The Bookster Podcast: Bootstrapped Marketing

  • Episode 10
Who's Talking?
  • Simon Beattie
  • Robin Morris
  • Kelly Odor
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How does Bookster market itself with a small budget?

Simon introduces the episode and his guests, Robin Morris, co-founder and CEO of Bookster., and Kelly Odor, Marketing Director. 

The series aims to explore running a successful SaaS company.

In the Bookster Podcast, we take you behind the scenes of Bookster, a SaaS company based in Edinburgh, Scotland, providing software solutions for the holiday rental industry. Join us as we explore the company's journey, its inner workings, and discuss strategies for growth and innovation in the rental market. 

Key Points:

Introduction to Bookster (00:05 - 00:13)

Simon kicks off the podcast by welcoming the audience and introducing the company, Bookster, a SaaS holiday rental software provider based in Edinburgh.

Company Journey and Growth (00:13 - 00:17)

A quick dive into Bookster’s history, touching on their mission to help holiday rental businesses with streamlined software solutions.

CEO's Perspective on Leadership (00:24 - 00:30)

Robin shares insights about his role as CEO and co-founder, the challenges of leading a growing tech company, and his vision for the future.

Addressing Industry Challenges (00:30 - 00:36)

The discussion highlights key challenges in the holiday rental market and how Bookster's tools are tailored to address these needs efficiently.

Customer Success and Future Plans (00:36 - onwards)

How Bookster measures customer success and plans for future expansion, including upcoming features and strategies.

Closing Remarks: Simon wraps up by thanking the listeners and encouraging them to follow the journey of Bookster through future episodes.

Connect with Bookster: For more information, visit Bookster's website or follow us on social media.

Credits

Host
Simon Beattie
Producer
Joint Beat Productions
Music
Jonny Brannen

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Transcript

And welcome back to the Bookster podcast from inside the SaaS holiday rental software company Bookster based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Follow along as Bookster discussed their journey and their inner workings.

Thank you for joining us, and we hope you find these conversations insightful and ultimately helpful.

Now, I'm joined today as always by CEO and co-founder of Bookster, Robin.

Robin, welcome back to the podcast.

Minute 1
Hi, Simon.

Nice to see you today, and we're lucky enough today to be joined by Kelly.

Welcome, Kelly.

Hello there.

Hi there.

Um, thank you for your time this morning.

We are on episode 10, Robin.

They said it would never last, and here we are.

They, they doubted us, those people, they Doubted us.

But, uh, no, it's been great conversations so far.

I'm sure today will be no different.

Um, Kelly, as you are new to our podcast, perhaps you could explain a little bit about your background, uh, with Bookster and what your job title is.

Yes, of course.

So I have been with Bookster for just over five years or so, I think, and I'm the marketing director.

So my role is really to help attract new clients to come and work with us and to support some of our existing clients, in particular kind of in marketing areas.

Minute 2
So that tends to be with helping them improve the results of their website and helping them with things like email marketing.

Great, thank you.

Um, what was your experience with holiday rentals before joining bta? So, I've never had any Holly Rentals, but I have worked in the industry for a couple of years before coming to bta.

So I was working for another software company providing similar services to a slightly different client type, but still within the holiday rental sector.

Excellent.

Um, you obviously enjoy this sector then, do you? I do.

It is interesting.

It's always changing.

It's constantly surprising and I think the fact that it's quite a new sector, the holiday rentals, no, but the software, yes.

And that means that it, there's always developments to be made and new, interesting aspects that we can learn about.

So yeah, it's a good place to be.

Minute 3
Fantastic.

Um, so Robin, perhaps you would tell us a little bit about, uh, I mean, how you've, we've talked about how you've sort of formed a company and how you first started slightly, but how do you sort of get customers, I think, when you first start a company like yourselves? We haven't really delved into that yet, so that'd be interesting to, to hear about.

Yeah, Yeah.

So, um, sorry Kelly, that was an immediate, um, she doesn't like ums on podcast.

Um, I'm, I'm quite nervous on this podcast.

I know I 'um' a lot, so I'm deliberately trying not to.

We're gonna, this is gonna be our best 'de-ummed' podcast.

We can do this.

So yeah, when we first started Bookster, we didn't have Kelly, uh, we, in fact, we just had, uh, we were doing other things basically.

So we were a software company that was doing other things, and we just had a couple of clients in the holiday rental sector
Minute 4
and we were, you know, writing something I suppose bespoke for them.

So we started off, we had two or three clients and then we, I honestly cannot remember how we got our first proper client who signed up through our website.

I dunno where they came from, but they, we did at one point, we, we basically built the web, the Bookster website.

We were doing lots of other things, but we decided to do this product Bookster off the back, back of, um, supporting these other holiday rental visitors.

And yeah, we did, someone found us, um, and signed up through the website and we got a few people who simply did that.

I think when, you know, when we were first starting out, we, it was almost probably a hundred percent word of mouth or client deferral, so it was, they would maybe book with
Minute 5
our starting clients as even a holiday maker and they would be, oh, I run this business as well.

I'll, um, I'll, I'll contact this company and see if we can, um, use their software.

So I think before having any concept of really deliberately pushing ourselves on marketing ourselves or trying to get ourselves in front of other people, per se, it would all be word of mouth.

And as a, a sort of bootstrapped company.

So we didn't have, uh, a marketing budget that was assigned to bookster.

We didn't have, uh, marketing people, we didn't have salespeople, we didn't have, um, any way of, or any concept of doing that.

That's where it was all coming from.

It was all coming through client referrals.

So yeah, obviously bringing on someone like Kelly,
Minute 6
uh, was because we wanted to more consciously try to find clients beyond the scope of people who had just either booked a holiday or happened to know one of our clients.

Uh, yeah.

So that, that's kind of how it started, but it was, you know, very, very slow to start with.

Okay.

No, it's interesting.

So Kelly, then, how has that changed, you know, so many years later? What, what's your approach now? In a lot of ways it hasn't changed.

So we still get a lot of clients who come to us through client referrals, and that is an approach that we are consciously continuing to follow, maybe a bit more proactively than before.

But we have a referral scheme and we have a process.

Whenever anybody refers us, we always send out a thank you card.

We always mention them on social and recommend their business and you know, to say thank you for actually referring us.

And it's very positive, positive relationship, a positive engagement.

Minute 7
And this works with our clients who refer us or maybe they are consultants who referers or even web developers also referers, and they join that referral team.

They get a percentage of income as a result of making the referral and we get the new client.

So there are still a lot of similarities to how the business is working at the beginning, just we're more proactive about it Now.

There are other things that we do now as well, and I think actually Robin was being a bit modest because when I joined the company, there were things already happening.

So there were newsletters going out to people who had kind of noted interest in the company and wanted more information.

There were, Robin was running events at, uh, a pub around the corner and he would invite people to come along and they would interact and, you know, share stories, share advice, techniques.

That was all happening as well before I came.

So I have just really taken over those aspects
Minute 8
and just developed them further.

So we have events now as well, but our events are online and in part that came by push because of covid, but it has generally benefited us to do that.

We have a broader reach, we can invite different guests to come along and speak with us.

And there are different types of people who come to the event in different locations and that we couldn't do before when it was in person.

So this, that again is something we've just tweaked and enhanced really since I've come along.

We do podcasts now.

Didn't used to do them before.

And again, this is definitely Robin's baby.

He's very much into the podcast and he was prodding me for quite a long time to get the podcasts up and running.

Obviously we have this one here, but we have another one as well.

And that's going out to really help people who are looking for information and advice rather than it being a really heavy sales push.

Minute 9
That's definitely not the approach that we take with anything that we do actually.

It's more about support and guidance for the industry rather than heavy, heavy, hard sales actually taken on.

Johnny was another big aspect of changing the approach that we had from a sales and marketing perspective, because Johnny was able to use the marketing material that we produce on the blog and be able to go out to people, potential clients and say, well, look, we produced this material.

Here's something you might find useful.

And if you use it and you then come to Bookster, great.

And if you don't, also, that's fine.

They, as long as you are being supported and being helped, then that's really the goal.

So they were things really that Robin was already doing, and the newsletter's the same.

There were already newsletters going out, now we're just a bit more organized with them, perhaps, um, a bit more structured.

So we send out newsletters about events that we're organizing or events that we're attending,
Minute 10
or events even that we're not attending.

But we think our clients and contacts should be send out updates on the software.

Obviously that's very important from a communication perspective with our existing clients because they need to know what's changed and how they can use it.

Send out guidance.

So if we've written a particular document that we think will be particularly useful, maybe it's about legislation, maybe it's about how they improve their marketing.

We, we organize those as well.

But it's a fine line.

And this is one of the things that I talk about with Robin a lot.

It's how much and how often do you communicate with potential clients or your contacts, because you don't want to be annoying people and constantly sending things that people aren't gonna read.

There's, you know, it's a real balancing act to find well, what's the right amount? And I'm never entirely convinced I've got that exactly right, because everybody is different.

Some people want to be contacted every week, some people want to be contacted once a month.

So it's, it's, it's a bit of a tightrope trying
Minute 11
to, to balance it.

Yeah.

Yes.

That's how I would describe it.

A tightrope Tight.

Yeah.

John Johnny is our, uh, salesperson or sales guy basically.

So, um, yeah, having him to proactively engage with people when they engage with us is, is obviously a big step.

Um, yeah.

And we've talked a lot on this podcast about the fact that you are a small company essentially.

Um, do you find that your marketing activity would be different, do you think, to the bigger firms out there? Do you think it's a more personal approach? How do you work that? Without a doubt, it's different because we have a tight budget.

Ultimately for those companies who have gone out and they have got a million or 2 million in funding, they can do a lot more things.

They can go to some of the bigger events, they can have bigger stands, they can travel a lot more.

Minute 12
So from our perspective, we just have to be very creative with the resources really that we have.

And that comes partly to do with money because these stands and so on, they cost a lot, but also to do with like physical resources, we are a small team, so ultimately we have to pick and choose what we're going to do because we can't do everything even if we wanted to.

And that's, again, it's a bit of a balance.

It's working out and working within the team to see if there is an event who could go to the event.

It wouldn't necessarily be the sales, it might be myself or it might be Robin.

And for other activities, again, it's, it's really about thinking what's the top priority right at this time that we are going to go ahead with because we just don't have the funds and the resources to be able to do everything.

And it, sometimes you do kind of look at the other companies that have been funded and you know, there is a bit of kind of green eye jealousy that they can go
Minute 13
to this particular place and speak to these particular people, but in the end, this is the approach that we have taken as a company to be bootstrapped and therefore we just have to be creative.

And I guess, uh, you touched upon Covid earlier slightly, um, but do you think, in a roundabout way, it sounds strange to say it Covid has perhaps helped companies like yours because it's sort of leveled the playing field with the online activity.

Um, perhaps people now expect to do things online rather than go to a trade show to see you or whatever.

Do you think that has in a roundabout way, perhaps helped? Covid is a funny thing for us as a company.

There are obviously awful, awful effects from it, but there were some big benefits from our company's perspective.

We got a lot of clients as a result of this.

And I think some people were changing their careers.

They were rethinking what their priorities were
Minute 14
and wanted to come into our industry.

And as a result, we got a lot of people approaching us and asking if they could work with us.

And that, that was amazing and completely, we didn't see that coming at all from the perspective of being able to level the playing field.

Yes, that has happened, but also the playing field has shifted.

So although there are more events online, and that's great, there are, there is a shift now towards there being online events, but you have to pay to be a speaker on them.

So again, it comes back to have you got that large budget to be able to afford to go and talk on this independent, uh, webinar about your services or about something else.

And ultimately if you don't have the budget, then you can't go on it.

So yes, but the playing field is very different, Very different.

Some, uh,
Minute 15
basics of, so, uh, I would say broadly speaking, more people are more competent on video calls Oh yeah.

Than they were before.

So, uh, when we were doing demos to prospective clients, our, our demographic, um, of client, uh, are again similar to us in a way.

They tend to be a bit smaller.

So, you know, they tend to have 10, 15, 20 properties.

Maybe they're not these, you know, 300 properties, thousand property kind of companies where they've got a, you know, corporate office and high speed internet and they're all super, uh, jazzed to be on a call with us.

You know, it's usually someone in their kitchen, um, you know, just, um, trying to get the, make sure that their call works and they've got kids in the background and their cat keeps wandering in front of the screen or whatever.

So that's our, those are our people.

Minute 16
And I think actually one of the, one of the side upsides to Covid is people got very familiar with using that technology.

And, uh, so I think that it's become a bit easier for us to do those kinds of calls with people where we demonstrate our software on a one-to-one basis.

Um, yeah, going, also, going back to if you're starting up and your clients are sort of geographically close to you, those, you know, pre covid, uh, meetups that we did in the pub around the corner, it sort of had two benefits to us.

Uh, and we, we might end up doing something like that again, I'm not sure.

But, um, it had the benefit of meeting our existing clients and getting feedback in a kind of casual way where it's not something they would write down in an email and say, you, it'd be great if you did this, or it'd be great if you did that,
Minute 17
or It annoys me when this happens, or that happens.

They just chat to you about it and they might chat to you about, oh, I'm thinking about advertising my property on this channel, or B channel, this channel really hard to work with.

I don't understand why I can't, you know, they would give us feedback.

We get lots of feedback in a way you don't get actually through, you know, if you send people the survey, they just ignore it or you ask them to write you an email, they just won't do it.

Whereas, you know, standing around talking to you, they'll get you all sorts of information.

Um, and then there's also that word of mouth thing where someone invites their friend along, who also runs a property and et cetera.

So it has has that kind of double effect.

Uh, so if you're, if you are a small company and you have few clients that are geographically in the same area, organizing a little meetup like that, and it doesn't have to be that formal, but sometimes it's nice to have speakers and things.

Minute 18
And in fact, there was a reasonably clear demand from people to actually have a little bit more structure to it.

We first started, it was literally just painting in a pub, but they did want a bit more than that actually, maybe.

Um, so yeah, if you, if that is your, um, if you do have that, it can be good for i those two benefits basically.

Yeah.

And I guess going back to the start again, when you said you're a bootstrapped company and you, you nice to have a bit more finance to do bigger marketing activities, perhaps Activ, um, is, is being a bootstrap company a choice or is that, you know, did you choose to do it that way? Or was it sort of by necessity? Uh, it was through, so we came about really as the result of the sale of another business, which was also bootstrapped.

So yes, it, it's been a sort of mini hops along the way.

Minute 19
So we've never been, we never needed really to go and get investment, but it was a choice not to bother looking.

So yes, it was a choice really.

We, we certainly point in our, uh, evolution where it would've made sense to, from a venture capitalist perspective.

And so, yes, it was a choice and I think we were deciding that we would really rather not have a, a boss telling us that we were not spending their money in the way that they wanted or not doing things quickly left or not growing fast enough or not doing expense z So it's kind of a luxury in a way, but if you can manage to do it, it's definitely, it's a more relaxed way of more trying
Minute 20
to build a business rather than, it's maybe more exciting and adrenaline filled if you've got a lot of money to go and attack a market with them.

But, you know, we see them all the time.

These companies, they do come and go pretty quick.

So if it's gonna work, it works, but if it doesn't, uh, it will burn and venture capitalists themselves, or they will have, there'll be something like out of every 10 companies they invest in, they'll expect eight or nine of them to fail.

So what they're betting on is the, the one gets big.

And so, you know, you might, you know, invest a million pounds across 10 companies or whatever, I dunno, 10 million, then, you know, they're just hoping that one grows to be a hundred million, uh, sure, 50, 50 million.

And then, but the others, they're, you know, it's just money
Minute 21
that they're kind of willing to lose.

And so you, you are much more likely to end up on that scrap hoop.

And on, on the flip side of that than perhaps Kaley, um, not having the, the huge budget perhaps makes you a bit more creative in terms of what you do.

Would you sort of agree with that? For sure, because you can't do anything unless you are, uh, being frugal and careful and, um, building good relationships.

I actually think that's probably one of the things that has been most successful for us is the relationships that we've built across the industry that have given us the opportunities to go and present on a stage, but without having to have bought a stand or to even be included in newsletters, but without having to have paid for an advertising spot.

It, it does come down to really good relationships
Minute 22
and there's some great people in the industry.

So it, it actually is, it's a win-win because they come and talk with us, they come and talk to our clients and, and our contacts.

And likewise, we get invited to go and have opportunities that we probably wouldn't be able to have, um, due to our financial costs.

I think it also lets you think differently.

So rather than having money to throw at a problem, you do need to think, well, how, what are the other ways that I could approach this problem or challenge? So if we're thinking about our clients rather than spending 5,000, 10,000 or more on a stand in a particular event, well, how else could we meet them? Where else could we go? What other channels could we use? And, and really digging down into that client base because going to events and, and talking to people there, I'm not saying it's easy,
Minute 23
but it's, it's an easy option because you know that your clients or potential clients will be there.

And if you have to think differently about it, it, it is harder sometimes, but also fun because you can be more creative and you try and you fail and you try something else and, you know, cross your fingers, hope for the best, and if it works great, and if it doesn't or you try something else.

And I think that makes the job fun as well as frustrating.

It's, it's a, it's a real mixed bag.

So, you know, if a company is, somebody's listening to this, who is, is thinking of starting up a company without, uh, you know, financial backing, could you suggest maybe sort of one marketing thing they think about to do to, to help them? What would be your go-to marketing thing? Put you on the spot It has, because there's not just one thing
Minute 24
that I would say go and do.

I think it's about having a range of different activities that you are willing to invest your time and energy into.

Because one approach you, you're kind of putting all your eggs in the basket there, just trying to come up with one approach.

So I think it's about looking at who your potential clients are and identifying, okay, where are they? How can I reach them, how can I speak with them? And trying a few different approaches to, to speak with them.

So that might be sending emails.

It might be that you go to events or you advertise the fact that you have drop in calls, which is one of the things that we do.

And it is just about experimentation.

So I wouldn't just choose one option.

I would choose a selection of different ways that you think you can be, you're gonna be able to speak with or contact your potential clients and then give them all a try.

And I guess final question, I'm conscious of time.

Minute 25
Um, I used to work somewhere where, um, it was a tourist attraction and a book was written about it and it became very popular and we used to say it was the best piece of marketing that we didn't do because it was based on this book.

Have you got something similar to that in your sort of Bookster history that the best piece of marketing that you didn't do actually helped your company? Oh, Robin, I might need to ask you for this.

Well, well, I mean, it probably goes back to client referrals really.

When you see people talking about you on Facebook and Mm-hmm, uh, you know, in Facebook groups and things that always warms your heart.

And that's, we are not doing that, obviously.

They're just talking about us and saying, we are great and they love working with us and that they would recommend that get into contact with us.

So I would say that that really, you know, when you see people talking about Bookster on social media, you, you, you realize and it not prompted
Minute 26
or anything, they just, you know, you like, you just find it.

Uh, that's, that's lovely and definitely, uh, a really strong, so you, you obviously, if you're starting out, it's very difficult to do that and you definitely don't want to be out there, uh, astroturfing.

So creating fake names and things and going out there doing it that way, that is definitely very bad.

But seeing, you know, clients of yours, uh, you know, so encouraging people to, to do that would be one, one thing you could possibly do if you were starting out saying, it'd be really great if you could mention us on your, I see you've got also followers on your Facebook page or something.

Um, so yeah, there, there you go with that, that would be mine.

No, fantastic.

Um, I have just, when you said that right there, another questions just come to my mind.

Minute 27
I'm conscious of time though, but I will ask it 'cause I'm thank you.

To find the answer to this.

Uh, when you're talking about social media and sort of Instagram and followers and things like that, have you ever worked with sort of a, a social media influencer to try and get people, uh, coming to Bookster or to give them a free weekend somewhere and ask them to feedback on it? Well, we couldn't give them a free weekend anywhere.

We don't have anywhere that they could go unless they wanted to come and sit in our office for a while.

So, um, I, I don't think that they would take us up on that offer, but we do speak to people that I would probably call influencers to a point.

So they might be consultants in the industry or just very well known, and we do work with them more along the lines of, uh, inviting them to come along to events, knowing that they will have people who will follow them to come and listen to our event.

And we will be able to share snippets from the, the videos
Minute 28
or sound bites or just quotes post that.

And we know that they will also post and share these particular pieces of information and that does give us a wider reach.

So influencers in the way that I think of influencers, no, but they definitely have a following and we can benefit from that following, but it's not one way we have to be able to provide value for them too.

And as you say, we, well, we don't have a property that they can stay in.

So the value that we offer is by giving them reach as well, because we also have a lot of people following us on social media.

We have a lot of people that we speak to or speak with via our newsletters.

So we are promoting them, they're promoting us, and it's a win-win.

Oh, fantastic.

Okay.

Well thanks for that.

Sorry, we've run on a bit longer this week, but I think it's been very interesting episode.

Um, what we usually do at this point is sort of, um, promote our sister podcast, which is smashing your holiday rental goals.

Minute 29
But Kayleigh, that's your podcast basically, and you're on Marvel and here, so perhaps you'd like to sort of, um, promote it for us this week.

Okay, well I recorded and posted the newest episode this morning, so you can go and find that within Booksterhq.

And it's all about, again, it's about supporting the industry.

So it's about supporting hold rental owners and hold rental managers by highlighting tools within holiday rental software that could help them overcome a problem.

And then at the end, we always cover one particular tool that's actually within the Bookster software and how that, that can, can help you achieve your goals.

Fantastic.

Well, it's much better than I could ever have done, so No, thank you.

Um, so no Abso absolutely go and listen to that, uh, podcast.

Smashing your holiday rental goals.

Uh, leave a favor or review.

Uh, that would be great.

Uh, if you'd like to leave a review for this podcast,
Minute 30
we'd appreciate that as well.

If anyone has any questions for either podcasts, you can send them to podcast HQ com.

That's podcast@bookstorehq.com and we'll endeavor to answer them on our podcast or Kelly will answer them on her one.

Um, thank you both for your time this morning.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kelly.

Appreciate your time coming on our, our, our podcast here.

Oh, no.

Thank you for inviting me.

Uh, well hopefully speak to you again soon.

Uh, for now though, thank you for listening.

Uh, thank you for watching on YouTube and, uh, enjoy the rest of your day.

And for now to both of you, thank you very much.

Goodbye.

Bye.

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