Find out how Carmarthen-based Llety Cynin is using social media and online technology to grow the business with local and global customers.
Hear how cloud systems are helping staff to work more effectively and digital marketing allowing the business to expand and target a 20% growth in turnover.
Elizabeth Davies:
Llety Cynin is based on a working farm just outside St Clears. We finished converting this building in 2008 – opened it as a leisure facility originally as Llety Cynin Leisure Club. But, we also have 8 en suite bedrooms here, which we offer as B&B or group accommodation.
We’re in the process of expanding at the moment which will give us another 5 bedrooms but also extra facilities for the leisure club and spa treatment rooms.
Online facilities is really important to our business. It’s so easy for people to contact us out of hours, we can take bookings, we can take enquiries and we can deal with it online with the use of the webpage, social media and without it we just wouldn’t be able to function.
We recently introduced a rota system via the cloud, which makes it really easy for us to make any adjustments we need and it’s great for the staff as well because they get notified of shifts and they can check easily, whether they’re in the building or at home.
Another benefit is when we’re looking at our finances. I can be working at one computer and there may be other members of staff looking at the same spreadsheet on a different computer, possibly even in a different location, so we can be working together.
Gwawr Davies:
We’re on a lot of the social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter - we’ve done a little bit with LinkedIn but we’re looking at revisiting it so we can target more of our corporate market. At Llety Cynin, we have a lot of corporate guests stay the night with us, reps and so on, and we have a function room but we’re also planning to expand that as part of our expansion plans. So, we will be talking on LinkedIn more about the business side of it.
But, it’s really important because those are the kind of people that we wouldn’t necessarily bump into on the street or flyer or may not see us in the newspaper so online is really, really important for us.
I recently attended one of the Superfast Business Wales courses – the marketing and branding courses. They are really good. Even if you don’t think you’ve learnt something new, you usually come away with something that you’re thinking about differently and more current and up to date than what you were doing before, really.
So, we’re always looking for new ideas for content. So we’re currently extending our business, so instead of using it as a negative, we’re trying to turn it into a positive. We’re writing on the website about the way that we’re building the extension and what we’re going to be doing which we’re then sharing on our social platforms because we want people to see, yes, this is the business we’ve got but this is the business we’re going to have so here’s some reasons to return because on your next visit, we’ll have a spa – and on your next visit, we’ll have new rooms so why not come back and try them?
Elizabeth Davies:
The extension should be completed before Christmas. We’re really excited about the prospect of having extra bedrooms and extra facilities, and we’re looking to improve our turnover by approximately 20% and provide a facility for the local area that people will be happy and proud to use.