“When we purchased the Orchard Inn, our occupancy was at about 19%. We grew that 20% a year each year, but we thought that was low-hanging fruit. We anticipated that the growth would slow down this year, but we’re actually at a 35% revenue growth year-over-year. We couldn’t have achieved that without Q4Launch.” – Marc Blazar, Innkeeper, Orchard Inn
What a privilege it is to work with Marc, Marianne, and the entire staff at the Orchard Inn!
Although this is one story from one property owner, we are thankful that this isn’t an isolated occurrence. This is the story we see time and time again for our customers. The moral is this: the integrated bed and breakfast marketing strategy that we deploy is built for long-term growth and success.
A Journey through the Orchard Inn & Q4Launch Relationship
Organic Traffic – Better Every Year
Since we began doing search engine optimization for Orchard Inn in July 2013, the results are staggering. We are about to finish up our 27th month of the partnership, and during that time, organic traffic is up 78% year-over-year! Keep in mind, in years 2 and 3, we are making comparisons to our own work the year before. Below is a breakdown of organic traffic increases:
- First 12 months (July 2013-June 2014) – up 33% year-over-year
- Second 12 months (July 2014-June 2015) – up 96% year-over-year
- Last 3 months (July 2015-September 2015) – up 122% year-over-year
The Blog is Our Fuel
Blogging is crucial if you want to deliver a true integrated approach. Part of the reason that organic traffic has jumped so high is due to writing blogs on long-tail keywords that we know people are searching for in Google. Which is great! However, by publishing blogs weekly, we are able to produce consistent content in other areas of our integrated approach, including email marketing and social media management.
From July 2013 to date, Orchard Inn’s blog has brought 12,928 visitors to the site. Of those visitors, 8,678 have come as a result of organic search. Try looking up “weekend getaways from Charlotte” or “new years eve in Asheville nc,” and you’ll find Orchard Inn on the first page.
What Happens if Occupancy Peaks?
While the Orchard Inn isn’t hitting the 100% occupancy numbers for any particular month, they’ve consistently hit 100% for several weekends and other seasonal events in their area. If they are already booked, then how in the world can we help them? The answer: Yield Management!
“I’m totally on board with yield management. We’re loving it, as the additional revenue goes right to the bottom line,” said Marc. “We thought it would be a little awkward at first in terms of presentation, but as we got used to it, we’ve changed the way our rates appear and it hasn’t been a problem.”
By driving so much additional demand, even in their already busy times of the year, we’ve helped Marc and Marianne not only raise their base rates, but we’ve also helped them implement some automated yield management solutions with ThinkReservations that take into effect when a guest is booking and how booked the inn is for that particular night. This strategy, along with our integrated approach, helped July 2015 be the best month in the history of the inn.
So What’s Next?
Since we’ve had such an impact on the lodging side of their business, Marc and Marianne allowed us to work on both their wedding marketing and their restaurant marketing. The stories are the same. They went from monthly to weekly wedding inquiries, and for their restaurant, we’ll let Marc explain.
“Our restaurant sales since we started marketing with Q4Launch are up 50% over last year. That was an area we really wanted to push hard. We brought on Q4Launch, and it’s working.”
Why Should Others Work With Q4Launch?
“From a value proposition, it’s definitely worth the investment if you want to grow your business. The integrated approach works – from the bed and breakfast website design to the SEO to the blogging to the newsletters to the social media,” commented Marc. “The whole staff is very responsive. When I send an email, I get a response within an hour. It’s just easy. It makes it really easy for me, and I don’t have to worry about it because it just gets done.”
Want a Similar Experience to Marc and Marianne?
We love this story of the Orchard Inn, and we strive to create this type of story for all of our customers. If you’re interested in hearing more about how we got to this point or how the integrated approach works, please click here to get in touch with us, and a member of our team will reach out to you to schedule a time.