August 2011 Newsletter
Late Availability
With a new box for late availability, you can add your last-minute vacancies at your cottage quickly and easily. Log into the ‘Owner’s section,’ click ‘Add Late Availability’ and enter the necessary details. It costs nothing and will undoubtedly increase the chances of filling empty weeks. We’ll also try and mention any spare dates on our Twitter page. We also send an e-mail with details and web links to the national media on the 1st of each month. If you e-mail us, we’ll endeavour to include details of your offer. NB: You must show you are offering it at a discount.
Stat Counter Service
Unsure how many people view your listing or link to your site? We’ve added a new section to see how many visitors have viewed your page and, more importantly, made an e-mail enquiry or clicked through to your website. To view your stats, click on the ‘Your Statistics’ tab, and you’ll be able to see the views, click-throughs and enquiries your listing has generated in the last month and since we started counting (July 22nd). We’ll send you an automatic e-mail with these numbers at the end of each month to keep you updated. By the way, if you find your listing enjoys plenty of viewings but few click-throughs or enquiries, you might want to consider upgrading the photos on your page. Our guests tell us that poor-quality photos imply poor-quality cottages. Also updating your listing will also place you back at the top of any search in which your cottage appears.
Listing Date
We’ve also now added a line to every cottage listing on our website which reads, “This property has been advertised on My Favourite Holiday Cottages since …”. This shows visitors to your page that the listing is legitimate. Certain unscrupulous people can copy details from your original website to create fake holiday cottage listings, which people see only to pay for and arrive at a non-existent address. These sorts of scams are soon discovered after a few weeks, so adding the date you signed up adds that extra bit of security for visitors knowing that the cottage they plan on renting exists.
Regional Searches
Do you have a Somerset cottage but want it also listed in Exmoor? Or how about a cottage in Hampshire but also in the New Forest? We’ve added a ‘region’ box to all cottages in the ‘Edit’ section of your listings. You can now add a local region and a county, meaning your cottage will appear in 2 sets of search results, making your cottage even easier to find.
Additional Search Boxes
We’ve also added three new search boxes for people to search for ‘Accessible Holidays,’ ‘Off the Beaten Track’, and ‘Swimming Pools’. If you ticked these boxes when listing, your cottage would already appear in these results, meaning even more people can see your holiday cottage.
MFHC in the National Press
My Favourite Holiday Cottages is currently featured in the August edition of the Sainsbury’s Magazine (on the back inside page), where if you’re lucky, you can win a three-night stay at ‘The Byre’, a beautifully converted barn up here in North Devon along with a host of other prizes. The magazine has a readership of 3.9 million and has also been great publicity for The Byre, which now has brilliant bookings. We will also be running a competition in Take a Break magazine in August featuring another MFHC subscriber’s cottage, which has a circulation of over 3,000,000 - with more publicity planned for later in the year. Let us know if you have a cottage that stands out above the rest and is happy to offer it as a competition prize or to host a journalist for a short break. Jennette, our PR officer, is constantly seeking good ‘source material’ for her national media contacts and will keep you in mind for our future publicity. Just e-mail us with your cottage’s details at info@mfhc.co.uk.
Top Tip for the Summer
Want to make your guests feel extra welcome? Not everyone can be around when their guests arrive and personal touches can make such a difference to somebody’s stay. So, why not write your guests' names on the fridge in magnetic letters or on a chalkboard welcoming them? It’s a great fun addition for the children to play with and shows your guests that you’re going the extra mile.
News Items in brief
You can read all our articles in full by following the title links or visiting the MFHC Blog Energy Performance Certificate… The latest Furnished Holiday Lettings… Tax changes for 2012 See the most popular cottage names….
Any Comments?
Please let us know if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for what you’d like to see at www.myfavouriteholidaycottages.co.uk. You can also keep up to date with us more frequently by following us at www.twitter.com/mfhcottages or by liking our Fan page on Facebook. Meanwhile, we hope you all have a great summer and autumn season.