Fallowfields is a delightful Country House Hotel located just to the west of Oxford in the village of Kingston Bagpuize, (www.fallowfields.com). As with many hoteliers 2009 was not the best with weddings, accommodation and restaurant bookings low compared to previous years.
In September 2009 IRUN Solutions Ltd ran a workshop for senior Business Development Consultants at Fallowfields on the subject of; “Cost Effective Sales Promotion for Hoteliers”. As owner and manager of Fallowfields Anthony Lloyd was invited to participate. Shortly after the workshop Anthony engaged IRUN with a mission to increase the hotel’s sales and profitability.
Fallowfields faced the same marketing ‘challenges’ as others in the industry. They collected contact information from most guests but did not always communicate effectively. The Fallowfields website looked “OK” but was not being found for words and phrases customers use in search engines like Google.
Ironically there are literally thousands of potential guests actively looking for hotels and restaurants, corporate and leisure clients alike. The problem for Fallowfields was no-one seemed to know the business existed and past guests were not being encouraged to return in sufficient numbers.
The solution at face value was relatively straight forward: Put in place tools and systems to collect contact information from customers and start to communicate in a consistent and systematic manner to persuade customers to come back and encourage ‘word of mouth’ referrals via the media potential guests use to share information.
The use of appropriate tools includes low or no cost email and social media strategies as well as search engines to communicate with the ‘target market’, i.e. to ensure new and existing customers looking for accommodation, a great place to eat or conference and wedding venues discover and / or remember Fallowfields…
Despite a slow start in January 2010 caused by the exceptional snow Fallowfields have been very busy. By Easter only a few months after starting to work with IRUN its clear 2010 will see Fallowfields enjoying record sales and profitability. With deposit payments being made for events in 2011 and more bookings coming in all the time the future looks rosy for Anthony and his team at Fallowfields.
With an ever increasing number of names in the database, regular emails being sent and effective use of the internet, both word of mouth referrals and repeat bookings are increasing all the time.
Whilst its still early days effectively harnessing the power of the internet for key search phrases like Wedding Venue, restaurant and Country House Hotel in Oxfordshire Fallowfields are already reaping the rewards from being at the top for organic listings on Google (see below).
IRUN and Fallowfields are now moving the focus to other target markets, in particular the corporate sector so watch this space, or rather watch Google.
Steve Darnell, the Managing Director of IRUN says... “It is almost a shame; we find a great venue like Fallowfields, start to work with them, next thing we know they can’t fit us in… Anthony and his team do a superb job, always very attentive their customers seem to love them which makes our job rather straight forward
Anthony Lloyd says of IRUN and marketing in particular. "If you had asked me 6 months ago what I thought of marketing I would have said it was hit and miss, expensive and often ineffective waste of money. Having worked with IRUN I now know that some of the most effective strategies cost little or nothing. The results are speaking for themselves…"
Fallowfields have for several years had detailed planning permission to build additional conference rooms to increase what we can offer our clients, including upgraded conference facilities and an additional 20 luxury bedrooms. Anthony continues, "If things continue as they have started I expect we will have the builders on site later this year. Rest assured, these building plans are such they will not inconvenience our guests."
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