We use in our guest house four types of business card which may seem excessive but is very handy. Type one is standard business card name and contact details, two is the same but with an offer on i.e. produce this card for 10% off and the third just has a request for name and email address which we leave in rooms to encourage people to fill it out and leave us their details. You will find people are very lazy about giving you contact details you must have an address from them on check in on their registration form this is a legal requirement but if you can gather email addresses then you can advertise to all your repeat customers for free hopefully gaining further business.

I always say to people about marketing think outside the box doing what everyone else does simply makes you part of the pack not ahead of it. A big area that many people neglect is local people and your first thought in reaction to this will be “if they live here then they won’t be staying with us!” Yes this is true but their friends, relatives and business colleagues might if you can make your establishment the first name that springs to mind. It is more and more the case I have found in recent years that friends and relatives when visiting do not wish to stay with the people they are visiting but would rather stay nearby and be able to come and go as they wish. This seems to be for two main reasons 1 if you stay with someone they seem to want to be with you all the time and organise everything and second quite often people don’t have the room. Therefore there is gap in the market we are happy to fill.