How a luxury retreat in Clarens is acing social media

Omega co-owner Jonathan Latheron spoke to media update’s Adam Wakefield about how the use of social media marketing has led to them spending less on marketing, as their establishment has become more popular.

How has social media influenced the amount of business Omega has received over the last three years?

100% of our business comes from social media or referrals. I do not believe we would be half as busy if we did not promote ourselves on social media. It’s typical to have your weekends and school holidays booked in Clarens, so around 40% to 50% occupancy, but we are running at about 90% occupancy. Before we started our social media campaign, especially on Facebook, we relied heavily on booking agents to source our business, often costing as much as 17% of turnover.

We have also been featured in various magazines – Getaway, Country Life and Woman and Home – on an accommodation-for-editorial basis. We are selective with the brands we appear in as ROI in print is minuscule compared to ROI on social media.

Our first taste of how powerful social media can be is when we were featured in a blog called Lucky Pony in early 2015, just after we opened our first two cabins. These were guests who had stayed here, blogged their experience, and shared our Facebook page. There was an immediate response and they asked if we would like to do a competition with them, a weekend stay being the prize. This rocketed our Facebook-base from 800 to 4 000 in one week.

Shortly after this, we fired all our booking agents, focused purely on Facebook marketing, and our bookings increased, while our marketing budget decreased.

How do you use Facebook and Instagram to promote the Omega brand and your brand promise?

We utilise Facebook to interact with our guests and get #TheOmegaExperience out to people who do not yet know about us. Once they like our page, we then keep them up-to-date with specials, upgrades, events, etc.

With the amount of followers we now have, which we have grown steadily since inception, we are in the fortunate position that if we post a cancellation, it usually gets filled without us having to boost the post.

What is Omega’s brand promise and how is this reinforced once guests arrive?

In a nutshell, we are marketing an experience. It's a unique experience because even though it's scenic country, it's also luxury – jacuzzis, decor etc. – and adventure – MTB trails, 4x4 trails, and hiking.

This is reinforced by, according to our reviews, extremely helpful staff – our manager Jackie is amazing – and the expansive views from your cabins, which is the first thing most first-time guests experience.

What do you think are the most important aspects of running an accommodation-orientated business when it comes to marketing? How important is customer service?

Keep your content fresh. We did a professional photo shoot a while back and release the pictures slowly, as opposed to all at once, so our guests are always seeing new perspectives and pictures. We do often repeat the pictures of our cabins, especially the "jacuzzi with a view shot" from every cabin as the angle cannot be shot many different ways. This has also become our trademark: luxury cabins with private jacuzzis.

Customer service is very important but, in our opinion, we do not believe in immediate turnarounds on queries. We moved to the country for a more relaxed life and don't spend all our days on our computers or phones, so we generally only answer e-mails once a day. If we’re traveling and that waiting period will be longer, we let people know with auto responses so they are not sitting waiting for replies.

That aside, when it comes to their experience at Omega, customer satisfaction is crucial. In this business, things happen: lightning strikes DSTV, jacuzzi motors blow, etc. If we drop the ball in delivering #TheOmegaExperience, even if it's not our fault, we go out of our way to make it right. If we can't, we offer another stay or a refund.

How does your website complement what you put out on social media and vice-a-versa?

We use Facebook to market our website and direct people there because it has far more detailed information than Facebook, which is really used to sell our brand and get people interested. On our website, we have Facebook and Instagram toggles on every page to direct people to our pages and feed.

How have your waiting periods increased over time compared to how you’ve used social media?

Well, we are a young business. We only opened in December 2014 with two cabins, and from the beginning, our weekends were fully booked. In 2015, our waiting periods started at two weeks in January when we opened and steadily climbed to around two to three months. We thought that would reduce when we expanded and opened two new, bigger, higher spec cabins in November 2015, so we increased our Facebook budget to get these going and saw a direct correlation between our Facebook spend and our bookings.

By March 2016, our waiting list for weekends was around four months and our midweeks, especially in our new higher spec and more expensive units, were booked a few weeks in advance. By July 2016, our weekends were booked for the year. In 2017, with a steadily growing base in Facebook and my wife running our Instagram page, our spend has actually been less on marketing than 2016, and by April, our weekends were booked for the year. Our midweeks are booked around six weeks in advance.

We are now working on Omega Phase 3. There will be two more cabins by early next year and two more by mid-2018. After that, we would like to build a few luxury tented camps and then, I think, we are done.

For more information, visit www.omegaclarens.co.za. Alternatively, connect with them on Facebook or on Instagram. 

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As Omega has proved, social media can give a brand tremendous marketing punch. Read more in our article, Four questions about social media advertising answered.