My Rock-A-Villas
Jason Eaton and Teresa Ariel had a dream to build a rockabilly themed villa in Bali, which would provide them with a small side income and a holiday home on call. Little did they know that Bali is fraught with difficulties in starting up any kind of business. Add construction and a new level of complexity arises, often resulting in disagreement and dissatisfaction.
Jason and Teresa bumped into Western Influences International by chance. They visited the Kerobokan office to purchase some equipment to donate to a local orphanage and shared their heartbreaking story with Russ and Tracy. The next day, they met with the Western Influences team to discuss how they could realise their dream with some outside support.
Here is what happened:
The Western Influences team worked with Jason and Teresa on a strategy to present My Rock-A-Villas in the most appealing way to its target audience and potential customers. The first stage was designing and developing an image and photo library to use in the website and social media. This presented as a challenge because the villa did not readily present as the rockabilly theme Jason and Teresa had envisioned. The Western Influences team had to help out with the interior design (on a tiny budget) to bring the theme closer to reality.
Interior Design
Jason and Teresa wanted to create a theme not usually associated with Bali – rockabilly / 1950s retro. Think vintage hotrods and muscle cars, records and jukeboxes, and girls in high heels and flared skirts. Think American milkshakes served by glamorous waitresses on roller-skates. How to translate this into a Bali villa?
Website Development
It was particularly challenging to create a beautiful website that grabbed the narrow “rockabilly” target market AND the broader “holiday in Bali” demographic, calling them to book their next holiday accommodation with My Rock-A-Villas. The Western Influences graphic designer, website developer and photographer worked closely together to frame the image Jason and Teresa were looking for, including the logo.
Logo Design
Jason and Teresa had some ideas for a logo. Western Influences job is to work with the client until the logo / brand / image is fit for many purposes – website, advertising, signage, uniforms, merchandise, social media, etc. Simple is most often best.
Advertising & Promotion
People finding out that My Rock-A-Villas exists is one of the greatest challenges of a new villa entering the already saturated Bali accommodation market.
Western Influences linked My Rock-A-Villas with Bali Incentive Book; and, for a mere IDR 2.5 million (AUD 250.00) per calendar year, the villa was introduced to tens of thousands of potential guests.
Social Media Management
Western Influences tested hundreds of images and themes to find what appeals to the My Rock-A-Villas target market, with the aim to engage readers to like, follow and share content across the various social media platforms.
In this project, stage two of the social media strategy involved handing over control to the client. Ordinarily, the Western Influences team would continue managing the social media, including creating content and engaging with users on a daily basis, plus weekly and monthly reporting on appropriate statistics. Jason and Teresa have a family member willing to do the work.
Human Resourcing
Finding the right staff for any Bali business is challenging, especially when the business owner requires extremely high accountability mechanisms because they live outside of Bali. Western Influences sources and recruits appropriately trained and qualified staff for almost any business.
My Rock-A-Villas requires a fulltime butler service that includes daily housekeeping duties; preparation and cooking of a variety of meals; child minding; cocktail and mocktail preparation and service; the running of errands for guests; organising transport and tours; and, much more. This person must be trustworthy with receiving and paying out money, and relevant record keeping skills to account for all income and expenses.
Booking Platform Design
It is essential for any accommodation provider to have a presence on internet-based booking platforms. There are many hundreds of platforms that service holidaymakers all around the world. Many vendors are unaware that there are some key players in the market that own subsidiary booking platforms that appeal to different demographics. This labyrinth of service providers can become a time consuming task to manage; so, it is necessary to be discerning about where to promote the accommodation.
Western Influences has relationships with many of the key booking platform providers; and, is adept at setting up automated channel management systems that allow vendors to enter booking information into a single system that disseminates the information for them.
Talk with the Western Influences International team about how to develop, manage and promote your Bali dream.
