How to Build a MARKETING FUNNEL That Drives Direct Bookings (NO MORE Relying on OTAs)
The Boostly Podcast
Mark Simpson
5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
🎙 Welcome back to the Episode 778 of Boostly Podcast! 🎙In today’s Spotlight Series, we’re talking all things marketing funnels — and how short-term rental hosts can use them to skyrocket direct bookings.
Joining us is Dustin Baker, founder of Hidden Gem Media and a marketing expert who’s helping hosts break free from Airbnb and OTAs using the same powerful strategies big brands use—without needing a massive ad budget.
We’re diving into why trust is the missing link in most direct booking strategies, how to turn social media followers into email subscribers, and how a properly built funnel can completely transform your business.
If you’ve ever felt stuck posting on Instagram with no results, or you’re wondering how to actually turn traffic into bookings, this episode is your game plan.
Let’s jump in.
https://hiddengem.media/
Connect with Boostly
https://Boostly.co.uk
https://Boostly.co.uk/5steps
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Boostley podcast. This is the podcast that gives you the tools, the tactics, the training, |
| 0:04.6 | and most of all the confidence to go out there and get direct bookends. Today, I'm joined by Dustin Baker. |
| 0:10.4 | He's the founder of Hidden Gem Media. He's a marketing expert who helps short-term rental hosts, |
| 0:15.8 | people like you who's listening to this, take control of their bookings and break free from the OTAs and something that we're a |
| 0:22.0 | big fan of at Boosley is breaking free from those. So I could go into more background about |
| 0:27.7 | Dustin. He's a previous guest. He's been on this podcast before and he always brings lots of gems. |
| 0:33.0 | So strap in, enjoy this podcast and we'll get started. Welcome along, Dustin. Thank you for |
| 0:39.0 | joining me today. Yeah, thanks for having me, Liam. Always a pleasure to come on and chat. |
| 0:45.1 | So what do you want people to take away from this podcast? Yeah. I would say, yeah, if you have an experiential property, so a property that is really good at delivering on a particular experience, or has any sort of unique design that would cause it to stand out in videos on social media, you can really tap into a whole audience of people that aren't necessarily |
| 1:13.6 | just searching on Airbnb and at the stage where they're ready to compare you against |
| 1:18.5 | a whole bunch of other similar options. |
| 1:20.5 | You can capture their attention on social media, nurture those relationships through email |
| 1:25.5 | marketing, and then drive more direct bookings back |
| 1:28.2 | through to your website, which as we know is really good for the business. |
| 1:32.5 | It sounds marvelous. And I'm excited to dig into this. But before we dig into it, although |
| 1:37.1 | obviously we know each other and you've been a previous guest, for those of our listeners |
| 1:42.2 | who don't know who you are, can you give a bit of background? |
| 1:45.0 | What led you to start Hidden Gem Media and your expertise in general? |
| 1:51.0 | Yeah, yeah. So I've been doing marketing for about 10 years now. |
| 1:55.0 | Started in some other industries that are really sophisticated like e-commerce and the app industry. |
| 2:01.3 | And I was blown away by the techniques that were available, |
| 2:04.9 | the strategies for being data-driven, |
... |
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