.

Like I said, this is a really hot topic.

There's lots of hot topics in marketing, but this is one that does come up time and time again and I think we can all identify with the fact that we've been bombarded.

I know that my DMs and my inbox is groaning a bit at the moment with all of the requests that we're getting, and it can be a bit tedious trying to work out which ones might be a good opportunity and which ones to say.

Some are quite easy to work out to say no to, but others take a little bit of effort.

So thanks for tuning in today.

I will be back next week with a great guest expert to share their knowledge about using TikTok and it is the last episode of this season four of the podcast.

I can't quite believe that.

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