Know-How Exchange : Strategy

To be quite honest, I don't expect there is one. I am not sure that B&Bs form a large section of any marketing agency's customers.

In any case, to turn this argument on its head, what would you allow to acquire a new customer - one who comes back time and time again? Because this sort of answer will allow you to judge for yourself what you can afford.

The other thing to do is listen to your current customers and find out what they like about your business, and you can ask them how they found you. Knowing this will make finding more of them much easier (and a great deal cheaper!). You can use this to advertise in those channels, because they are already effective. Fine-tuning this sort of thing using PPC (Google Adwords etc) will make your advertising spend cost effective. Once you have this up and running, you can spend a few bucks on trying newer ideas to see if they work at all - and you know that all the time your current campaigns are bringing in a new customer every so often. Month in, month out.

Okay, so it's not quite that easy, if you are listening to your current customers you will be able to work out a really effective campaign. That is where the money is!

Hope this helps. M xx

welcome to the forum.Thanks for your question.

It's tough to offer good advice without more information. For example, why are you asking? Are you a bed-and-breakfast which is trying to find the most cost-effective way to increase profits? Or, are you a marketing person attempting to sell a campaign to a bed-and-breakfast? In either case, if you could provide more details, possibly including a link to your website, we can offer much more detailed and helpful suggestions. Take care.

Industry standards and averages are not just irrelevant, they're likely to skew your thinking the wrong way. The amount you spend has more to do with your goals than with some percentage. If you're new and want to generate high initial awareness, you'll need to spend more than if you are an established business with lots of repeat customers. You'll probably want to spend less if you're in a seasonal location than if you're in a year-round location. Etc.

When you look at averages across all the folks in your industry, you'll get a number that is representative of almost nobody. By definition, half the people are spending more (and half are spending less).

The thing to do is figure out what you want your marketing to accomplish, cost that out, and spend what it takes to reach the objective. If you feel you can't afford that, then maybe the objective was too ambitious. Adjust.

But don't look at industry averages, even if they're available.

I doubt you'll find an industry average for this niche. As to how much is invested per B&B, it depends on who, what, where, and when.

Perhaps this will be of interest: https://www.marketingforecast.com/archives/20732/ or https://www.linkedin.com/groups/B-B-Network-Internet-Marketing-3549024

Also some cater to specific clients-so aiming for automobile associations or regional events followers, concert goers, foodie festival types may influence the balance spent in your targets best followed material.

Caluclate any pototential loss if you go the gruopon way before you offer ... working twice as hard for a half off deal may backfire unless you have the staff and stamina...but it could lay the foundation for a strong return next trip/season.