Speaker Sarah

You're listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard.

Are you ready to master your marketing so you can ditch your reliance on the online agents and grow your direct bookings?

I'll be sharing with you exactly what it takes to grow your direct bookings and the simple marketing steps to get more profit in your pocket.

Hello and a very warm welcome back to the Get Fully Booked podcast.

I'm your host.

Thank you, Sarah Orchard.

I love interviewing fellow hosts on the podcast and particularly ones that I've got to know well from being in my Get Fully Booked world and being a club member too, in THE FULLY BOOKED BUSINESS CLUB®.

Today, I'm delighted to welcome Andrew and Clare Hart from Hart Lake Escapes near York in the UK.

Welcome to the podcast.

Andrew and Clare.

Speaker Andrew

Morning.

Good morning.

Speaker Sarah

Good to see you here.

It's amazing to have you here and I love doing an interview with a couple duo hosts.

So let's start at the beginning.

When you and Clare started Hart Lake Escapes, what did you initially think would get you bookings and when did you realise that the experience you were creating for guests was actually becoming one of your biggest marketing assets?

Speaker Clare

Yeah, we always said we didn't want to do an awful lot of paid marketing, didn't we?

From the beginning we said we really wanted it to be very organic and people would recommend us, people would, you know, word of mouth and obviously that the power of social media and how that rolled on and on to the next person.

The coronation weekend.

Speaker Andrew

Yeah.

Speaker Clare

And we'd had an opening special.

I'd done afternoon tea for everybody, we'd had 50s music playing across the lake for everybody to enjoy.

Jubilee.

Speaker Sarah

Yes.

I remember you making.

Well, I remember Andre telling me that you were making all these afternoon teas and I was thinking she'd beavering away.

Getting that ready for your, for your launch weekend and for the, for the listeners that are tuning in.

You've obviously you've got a pretty beautiful setting and you knew exactly what sort of audience.

So just give us a quick recap of your, of your offering at Hart Lake Escapes.

What, what have you got on offer for your guests?

Speaker Andrew

So at Hart lake Escapes we've got five beautiful boutique shepherd huts, all ensuite, all very tastefully decorated inside.

They've each got a wood fired hot tub.

They've got different size wood fired hot tubs as well. So two have got larger wood fired hot tubs and three have got the two person Hot tubs.

And we did that because we were hoping to attract sort of groups of couples, besties.

Speaker Sarah

Invite their mates over for. A dip with them.

Speaker Clare

It's not what we're aiming for, is it.

It's just an added extra for people who do want that kind of weekend.

Speaker Andrew

And we, we went after the sort of more romantic market, but we found that mums and daughters also love it.

Even lads and lads and the dads come together.

Speaker Clare

We don’t want Hen parties or stag parties or anything like that.

We are our market that the people we are aiming for is that romantic getaway, isn't it?

We just sometimes get the odd person outside of that, which I guess we weren't expecting.

It's very peaceful, but we're very close, we're very closely situated to a really good transport linked into York, which is the bus at the end of the drive.

Speaker Andrew

So we feel like we're in the middle of.

Now, when you're here, literally, how are guests words not ours?

You feel like you're in the middle of nowhere and you.

Speaker Sarah

Yeah, and I think that's the ultimate for people, isn't it, to have like.

Like you say that feeling of seclusion and being in a very rural setting, but also to have amenities on, on hand if they want to go and, and do some.

And I know you guys have worked really hard in terms of your guest experience and what you've.

You've created in terms of putting it all together and, you know, even things like looking at your website in terms of like, the sculpture and the lighting.

And I know that you do meals and things like that, so they can literally rock up and, you know, I think you've got a slow cooker, haven't you?

And you literally.

Each hut's got a slow cooker and you can do meals so that they literally don't have to think about anything.

You really have thought about the of the guest experience from start to finish to think of all the things that they could possibly, possibly want.

And that seems to be being reflected in the feedback that you're getting in your reviews and obviously your repeat stays as well, which is amazing.

So that leads me on to my second question, actually, because your reviews are incredibly specific, people go and check you out online.

I'll put some links in the show notes so they can come and have a look at your website and check you out on socials.

But, you know, when you look through the reviews, the guests repeatedly mention things like your attention to detail, you know, the warm welcome, the little extras and how well thought through everything is.

So was that deliberate from the start or have you actually used your reviews to learn what that romantic getaway guest wants and then create more of that experience?

Speaker Clare

It's a pressure, I'm not going to lie.

The attention to detail is a pressure that we have placed upon ourselves to always, always maintain that, really, isn't it?

And we've had to instill that in anybody who becomes a hut keeper for us.

So those that help, you know, clean the hut, turn them around, replenish them, you know, they, they.

I don't know if I'm allowed to say this word on a podcast, but they think are a little bit up our own bums!

Speaker Sarah

Well, I, I sort of get it because I mean, six years in, we're still, I think the word's anal about like the detail.

We're the same.

I mean, my view guest who comes and stays in the hideout should have exactly the same experience as the next one and the one before, you know, it shouldn't be, oh, well, that was broke.

I mean, I have gone and done research, stayed and stayed at places that you can tell they're busy, they've got back to back bookings and I know you guys are incredibly busy, but they seem to let all of that slip because they're a bit like, well, yeah, I haven't got time to get someone in to fix it.

I mean, we had a nightmare with the guests last week when they broke the handle off the bi fold doors on the first night.

So hence then rushing to find, find spares and get a replacement for the guests that then arrived on the Friday. So they did that on the Monday night, they were in for four nights.

Because our view is that the next lot that turn up, we shouldn't be saying, oh, well, sorry, they can't use the doors because they're broken.

You know, you need to that level of attention to detail.

And even in all the finishes you've got, even the decorating, we get the decorator in every three to four months to touch everything up and make sure it looks the same so that they don't think, oh, it looks a bit tired.

You know, we've all been to places like that, haven't we?

Speaker Clare

Yeah, I think that's what I get slightly more worried about the repeats than I do the new guests.

I think the new guests don't have as much of an expectation because they've never stayed.

Speaker Sarah

Yeah.

Speaker Andrew

And my answer to that is they will always look like brand new because that's the way we look after them.

Speaker Sarah

And guests notice.

You know, people think that people don't notice that, but they do notice.

And it's reflected in your reviews and the volume of reviews that you've got as well.

I mean, you've got a very large number of reviews, so your, you know, your guests want to share how impressed they are with what you're offering.

So I think you should give yourselves a big pat on the back.

It's like, you know, because not all hosts take that approach and it's, you know, guests who notice.

Speaker Clare

I think when we do, we genuinely are very humbled by all the reviews we ever get.

Speaker Sarah

Yeah.

And it's like when they draw, we've had guests who sort of.

Like, there's pens and pencils and, like, coloring books and things because we haven't got a tv, so there's lots of games and things.

And we've had people who've sat and drawn in the guestbook.

You know, they've actually drawn us a piece of artwork or written a poem.

And it's lovely.

Speaker Andrew

Yeah.

Speaker Sarah

Because I think you get lots of proposals and romantic stays as well, don't you?

And it's like when you feel like you've been a part of a very special moment in someone's life.

I don't tire of that.

Speaker Clare

Of all the places in the UK when they're picking yours to come and stay at, to propose or celebrate a 50th birthday or a mini moon.

It's just mind blowing.

Of all the places they could have picked, they come, they come here.

It's just. It's beyond words, really.

Speaker Andrew

Yeah.

Speaker Sarah

I think that's probably why we all keep doing it.

Even when we have the bad days, when we have the tough days, when they break the handle off the bifold doors or, you know, they leave it in a mess.

You know, you keep going because of all the positive stuff.

So I think that leads us nicely on, actually to, like you say, you very rightly said that as Brits, we are a bit bad at leaving reviews.

I always think you get about 10% of your stay's result in reviews, generally, as a rule of thumb.

And we are very good at complaining and we tend to use review sites when we're annoyed or social media when we're annoyed no one's listening to us.

So it is really flattering and also, like you say, humbling to get the reviews.

But a great review is useful, but only really if your next potential guests see it.

So once you started getting these brilliant reviews, what did you actually do with them?

Speaker Andrew

I think that's a really good point actually, Sarah, because you asked us at the beginning, you know, what we thought would bring our bookings, and I said, websites, listing sites, social media, we were too much.

I was too much, especially probably in the business rather than on the business at the beginning.

And there was a reason for that. I'd given up a sort of fairly high powered job and I was very paranoid that, you know, I wanted to make sure that the business was going to succeed.

And so I spent my time in the site everywhere, just literally beautifying everything, and etc.

But I think, as I've explained to people since, by doing it myself like that, I somewhat skimped on my shop window and hadn't really thought about it like that.

Speaker Clare

I mean, SEO was a term we'd never even heard of.

Speaker Andrew

I didn't even know what SEO was.

Speaker Clare

We had no clue.

Speaker Andrew

Yeah.

So I built the website not even knowing what SEO was.

And I got to a point where you introduced us to Zoe Shuttleworth.

And I basically rang.

Zoe said, can I have some time with you?

And I said, right, this is my website, feel free to destroy it and start again.

She said, leave it with me for a couple of hours.

And I left it with her for a couple of hours and she rang me back.

She says, you do review of my website and you did some SEO stuff for me.

And then following your lead, I did it myself.

And then at that point it was right, we've got all these reviews, but the world can't really see them unless they go looking for them.

So that's when we added the, the review part to the website.

So they're on every screen.

So when you go on every screen you see the reviews.

I started sharing them on, on social media all the time.

So in my story I would, I would add them and I still do it today.

I love going in on Sunday mornings and reading the handwritten reviews and literally getting those out on Instagram stories, etc.

Speaker Clare

So I think from the beginning you would have probably have invested more time and effort and money in the website.

Speaker Andrew

Yeah, from the beginning, yeah.

Speaker Sarah

And I think that's a very common thing I see a lot is that, you know, we all get to the point where particularly if you're building a glamping site, it could be that you're renovating a cottage as well.

You know, we all haemorrhage money and we get to the end and I remember that feeling that, you know, when we got to launching, we literally, we had spent our overdraft for our business and we were then paying for the final things on credit cards because literally the money had run out.

And then Covid hit five weeks later, we were like, oh, dear, we really are snookered now.

And you're right, you know, it's like you focus on creating the structures and the site and all of the facilities, which, you know, are fundamental and you've got to have.

But, you know, your website is your shop window.

And I actually, you know, lovely to hear that you're putting the reviews across the site because again, I see when I do, having done over 100 website audits now, it's like when I see that the reviews are just.

They're either on a separate page, they've been almost like, there's a page, you've got to go and look for them, or they're on the homepage and nowhere else.

And of course, people forget that people come into your website at lots of different points.

And now with Geo, with, you know, AI engines and the way that, you know, Google search is working, might not be your homepage that gets indexed.

It could be a blog post, it could be another piece of content on the site.

So, so important to have those reviews sprinkled like magic dust across all the pages. Not just on the home page or a separate page where they've got to make, you know, lots of effort.

And lovely to hear that you're putting them on socials as well.

Speaker Andrew

Yeah.

Speaker Clare

It's a great.

It's just great to put them on your story.

Speaker Clare

Yeah.

Speaker Andrew

You just.

Speaker Sarah

Yeah, stories are really quick to do.

Speaker Clare

Aren't they real?

Doesn't it as well?

Speaker Andrew

And when people see them handwritten.

Speaker Clare

Yeah.

Speaker Andrew

It's like you say, sometimes you get the little pictures.

It's fabulous.

Speaker Sarah

Yeah.

And it's a quick piece of content.

So obviously, us as owners, busy owners, it's like a host.

It's actually.

I always love it when.

When guests, it's like if they send me a text message or WhatsApp and they say, oh, it's amazing, you know, I'll just screen, grab it and put it over a nice image with some music and it's like, yay, piece of content done.

So it makes makes life a lot, a lot easier.

So obviously you've got Google reviews.

Is that your main.

Is that.

Do you focus mainly on getting Google reviews versus the other platforms like TripAdvisor.

Speaker Andrew

Or maybe Facebook in the early days?

Every time.

Because we check everybody reviews.

You can go on TripAdvisor and there are.

I think there's 10.

But we push everybody to.

If we can, we ask them to go down the Google review route.

Speaker Clare

Fair.

Speaker Andrew

We don't really ask nowadays.

Well, we don't.

Speaker Clare

They just naturally come in, don't they?

Speaker Andrew

But I mean they've slowed down because probably because we don't ask.

But they still come in.

Speaker Clare

Yeah.

People can still read a recent review, which I think is still important.

There's no point only having reviews from three years ago.

You need something that's recent and we still get them regularly, don't we?

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker Sarah

That's a really good tip that like just because you had a bank of reviews at the beginning when you started and you were really on it, don't just like rest on your laurels because it's a bit, it's.

It's the old thing, isn't it?

From trust signals.

You know, people go and look at the reviews and they're like three years old and you think might be a bit rubbish.

Speaker Clare

Now there are people out there reviewing us in all sorts of arenas that we're probably just not aware of.

Speaker Andrew

That was a couple that got engaged here.

They've been here before.

Then he decided when they came the first time, this is where I want to propose.

He then got in touch with us in the background, came to site, had bottles of champagne engraved.

Speaker Clare

The one we were interested in, wasn't it?

Speaker Andrew

And then.

Yeah, then.

And then, to be fair, we hadn't heard from them for about a year and I thought, oh, they're not coming back.

And then literally we get a phone call saying, andrew, we're trying to book and we're struggling, we're in another country, we want to come back for our mini-moon.

We got married a couple of weeks ago, so.

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker Sarah

And they're telling their friends as well.

I mean that's the thing, we all look for digital footprints of people leaving reviews.

But there's that old fashioned, good old fashioned, like you said, word of mouth, Andrew.

People just telling their mates, you know, I mean the guests talk about the, like a loyalty scheme was mentioned.

So do you have something like formal that you offer them?

Speaker Clare

Yeah.

And again that came on the back of loyalty.

Speaker Andrew

It did.

Speaker Clare

It wasn't from there.

So I guess going back to your original question about what we've learned, actually this is something we didn't have from the very beginning.

Speaker Andrew

Once you've got eight, eight stamps on your card, the next time you make a minimum two night booking, you get an additional free night added onto your stay.

Speaker Sarah

Lovely.

I love a loyalty scheme.

I think people forget about them these days and they think it's old hat, you know, with the cards and the stamps.

But, you know, you still have businesses that do it and it does work.

Speaker Andrew

We've got people on their third cards.

Speaker Sarah

Wow.

Speaker Andrew

I don't think it encourages people to come here in the first place, even though we probably don't shout about it enough.

But when people get here, see how lovely it is and then think, well, God, we're going to come back anyway and in return you're going to reward us.

So yeah, it's.

That's gone, that's gone down an absolute storm.

Speaker Sarah

I love that because I always think about lifetime value of a guest.

And I was talking, I did a help desk at, in the club last week and I was talking about giving 10% off to repeat guests and someone said, I don't give anything to repeat guests.

They're coming anyway and it's like. But they have a choice and they could decide to go somewhere else and they haven't.

It hasn't cost you anything to acquire them because it's so expensive to go out in terms of your time and your marketing to find those new people and the fact that yours are also going off and telling everyone else about how wonderful you are.

So you've got a double whammy in terms of your marketing.

So I think it's.

Speaker Andrew

What does a free night really cost us?

It costs us a bit more wood, a little bit more electricity and that's it, you know, so actually we give something that's worth a fortune to the guest, but to us, okay, if we were 24, 7, 365, 100% booked, then it, there would be a cost associated with it.

Speaker Clare

But it's the price.

But we're not the price of loyalty, isn't it?

You can't, it's difficult to put a price on that kind of.

Speaker Andrew

Yeah.

Speaker Clare

When you've got that loyalty, it's priceless.

So it doesn't matter.

Speaker Sarah

Exactly.

Yeah, it's, it's word of mouth is still the best form of marketing that you can ever do.

And I think people, you know, you've shared some amazing things today and I think people just very.

We take Our eye off the ball on that one.

And we tend to always be looking for new guests, new bookings, you know, fresh bookings from new people.

And actually we've got this.

It is a gold mine of these people who have been experienced it and you can attempt to come back again and they can also encourage them to tell other people as well, so that, you know, they're doing the marketing for you.

So my final question, I have got a fun question at the end as well, which I'm going to ask you, which I ask all hosts.

But my, my question is, if, if you could go back to when you first started, what would you do differently when it comes to collecting and, and using the.

Making the most of the reviews?

And what's the one thing you'd encourage another host who's listening in today to do to turn their own guest feedback into more bookings?

Speaker Andrew

The area that I struggle with is email and I suppose I'm not consistent enough, but I'm probably not consistent enough because I don't really see.

I'm not seeing any return from it.

So that is something that I would like to, even now, to learn better how to use.

You know, we do it.

I pay a lot of money every month to mailchimp and every time I see it go out my bank account, I think, oh, my God, I've not used that again this month.

Speaker Clare

But like you said, we haven't had a lot of return on it, have we?

Speaker Sarah

I mean, they do say that for every pound that you spend, you get £34 back or between.

It's actually between £36 and £42 pounds back in terms of return on investment.

I, I use my reviews actually in my email campaigns as well, because we're talking about reviews.

I mean, I use.

I have at least three that I put in every campaign along with images to sort of remind people about.

Again, it's that social proof and you've got such a loyal, you know, guest base that I think, you know, it's, you know, the emails are just a gentle nudge to remind them.

And maybe talking about your loyalty scheme because you said you don't.

I didn't know you had that as a, like a formal thing.

So, yeah, I think, you know, just.

Speaker Clare

Reminding people, yeah, we have done mail shots about loyalty scheme before.

Speaker Andrew

I did say that to Clare yesterday, actually.

I, I need to have a conscious effort over the next few months for the.

Maybe because the business has built up, have maybe lost a little bit of focus.

So I used to remind people of things a lot.

Speaker Sarah

It is That a bit of, you know, marketing is opportunities to see and repetition.

Speaker Clare

And I think because we've both, we've not done this before, had we?

We've both had good jobs, we both understand marketing to an extent.

I know I for one studied it when I did my degrees, etc.

But when you, the reality of it is you probably do over complicate.

And Andrew is an overthinker, so he massively overthinks things.

Massively over complicates things when he doesn't need to.

So actually sitting here and talking to you just actually just reminds us, doesn't it, that we don't need to overthink it.

Just like you said, take something we've already done, rehash it.

The power of AI these days.

And there you are, like you said about the review.

Speaker Sarah

Yeah.

If you train it and it's got your tone of voice, I mean, yes, I'm not a big fan of just regurgitating the sort of the cliched stuff that comes out of AI automatically.

But if you've trained your tool and it knows your language and your style of, you know, your tone of voice and your, you know, your target audience, it can do a really good job.

And yes, you always have to edit it.

There'll be bits that you go, don't like that.

But it doesn't mean that you sit there with a blank email and go, okay, what am I going to put in this this time?

Which is always the horrible.

I mean, I can get an email campaign out in 30 minutes from start to finish, literally from, you know, getting it written, updating my data and then scheduling it and, you know, proofing it.

And it doesn't become like a massive job.

Whereas if you sit there with a blank piece of paper, it's like, it can be a bit like, where do I start?

Speaker Clare

And I think we know that our posts.

Every time Andrew puts a social media post on or even an email campaign, you don't know for sure who's actually seeing that and who's actually reading it.

So to do the same again isn't necessarily a bad thing because you might just capture a different 10 people to the first time you did it.

Speaker Sarah

Exactly.

Yeah.

And you know, I always say on help desk, you know, can you remember five of the emails that you had last week and what they said?

Yeah, like marketing emails from big companies.

No.

Speaker Clare

No.

Speaker Sarah

So my final question, I'm gonna ask you this fun one because I ask all the hosts.

So if you had a famous guest or celebrity come to stay.

Who would it be?

You might not agree. You might both have different views on this. Andrew is smiling.

Speaker Andrew

So Elvis or if he wasn't available, Freddie Mercury.

Speaker Sarah

That would be. They would both be very interesting guests, I think, to come and stay.

What about you, Clare?

Did you have anyone?

Speaker Clare

I think, I think, yeah, I don't know, maybe.

And I don't know many of these people because I'm not that good at it, but maybe if we're thinking business perspective, somebody who's a really good blogger, you know, somebody who's famous for being on social media on.

Speaker Sarah

Yeah, because that would be, that would be evergreen content.

Speaker Clare

I can't even think.

Speaker Sarah

Yeah, I can't think of anyone.

Speaker Clare

Dragons Den.

Who is.

What's he called?

Oh, the guy who's in Dragon's Dent the minute he was big on.

Speaker Andrew

Yeah.

Speaker Sarah

Stephen Bartlett.

You'd have to have Steven Bartlett.

Speaker Clare

Yeah.

Speaker Sarah

Like he's got a massive podcast so he would definitely.

Probably be a very good one.

I was gonna say all this marketing training that I've been giving you, all that, all those times on the help desk in the club, it's like it's rubbing off in terms of like, think about, think about how you're going to leverage it from a marketing point of view.

I'm loving that.

And thank you to all of you for listening in today.

You know it's, it's been great to have you here.

Thank you both Andrew and Clare for being so generous with your, your learnings and your, your knowledge as hosts and you've been very honest and open with us today.

So thank you for sharing all of that with us.

Speaker Clare

Thank you for having us.

Speaker Andrew

Thank you.

Speaker Sarah

Yeah, and it's great to have you here.

As I said, do check out.I've got a previous episode about reviews which was episode 62 and are your reviews doing the selling for you?

So if you want to, you know, if this has really inspired you to think, actually I'm just not doing enough with my reviews and actually these guys have put me to shame and actually I could do a lot more with it.

Do go and check that episode out and if you enjoyed this episode, you know what I would like you to do as well?

Please go and leave me a review because you know how much us hosts love those five star reviews.

Next week I'm back with a solo episode looking at email automations that you should be using in your short term rental.

Tune in next week to find out more.

Bye for now.