About Twiddy & Company

Twiddy & Company manages over 900 vacation rental homes on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Family owned and operated since 1978, we market summer weekly rentals of privately owned coastal homes. Vacations are a very deep and emotionally charged experience and the guests place a great deal of confidence in our small company. Hospitality is our passion and we strive to consistently deliver an ideal environment for their family vacation. Our umbrella of guest satisfaction includes cleaning each home, servicing the pools and hot tubs, taking care of any maintenance items during their stay, while working with the owners of the homes.

The Problem

It might just be me, but I wasn't born knowing Calculus. I'm also from North Carolina, and surprisingly I wasn't born knowing how to slow roast a whole hawg. Both concepts took years of teaching and learning from an experienced mentor.

The introduction of GA into our small business created a data obsession. We had a base knowledge of AdWords and Google Analytics, but as our marketing efforts became more complicated and the technology became more sophisticated we started realizing we needed help in using the tools to interpret the data We started relying more heavily on data driven decisions. Our marketing budget started to become bigger and we started to ask tougher questions.

As a small business, we didn't have the luxury of a big-company budget and we needed to know how to effectively advertise on the web and measure success. We needed to know the impact of our spend. A child can spend money and a fool and his money will soon part ways. But the tougher challenge is also identifying opportunities to spend more on the best channels.

Given the complex and unique challenges to our business, we unfortunately couldn't just "Google it" and figure it out. But we did Google it and find the Seminars for Success courses.

The decrease in wasted spend alone paid for the seminar cost in the first few days. And on the flip side, the increase in positive ROI from our marketing keeps on paying off.

Learning What We Didn't Know We Didn't Know

Training seemed like the next logical step. So with some hesitation, we sent a few folks to S4S trainings with Cardinal Path.

It was as if Hank Williams started singing "I Saw the Light". For all the questions that had created frustration and fear, there was a new tool or report that made it easy to do or sliced the data into an actionable answer. Our stereotype of being isolated in a niche industry, was like dry ice subliming in the air.

The tools and data to answer our questions had always been there, but we just didn't know how to access it, use it, or get at it accordingly. Tools are tools, and data is data, but how you use them and how you interpret it is the real quantum leap.

We felt like kids just introduced to ripe summer peaches for the first time.

The Impact

The S4S opened up Pandora's box and the impacts rippled through our company. The decrease in wasted spend alone paid for the seminar cost in the first few days. And on the flip side, the increase in positive ROI from our marketing keeps on paying off. It was like sending our marketing budget to Spring Training camp.

No one should know your business like you, and no one should know your data like you. This evolution of analysis instilled a new discipline in our marketing. We still ask the same questions on how to or where to spend, but now we use these learned techniques and tools to segment and analyze our own data to help us provide our own answers. It's a small business decision module. After being in business 33 years, it's these types of tools and metrics that will help us make smarter decisions into the future.

Now if slow cooking hawgs had these real time metrics and reports, I'd be the talk of the town.