EP 242: What Virgin Voyages & Coachella Understand About Influencer Marketing That Most Brands Don't

I couldn't get away from virgin voyages, so it was constant brand recognition. Brand recognition is needed in order to drive action. Welcome to Branded at Booked, the podcast that helps short-term mental host and boutique hotel owners create destination properties with a rape or the guest experience. I'm Steph Weber, and after spending a decade supporting hundreds of six and seven figure small businesses with their branding and marketing strategies, I've turned short-term rentals. I've built a six figure coasting business invested in cabins on the Cumberland, the riverfront, micro-resort, and Kentucky, and manage our own short-term rental in Indianapolis. If you want to have more control over your marketing and build a brand that inspires guest loyalty, so you can keep your calendar booked, you're in the right place. Let's dive in. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Branded in Booked. Before I get started, today I have to give a shout out to the client that this episode and a new series I'm doing on Instagram was inspired by. So, Yash and Kushale, on Altitu 22, which is a brand that we built for them for their house in Bethel, Maine, and we are working on another project for them right now in Sedona, which is a really exciting, but a few months ago, Yash said, Steph, you have this background in all of these different industries that you've worked in. So what are all of those different industries doing that hospitality industry is not doing? Like, how are these brands capturing and gaining their clients, their customers? What does their acquisition process really look like? And then also, what are the gaps? What are the other industries doing that we're not and where are we missing? Where are we missing? Where are we missing out? How can we be gap fillers here? And that really, you know you guys, sometimes you get so in the weeds in your own business that you're just tunnel vision, and you forget that you have this experience and this diverse, vast knowledge, and you're like, wait, that's what makes us different, right? And so sometimes I'm like, man, I'm in this hospitality industry, which I think is a good differentiator for us. Obviously, we're building our own micro resorts. So when I'm doing this work with clients, I'm like, it's not just because we're the branding and marketing agency, but the other thing that really separates us is that we do have this decade of experience in a variety of other industries, and we have seen what's worked really well. And it also gives me the ability to think critically when I see different marketing efforts and campaigns that are launched by other brands to go, how can I take this energy and bring it into the vacation rental space? So I started this series on Instagram called Beyond Hospitality, and I'm doing it every week. It's a new series I'm starting. So I'll launch a video every week about this, but it's going, it's me taking a look at what other industries are doing when it comes to marketing, when it comes to their brand, when it comes to website, and what's working really well, and how we can bring a little bit of that into the boutique hospitality sphere. So I'm kind of excited about this, and they're going to be really cool, but the conversation I want to have with you guys today is a little bit of that, because what I'm going to be talking about is the, I'm going to be talking about virgin voyages, specifically, but I'm going to be talking about how brands are using influencers and casting a really wide net by not just using one influencer, but by using multiple influencers to really garner attention for their brands to capture the audience, and to do so, like they're creating a moment, right? They're creating this massive marketing moment, and they're doing this very intentionally. And so I have a few different case examples that I'm going to share with you guys today, starting with virgin voyages, and I think it'll be really a really powerful conversation. And of course, I'm going to speak to how you can bring this into your vacation rental business as well, like whether you have a boutique hotel, micro-resort, et cetera, influencer marketing is going to look a little different for you, and then I'll also speak to it on the short-term rental side of things as well, right? So some best practices, along with some good case studies of what's happening in other industries or what are other brands doing that you guys can take and use and learn from. Okay, so this will be a really good conversation today. Definitely one that you want to come back to. I'll go ahead and plug. If you guys haven't subscribed to this podcast already, please be sure to do so. I would really appreciate that at the end, all right? Okay, let's go ahead and dive in. So I have a few friends in the influencer marketing space, actually, I have quite a few, because that's what I used to do, right? So if you're new to this podcast, my whole background, actually, I started in the fashion industry, and I worked in that industry as a manager of a store. I did, I was a buyer for them. I did brand management. I did general management like more every hat. And at some point, we started working with influencers, and this was in 2016, we were sending them clothes, we were paying them, and I was like, why am I not doing this too? So I started Trinity and Indy, and that was my influencer brand. And I worked with a variety of different small businesses and entrepreneurs, as well as large brands as well. I had the opportunity to work with Anda's Napa Valley in Wall Street, 25 hours hotels over in Europe, large hotels out on Nantucket, at the opportunity to work with bottle works and ironworks here in Indy, 505 Nashville, element hotels, I mean, a lot of different opportunities in the travel sphere. And I launched the agency. I launched the Weber Co, kind of pivoted in 2019 to the Weber Co, started that at the end of 2018, officially did that in 2019, and then had the opportunity to serve hundreds of different small businesses and entrepreneurs through my own business and kind of shifted away from what I was doing as an influencer, but I've worked both sides. And I've actually worked both sides of this since 2014. And it's been interesting to see the evolution of influencer marketing, which in 2014 was blogging, they were bloggers. And now it's like this whole influencer marketing sphere, which is so, it's crazy. It is a, I think $22 billion industry now, it's wild. And there is a reason for this. There is a reason that brands invest heavily into this because they understand the value of the social proof that influencers can bring their brand, especially when they are going to launch. I'm going to talk about that today as it pertains to boutique hotels and micro resorts and so forth. But what Virgin Voyages did recently, I have a handful of friends that were actually on this cruise. They did a creator's cruise, essentially. So they had, I think they had a thousand creators, largely with like TikTok audiences. And so it was a partnership, I believe, don't quote me on this, but I believe that the partnership was like, Virgin Voyages plus TikTok, and then they brought these creators that really stand out and that focus on their target audience or that have their target audience within their audiences. Right, this is one big thing with influencer marketing. Anytime you're working with influencers, you want to make sure that your audience and their audience are aligned. That's going to be helpful for you. And then of course, like they're creating great content that makes sense for the brand. And when you, when Virgin Voyages did this, they did so many things really, really well. Number one, what they understood is that giving up, giving up a thousand rooms, potentially, let's just say that that's what they gave up, on their cruise ship was going to be well worth it for them because of the attention that they were capturing at one single time by casting that wide net. I mean, think about this, you guys, a thousand influencers. Let's just even say that they all had an audience of at least 10,000, do the math, right? I'm like, how many zeros are we adding? But that is insane potential reach for the brand. And that's just like their minimum of what may have scratched the surface, right? Not to mention the fact that there's website traffic going to their site during this time, that they're now pixeling those people that they can now retarget. So again, casting a wide net, gaining that visibility, gaining access to audiences that they would not have had access to otherwise without bringing those creators on board. In addition to that, when brands do things like this, it creates FOMO, whether we want to admit that or not, it creates this like, I am missing out on an experience. Why have I not gone on a Virgin Voyages cruise? Yeah, that's what the audience ends up questioning. They're like, I'm seeing Virgin Voyages for the last four days. I have all these different influencers that I follow because that also is what's happening, right? One person may be following several influencers that were on the trip, I know I certainly do. So they were inundating my feed. I couldn't get away from Virgin Voyages. So it was constant brand recognition. You have to be recognized in order to drive action. And beyond that, there has to be trust there. When you partner and work with influencers, that trust is innately there because the influencers have built that with their audiences. So naturally, their audience is trust, their recommendations, whether that's products, trips, it doesn't matter. They've already built that relationship with the audience. And so the brands are tapping into that, which is exactly what Virgin Voyages did here. The other thing that they did phenomenally on this is that they had a diverse group of influencers. These influencers did not all look like, quote unquote, models. They were very much like in alignment with who Virgin Voyages speaks to. And the diversity amongst the influencers and the different types of content that they create, different physical bodies, just people of various different backgrounds and cultures coming together to create this moment for Virgin Voyages, which an underlying piece of this speaks to one of their, what I would imagine is a core brand belief for them. And that is that they value diversity, right? And they were showing that by bringing in these different creators that can tell their different stories, right? I would follow the friends that were on the, on the trip. They were telling different stories throughout the entire time, Ray Lake. I have a great friend, her name is Sierra, and she has eclectic curves. And Sierra was telling the story about her and her husband getting on this romantic cruise and getting away from the kids and just like their whole experience there. And she's funny, like she's funny in how she shares this. One of her reels that she posted was like, my husband and I enjoying our, I think she calls him Husbe. My husband and I enjoying our three course breakfast after the workout and quotes that we just had in our room. And I was like, that is hilarious and something that your audience very much can relate to is shareable. Like definitely couples sharing that to each other. Amazing, right? Versus my friend, Kalea, who owns an influencer marketing agency. And she was there actually with her Allora Society. And she had a team of her creators that were actually there with her. So theirs was more like the girls trip and that side. And it was a different story, but still made sense for the brand that large, right? So this was such a genius move on their part. I did not necessarily see anyone promoting specific promo codes or I don't know that I necessarily saw specific like UTM codes linking to virgin voyages. But what I did see was of course their follower growth increase and what I obviously can't see because I don't have access to their analytics is I'm certain their website traffic increasing their email subscribers increasing in the opportunity to really again capture those people, those people who are watching this happen feeling that sense of phoma like I am missing out if I don't go on a cruise with them, that's what was happening. And so they knew that this was a very strategic play for them in inviting these influencers. And I think one of the mindset shifts that's really important to think through here is that for virgin voyages, like one thing that I hear a lot for short term rentals and boutique hotels is that I hear often why don't wanna give up nights? I don't wanna give up revenue. I don't wanna give up. And I'm like, you're so afraid of what you're losing that you're not focused on what you're gaining. Stop, that is not entrepreneurship mentality, right? It's just not. Now I understand like there are weeks that the cabins that I'm like, yeah, there's a massive like national fishing tournament happening this week. We can't have influencers come and stay during that week. But we have 12 cabins. If somebody wants to just come stay on a June weekend and we happen to have availability and it makes sense for us, I'm probably going to do that. In fact, I am doing that. We already have somebody that's booked. That's going to be okay. That $500 or whatever it is that I'm giving up per night or whatever it may be for you is going to make sense and will be returned to us from a marketing perspective. That's okay with us, right? So I think that those are strategic decisions that you have to think through. Now I know I have clients that are like, well, our nightly rates are $2,000 a night or whatever. And so it's like, okay, I hear you. I hear you. You have to be strategic especially if you have a single family home. And again, Virgin Voyages has a fleet of ships, right? So they have a lot of inventory and same with like Tremont Lodge, who's one of our clients, they have 130 rooms. They almost always have availability for us to get influencers in. So it doesn't really matter as much. What matters more is the content that's being created, story that's being told and our tracking abilities on our side, right? So again, I get being strategic with it, but stop being afraid of like what is influencer marketing costing you and really ask the question of what does it allow you to gain, right? With Virgin Voyages, they really understood what it was going to do for their brand to drive a density of attention in that very short amount of time, right? It created, again, this like brand ecosystem for them, this sort of fear of missing out for people who were paying attention. And they were just, again, multiple creators posting, tagging them, the energy behind all of that. Instead of just one creator and somebody being like, or that audience being like, that's cool. You're seeing multiple creators post about it and then the audience leans in even further and is like, wait, what is happening? Why is Virgin Voyages such a hot thing right now? I need to be able to understand this, right? Plus when you are, you guys know this. If you're listening to this podcast, my guess is that you've been to in-person events in this industry in some way, you know the energy of getting in those rooms. You know the energy of being together in person. Virgin Voyages understood that about bringing creators together as well and that is what was so powerful for them. Another really strong example of this for Coachella. Now, let me go back to this really quick with Virgin Voyages. I mentioned I'm not sure if those creators were sending everyone to one landing page or how they were really tracking. So that would be something that I'm like, ooh, I would love to dive into this on their back end. Whenever we're coordinating influencer campaigns for our clients, again, it's not a thousand creators, so that looks a little bit different. But when we are coordinating these campaigns, we usually assign a specific UTM code so we can track where traffic actually comes from for our influencers. So they're sending website traffic to our brands. I've assigned a UTM codes so that I can actually track that. Right? So it's not just a guess. It's not just a random guess, right? For example, if you say, oh, well, we had an influencer come stay and we had 39 direct bookings the next month, it's like, well, are those bookings attributed to the influencer? Maybe, maybe not. But you can be a lot more sure about that based on UTM codes, based on promo codes that the influencer may be sharing and so forth. Right? Email capture, all the things. Okay? Another example of this that happened recently was Coachella. If you guys noticed, there are some funny things that happen on TikTok when we start talking about Coachella because things that I start to see are like, oh, Coachella, aka the influencer Olympics. And I'm just like, okay, but really think about this. Like really take a look at what's happening here, right? Some of the brands that the Kardashian zone, 818 tequila, right? They had or whatever, I think it's just called 818, but they're tequila company, you all know this. They had all these different influencers and obviously owned by the Kardashians, right? Or the generous, I think Kendall actually owns this one. Anyway, beside the point, it's like an influencer created brand, more or less is what it really is, right? So when you do this, when you do this, you're creating experiential marketing moments. And this is something that not enough, especially boutique hotels are doing when you all launch your properties. It's like you just open the doors and you forget that there should be a whole launch plan in place. You're so focused on getting them on the OTAs and getting bookings come in. And it's like, hold up, where was the launch plan? And why didn't we have influencers come in today and why didn't, like, why did this not happen, right? Like, what was the thought process? There wasn't a thought process actually. Maybe what the deal was. But brands, especially during Coachella, again, that's what they're creating. They're creating these intentional content infrastructures that now they've built. Now they can take and use that content potentially for months to come. And they've created an entire experience and environment around their brand, where people can actually interact with it. Influencers are interacting, they're posting, and they know, they're casting that wide net, capturing the attention of millions of people because of the number of influencers that they're bringing in to the space. And they've created those, like, wow, moments, those experiences that you can touch feel see, right? Not just a, like, here's our logo, here's our brand. It is the, also, they're so intentional about the lifestyle. If you take a look at how their spaces are designed like in Mac Coachella, or even at, like, they'll do hotel buyouts or they'll do large, short-term rental buyouts, right? Again, they've created a moment. They've created an experience, which is what both of these two brands have done. To use some other, maybe more product-based examples because so many are doing this, I just saw a video today about comfort, C-O-N-F-R-T, the sweat brand, right? Some of you may have their sweats. They launched their company, you guys, in 2022. 2022. They are a $500 million brand. Why? Well, they have a great product. They have a good story behind it. And they got that product into the hands of influencers so fast, and they have strategic marketing funnels in place that are consistently capturing and retargeting their audiences. Literally, that's what they're doing, right? But it was heavy creator focus, especially upon lunch. This brand almost feels inescapable. Like anywhere you go, people are wearing comfort sweats. I'm sure that if you don't own them, you've seen them. I own them now because I couldn't stop seeing them. That drives demand. You guys, that drives interest. It drives curiosity. And those two things drive demand. Other brands that I've seen do this really well, color science, if you guys are not familiar with this product, they are basically skincare as sunscreen, is kind of their whole thing. So I actually, I have formerly used their products, probably back in 2017-ish, 2017-2018-ish, sometime around there. And then once I ran out, I stopped using them. And then I've seen all of these creators showing up in my feed and also in ads in front of me, right? Because other brands are also smart enough to go, we should buy the rights to this and then be able to run ads to it. Because we know that a real person is going to be so much better than us being like, look at what our product does. They are giving them an opportunity to share what the product does, like influencers, put that story and say, hey, here, we're going to send you the product. You try it out, you see what you think and you share it with your audience instead of it being from the brand's voice, right? They're giving that brand voice to other creators which build more trust and creates authority too. So anyway, I purchased their, I think it's their like, flex face, face, face. sunscreen. Anyway, what it does basically, it goes on white, but as you start to rub it in, it starts to blend in with your skin. And I was a total non-believer. I was like, that is not real. Like, there's no way that I'm going to buy just the light shade and it's just going to magically blend into my shade or my like skin, right? Yeah, no, it does. It's amazing, like very phenomenal, and I'm all about skin protection in the summer. So, but you guys, I'm not kidding. It probably took me approximately 20 times of seeing their brand and seeing different influencers and seeing their ads before I actually purchased. And that is the decision making process. That is such a prime example, which is again, why these brands are creating these experiences, they're creating these moments, they're bringing influencers together at one time. They are doing this because they know that it takes multiple touch points for someone to actually make a buying decision. They're weaving together in influencer marketing, maybe a top of funnel, but then they are constantly using retargeting ads. They're using email marketing funnels. They are staying in front of them with their own content. They're doing everything they can to stay top of mine, which is exactly prime example of what color science is doing for sure. Okay? If I were to take everything that I just gave you guys today, and the examples that I provided to you and tell you how to use this or how to implement bits and pieces of this and boutique hotels or short term rentals, that's kind of the next piece that I want to break down. boutique hotels and micro resorts. If you guys are not planning influencer using influencers as part of your launch strategy for sure you're missing out. If I were you, if I were launching, if I were doing this again for the cabins, and honestly we may still try to figure out how to do this even yet this fall, but if I were doing this for the cabins or I were doing this for any micro resorts that's getting ready to launch, reopen, whatever it might be, here's what I would do. I would do, number one, I would do a soft opening with like your friends and family. Work out some of the kinks. Make sure that everything is feels good is really good to go. The next thing that I would do is invite influencers to the property as a group. Get a collective group of influencers to come and enjoy and make it a whole experience. Make sure you've got the private chef. The experience is on site. So if I were doing this, I'll use the cabins as an example. If I were doing this for the cabins, what I might set up is kayaking. Number one, very clear on the target audience that I'm looking for, right? On who I'm actually inviting to the property and who I'm bringing. So first thing that I'm probably going to do is find a private chef that can cook all meals while they are there. The next thing that I'm going to do is probably coordinate with the country store who does kayak tours to get people out onto the river for that kayak experience. The next thing that I'm going to do is make sure that I have a boat rented to take them out on the late Cumberland. I'm going to give the whole experience of what you can enjoy at cabins on the Cumberland because what's that going to do? That's going to help their audiences be able to see how people can enjoy the property and how more importantly, they can imagine themselves there, right? So that is what that is 100% what I would do. I would fill every single cabin with a collective of influencers. I might even reach out to a handful of influencers and say, do you have any other creator friends that you think would be a good fit to so that you guys can kind of come together? And then again, we're creating this whole moment. We're doing something that's really experiential and investing into that in a big way. Now, will would that be a chunk? Yeah, what it definitely would be like a chunk of a marketing budget. So you have to be strategic with this. I understand that, but it's incredibly powerful. It's incredibly powerful. If you can't do it at lunch, then find something. Find time. Maybe it's during your off season. Maybe it's during your weekdays. Know that weekdays days can be a little bit more difficult to arrange some of these creators still have other full-time jobs. So it has to make sense both ways. So just be mindful about that, right? But maybe you maybe you are wanting to do something during your off season, especially if you're getting closer, for example, I would not probably bring influencers down to the cabins in January and February. It's not going to be the experience that I really want to show. So I might take a look at May because May tends to be right before we hit, like, after Memorial Day weekend, usually we don't have any issues, but in terms of like, you know, filling nights and so forth. But as we come up to that, even in November and very beginning of May, that might be a time that I invite influencers down. Or the other time I would probably take a look at is maybe August, like maybe mid August during the week, like right before everybody goes back to school. That would be another time I would look at as we're heading into fall. If June and July are just too busy and too full, that's what I those are the times that I would be sort of looking at, right? The reason for that, again, we want to make sure if we're bringing influencers to our property that they're going to have a great experience. That's why I said earlier, soft soft lunch with friends and family or like invited people who are going to give you honest feedback do not soft lunch with influencers. You can bring them in after you've done that initial like, we've tested everything, we've tried things out, but you want them to have the best experience possible. All things happen, things happen that are outside of your control and there's not a lot we can do, but the better the experience can be for influencers that you're bringing to the property, the better results you're going to see, right? And we want to make sure that everything we're doing is about generating demand and turning that into visibility and turning that into audiences that are now interested in coming to book with us, right? So that would be I am focused more on our marketing efforts of okay, when is someone most likely to book January and February? May or may not support that, which is why I'm always like, how can I get it closer to our peak seasons? So that's some food for thought for you there. I also would make sure that every influencer is assigned a promo code, a UTM link, we're doing some sort of an email captures that might be sending them to a specific landing page, but still making sure that we have UTM codes there. That might be doing giveaways in some capacity. So multiple different options for how you actually execute upon this, but the idea here is cast a wide net work with multiple influencers. And if you have to do that at one time fine, or if you can do it where you create a whole moment, this becomes something magnetic and like magnifies your brand in such a massive way. Okay, so again, mindset shift that I think is really important to have here, not how much is this costing me? What's this helping me gain? What does this help us actually be able to do? And relying less on OTAs is always the right answer. It's always the right answer. And instead of just being focused on the content influencers create, you're thinking about the moments that they're creating, the full mode that's being created for anybody watching that makes them that much more interested and curious because we're human beings and this is how we operate, right? We don't want to feel like we're missing out. We want to go experience what we're seeing. And you move to an entire, you're creating like this little micro ecosystem for your brand. And this magnificent moment that really draws people in and it's just like a giant spike for you, which is huge, which is huge, right? So this isn't about more and more and more and more and more and more just content. This is about creating those experiences and letting that mirror what's happening at your properties in general. And again, you guys too, being strategic about this and not just saying, oh, influencer marketing is an afterthought. Be really thoughtful about it. Be really diligent about it. If you're bringing creators to your single family short term home, like kind of one at a time, maybe have a welcome basket for them. Maybe make it feel like you really thought through the stay and through the experience. Also really make sure that you guide them in terms of what you're looking for. I will definitely tell you that obviously bringing a thousand creators to a cruise ship, they did not go through the brand did not go through and approve every single creator's posts and content that happened beforehand, right? They gave them a little bit of creative freedom. I'm sure that there was some sort of a brief that was provided, but they gave them some creative freedom. And I think that that's a really important thing that we don't do enough of, okay? I hope that this was a really helpful conversation for you guys in the in the description today. I have a new I have a new opt in for you guys, which is going to give you access to an influencer guide that I've actually created that will help you source, negotiate and collaborate with influencers in a really powerful way and hopefully help you avoid some common mistakes that I see in the boutique hospitality sphere at large. So that's going to be located in the chat. You guys can also come hang out with me on Instagram and you'll see me sharing it there. So you can do either way you want to go there, but I would love for you guys to snag that so that you can get started with influencer marketing and keep in mind that this is something that we do for clients for our agency. So if everything I shared feels really overwhelming, we're happy to help coordinate for you and on your behalf so that you don't have to worry about it. And we have plenty of client results to be able to share exactly how powerful influencer marketing is in this boutique hospitality sphere. All right, I appreciate your time today. I'll see you on the next episode of Brandon and booked. Thanks for turning in to Brandon but if you love today's episode don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. It helps more hosts like you find the show and you know how important those reviews are. For more resources, head to thewebricote.com or follow me on Instagram @thewebricote and let's keep the conversation going. Until next time remember your property isn't just a place to stay. It's a story waiting to be told. Let's make it worth remembering. [Music]