Lanzarote Breaks
URL: www.lanzarotebreaks.com
Launch date: March 2003
Market: Self-catering holidays in Lanzarote
Audience: approx. 10,000 holidaymakers per month
As our first formal foray into the world of paid online advertising, this project was the seed that lead to the creation of The Breaks Company. Lanzarote Breaks was intended to be the pilot for a series of websites advertising holiday homes for let around the world.
Whilst there's already a number of sites with a similar offering, the 'Breaks' model differs in its approach to revenue generation, administration and marketing - applying all the techniques we've used so successfully elsewhere.
Background research is always important and we took great care looking at the competition. The villa rentals market is awash with sites, most very poorly designed, lacking in cohesive information, poor search/browse mechanisms and low visibility on internet search engines.
Given that holiday rentals sites are extremely heavily used by the travelling public, a poor e-commerce infrastructure in such a competitive market is doomed to fail. That's why we made every effort to ensure Lanzarote Breaks offers everything the independent traveller could need: comprehensive property information, simple and safe booking mechanisms and direct links to cheap flights, car hire and insurance.
Low-cost Online Advertising
The advertising mechanism is unique and offers property owners the chance to create their adverts online with an easy-to-use content management system. Advertising campaigns can be stopped and started as required, including special facilities for publicising availability, giving price quotations based on dates/party size, taking online reservations and offering last minute discounts.
The cost of advertising is only £100 per property, per year giving owners massive online exposure at a fraction of the cost of designing their own site and with minimal maintenance overheads. "We're keen NOT to try and compete with existing property rental companies," says Richard Speigal. "We'd rather work with other organisations by offering them the best technology in the business."
There is one other important factor that makes our advertising so effective: honesty. Every advertiser has access to web visitor statistics that provide solid indication of how successful their campaigns have been and thus their cost-effectiveness.
Marketing Techniques
The key to the success of Lanzarote Breaks is targeted online marketing. Campaigns of this nature never rely on any single technique, rather a range of interlinked approaches.
Lanzarote Breaks uses a combination of opt-in e-mail newsletter marketing, pay-per-click advertising, strong search engine optimisation and careful selection of link partners. Traffic derived from each approach tends be highly qualified and has generated huge interest (and more importantly bookings!) for our advertisers. This ability to bring customers rather than visitors to the site is what make the Breaks model so effective for advertisers.
Business Administration
Most administrative aspects of the site are completely automated. Advertisers create their own adverts and pay for campaigns online. Property lists, availability, etc are all managed by the system. Newsletter content generation, customer reminder notices and billing issues are also handled by the system, thus massively reducing the paper trail. The only control retained by site operators is in editorial functionality.
The key strength of this model is to free staff to concentrate on the most important activities in any company: business development, sales and marketing. The Breaks model uses pure content management at its most effective level.
Achievements
Within its first year, Lanzarote Breaks achieved an enviable status as the most comprehensive website for holiday villas and apartments in Lanzarote. The site has the widest property selection on the web and has an advertiser renewal rate of over 80% - proving its effectiveness at winning bookings for travel agents and owners.
Unsurprisingly, we loved the model and have expanded to destinations all over Spain: see España Breaks.
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