This Cheat Code Will Supercharge Your Bookings

What if I told you there’s a marketing cheat code that can:

• Bring you a ton of new followers

• Create world-class, algorithm-friendly videos for little-to-no cost

• Give your resort the ‘cool factor’

This little hack is real, and it’s used by the best operators all the time.

You’ve definitely heard about it, but you probably don’t realize how powerful it can be.

What’s the cheat code?

The humble influencer!

The Glamping Insider, reporting for duty.

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Influencers - Underrated Marketing Gems

I’m not going to pretend I’m unveiling some ancient, undiscovered marketing secret here. Influencers have been around long enough for most people to know what they are and how they work.

But I do think influencers are massively underrated marketing tools in our space. Most people don’t realize how effective they are if used properly.

For the uninitiated, an influencer is someone with a social media audience who ‘influences’ said audience by promoting products or services, usually by creating engaging content around them.

Check out this post from Onera Wimberley as an example. Ben at Onera would have invited the influencer to stay and post about the resort, either by paying them directly or simply offering free accommodation. During their stay, the influencer captured footage and packaged it up into an short-form video, which was posted jointly on the influencer’s and Onera’s Instagram pages. 

It’s a win-win situation. The influencer gets great material they can keep influencing with; Onera gets a free promo video and appears in front of the influencer’s audience. Everyone goes home happy.

So How Good Can the Results Be?

Very, very good. I can vouch for this personally.

The first Posh Outdoors partner location, Skyridge Glamping, opened 10 tiny home units in January (we have no involvement in these aside from being cheerleaders - our mirror cabins are arriving in May).

The construction process took longer than planned, so there wasn’t time to do a proper marketing campaign prior to launch. Skyridge needed something to kickstart their socials, so they invited Brooke Wilson, an outdoor influencer, to stay.

Brooke posted this little video, and it worked perfectly. It generated:

• 300k+ views

• 8k likes

• 5k shares

• 116 comments

• Several thousand followers

• And lots of bookings!

This, coupled with a few other influencer posts, has taken Skyridge’s Instagram to 8.2k followers after less than 2 months of opening. 

And this is only the start. Just wait until Posh sends influencers to stay in our Sky Glass cabins in spring…

The crazy thing is, I’ve seen other influencer campaigns generating even bigger results. Some of those visiting Outpost X in the Utah desert have been racking up millions of views.

Simply put, influencers deliver results. 

But why?

Why Influencers Work

Instagram today is very different to how it was 5 years ago.

Back in the day (i.e. before the rise of TikTok), you used to see content posted by people you followed, and very little else. When working with influencers, that meant a larger follower count = wider reach. 

Instagram changed their algorithm in 2020 to be more like TikTok. Instead of prioritizing posts from people you followed, the algorithm started to show you posts it thought you’d like, regardless of whether you followed the creator. This is an approach that all the big social media companies adopted, and it continues to this day.

This change leveled the playing field for any given Instagram post. Instead of follower count determining reach, you could get in front of millions of people if the algorithm noticed people consuming and engaging with the content.

Today’s influencers have been working within these rules for 5 years now. That means the best influencers know what the algorithm likes, and they create content with the algorithm in mind.

They know how to hook people within seconds. They understand the importance of an in-video caption. They have a knack for picking the right backing music.

So when an influencer makes an Instagram reel for your glamping site, they’re making something specifically designed to work with the algorithm. Which, if they pull it off, translates to lots of views, comments, shares and followers. And eventually bookings.

How to Work With Influencers

There are no hard and fast rules to working with influencers. Given many of them will post something in return for a free stay, you can afford to experiment. But here are some general guidelines:

• Choose ones aligned with your core audience. Travel and outdoor influencers are always good in our business.

• Don’t be afraid to go niche. Pick influencers based on your specific demographic. If you have pet-friendly units, consider inviting a dog influencer (yes, they do exist). If you’re a family resort, there will be a ton of family influencers willing to work with you.

• Look at their engagement. Don’t just pick the influencer with the highest follower count. Analyze their posts to see what kind of traction they’re getting, and whether people respond to their content.

• Use the collab function. Instagram has a ‘collab’ function that shares the post to both your page and the influencer’s page. If the post fits your vibe, make use of it.

• Have a contract. This is a business transaction. Treat it as such.

• Don’t stop using them. Influencers are never-ending cheat codes. You should always have some booked in to stay each month.

• Remember the 80/20 rule. Most influencer posts will generate little-to-no results. But when they’re a hit, they’re a hit. Accept this, analyze the hits to find the formula that works, and double down. This can be enough to change the hit from 80/20 rate to 60/40.

📰 The Posh Report

Last week, Posh Outdoors started testing social media ads for our first 5 units at Skyridge Glamping, due to open in May. Here’s our strategy:

• Test some ads for 1-2 weeks to identify optimal images and copy to lead with

• Run the ads at scale for 2-3 months, with users invited to put down a deposit to give them first access to the booking calendar and an exclusive discount

• Open the booking calendar to the deposit holders a couple of weeks before opening

We want to apply this strategy at every location we go on to develop, and we’re excited to see how it works for Location #1. I’ll be sharing regular updates on how the campaign is going, so stay tuned.

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