Will your business become the next corner shop? or
Two hats. Managing Director Discover Thredbo CEO Genkan
Past lives. Photographer Training instructor, sales support, product management, regional manager scandinavia, sales & marketing manager, marketing director in digital imaging 3 times international salesman year from 600 sales persons Launched digital print into australia Property owner real estate accidental property manager Email marketing targetmailer Launched Australia s first SEO company 1999 Software developer
If you don t know where your going, any road will take you there
Before we know where we are going We should understand where we have come from
VRMA 2010 As VRMA President, I want to bring to your attention a grave situation facing our industry and threatening our success as independent vacation property managers.
So where is our Industry heading??
Geoffrey A Moore
Moore Technology Theories
Holiday Rental Life Cycle Model
Lets back up a little..
Putting my Genkan hat on. New businesses starting up every day Thinking they have the answer 90% don t have a clue New ethnicities Airbnb inspired Competing on price A race to the bottom Stimulating the next frontier, its evolution
And when the masses join any industry business whatever
Nothing lasts forever.
Lets face it We are marketing a business that does cleaning
You re a Marketing business The biggest missing link in 90% of all holiday rental businesses is professional marketing Where is your professional marketing person? You cannot be marketing whilst your cleaning toilets!! Look at why, the reasons why independent travel agents, travel parks, liquor shops, radio stations, real estate agents, hardware, hotels etc.. have all become part of a larger organisation
We have crossed the chasm, we are on main street, the value goes before the next reshuffle
The future I think its inevitable What do you expect will happen when you leave it to others to do it for you..
Marketing for Holiday Rental Managers Website updates, CMS skills, Blogs SEO s Adwords, PPC, re-marketing Social media, its more than just FB Email marketing campaign creation = html Content creation, relevant unique engaging Professional photography, walk through, YouTube
And its evolving so fast.. it s a full time job just to keep up
This amazes me. websites It s your front door How much do you spend on your front door in comparison to what you give OTA s? You should be spending 50% again on your website every year If your not your building another business and not yours In the 1800 s it was called sharecropping Today I call it digital sharecropping https://www.genkan.com.au/wp/digital-sharecropping/
Business owners today Spending their whole working week Worrying about housekeeping and cleaning Accounts Paying the bills Repairs and maintenance Managing owners When they should be doing something else
90% of PM s I see are spending their time working in the business rather then working on it.
Because of that they are leaving themselves vulnerable to being the next corner shop
Lets move on!!
Who has the Booking.com app on their phone?
Booking.com We are fully integrated 2 way API We upload at 12% more to cover costs Their processes are a bit of a nightmare BUT you can learn so much Don t beat them, learn from them And that what we have done followed the money
Discover Thredbo Established 1998 because there was no vision, we had no bookings and I felt it was a marketing business and no marketing was being done. I became the accidental property manager.!!
Discover Thredbo
Thredbo 1380 metres 2050 metres Longest run 6k
Discover Thredbo Virtual business almost modeled much on airlines All properties with keyless entry, kaba lock 70% all payments by CC incl. 2%, 83% done online, 47% done on mobile Guest registration check-in done online SMS prominent Mo-Flow
Our last 24 months Gone from 50 properties to 32 Many reasons why Properties sold and lost Court case BUT we increased sales from 2.56 2.9 mill
We went back to being a marketing company.
You must be focused
My oil pressure gauge
Our Marketing Mix 11 websites, multi-website theory Google Adwords Booking.com ( + 12% ) Homeaway / Stayz AirBnb = opportunity Currently integrating Expedia, Flipkey and Agoda SMS Social Media
Why increase in turnover? Marketing Websites delivering 70% bookings online 50% of all bookings are direct.. straight through Mobile mopro accounting for 47% all online transactions, up from 11.5% Winning customer service war with enquiry Return clientele through our Discover Thredbo rewards scheme
Manage Enquiry so so important One of the main features of our 2016 success Win customer service battle Then follow-up The fact it was mobile friendly email also contributed.
Discover Thredbo Loyalty Provides series benefits Early check-in Prioritized check-in
Our websites
Our websites Breed them out Aimed at different keywords Our PMS allows for unique content avoiding duplicate content Content to OTA s is not unique
Follow the money
Mobile isn t just book and pay It s about engagement By mobile I mean apps and www We have all heard the stats on number of bookings on mobile But the opportunity is greater than just book and pay You must have a strategy beyond desktop.
Mo-Pro It s a complete end to end communication process on a mobile device that totally engages the client What we have discovered that having a responsive or dedicated mobile device isn t enough Move your client to your platform of choice
Through our mobile site Research, select, book and pay Make payments ( 50% of current bookings using payment plan ) Create login and password Upload profile info and image ( get personal ) View past bookings Upload holiday snaps View weather at destination Restaurants, activities and events Complete surveys
Big Data Collection Gathering as much information as possible Utilizing it to make predictive decisions and provide accurate marketing advice Sharing it with owners
Managing owners online presence
SMS - The best communication tool
SMS
SMS & Facebook
I live in Port Douglas Australia Doorstep of Great Barrier reef, 2500 klm s from Thredbo Reef badly damaged due to over exposure of sunlight early 2016 Major holiday destination Annually over 60 million $$ given to ATO s in commissions30 million to other online advertising
The Port Douglas Umbrella 40 small operators ( 10 20 apartments ) Coming together to build their own aggregation website Not without it s problems But one marketing team headed by a real professional, a great reservations team, super website, IT And that team also is planned to outsource back
Survival 101 Actually Survival 2017-2200 Mindset change from a cleaning business to marketing business Go marketing hard If your going to be swallowed up be ready Have your business ready Live and die off what your PMS systems can do for you
Nothing stays the same and this industry is evolving, there will be casualties
The next dominant Species Will be large marketing driven organizations Hotel chains are actively getting involved Have professionals driving every element of the business Most small property managers will not survive because they cannot compete at almost every level It s already happening
Genkan a failure??