Mittwoch, 6. Januar 2010

130 hotel marketing ideas for 2010


Strategy
  • 90% of purchasing decisions begin online (Forrester)
  • Educated buyers now solve problems through Google searches
  • Marketing goals in the past: create brand awareness, target mass media, interrupt and repeat. Marketing now: create behavior change, create conversation, communicate directly
  • New goal: 100% engagement (not 2% conversion)
  • What should you publish online? Anything that saves people time and gives info that positions you as a good source. Understand what your customers need to know, and deliver it in a compelling way
  • What online channels does your demographic spend time in? Find out, then develop a strong presence there. Don’t make people come to you – put content where they already are online.
  • Think like a “content DJ”: use and reuse your content in many different formats: blog posts, email, newsletters, articles, PDFs, press releases, case studies, video, and social media updates
  • Spend the large majority of your time trying to reach the most likely buyers instead of the entire market. “The smaller the target, the bigger the bulls eye.”
  • If you’re small, you can be quick & nimble. Capitalize on that.
  • We have 3 jobs as marketers: obtain profitable customers, keep them, and expand their lifetime value
  • People admire complexity, but reward simplicity
  • Don’t do something unless you’re the best in the world at it. If someone else does something better, use their services. Focus only on what you do best, and outsource everything else.
Planning
  • The #1 failure in marketing plans: no clear measures of success
  • You must differentiate to avoid becoming a price-driven commodity
  • Not a lot of hotels know where their market position is. Define and position yourself.
  • On metasearch sites, hotels should move away from price commoditization by providing product-level custom messages to differentiate their offers
  • To find differentiating factors, thoroughly study the service you offer and interview the people that provide it
  • If you spend your resources like everyone else, you’ll get results like everyone else. Breakthrough campaigns often require unusual approaches.
  • Selling to your best guests is the best way to maximize profits.  Setup systems for recognizing and rewarding these people.
  • Identify and test the key strategies your marketing plan hinges upon. The more facts and research you can include in your plans, the better. Hard data is far more valuable than guesswork.
  • Decide what success means to you. It’s different for everyone.
Website
  • Give visual priority to the most important elements of your site
  • Put your offer front and center – make it extremely clear (”What do you want me to do?”)
  • Booking modules should be prominent and above the fold
  • Create guest personas to help you develop content for each target audience
  • People scan web pages, and probably won’t take a long time to read all the text.
  • Include stunning visuals. People buy travel on emotion.
  • Write page content from the mindset of the customer. Use their language.
  • Publish guest comments, reviews, and feedback directly on your website
  • Leverage social proof. Everyone likes what everyone likes.
  • First impressions make or break landing page conversion rates
  • Provide “next steps” for all web content
  • Organic traffic provides you with a low level of control, so make sure these pages appeal to everyone. With paid search & advertising campaign traffic you have a higher level of control. Create landing pages that match the ad creative for higher conversions.
  • Use video to convey emotion or compelling visuals that are hard to show through written words
  • View your main website not as the final destination, but a hub to refer people elsewhere in your online network
Search Marketing
  • The top 3 results on a search results page gets 79% of the clicks
  • Result #10 only gets 3%…and appearing on page #2 and onwards means you are practically invisible
  • Travel queries have increased 40% in 2009 (over 2008)
  • SEO (organic search) can give much better returns than SEM (paid inclusion). According to Yen Lee of Uptake, 86% of travel sales leads are generated by organic search listings.
  • Don’t worry about how search engines work as much as how customers use web search
  • When someone types in a search query, they’re giving you the opportunity to solve their problem
  • The search funnel typically follows this pattern: Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Purchase
  • Identify keywords that are relevant to your hotel, and popular with searchers. Use research tools so you don’t get mislead.
  • Consider targeting 2-3 word phrases that are more targeted and obtainable
  • Blogs can be your #1 tool for building search visibility
  • Organizations that blog get 97% more inbound links to their website, and 55% more website visitors according to Hubspot research
  • Reciprocal links less valuable than one-way, because it tells Google that you’ve arranged it, rather than earned the link through creating great content
  • The best incoming links are earned by merit. Create content people can’t help linking to.
  • “See SEO as a profit center, not a cost center” – Yen Lee, Uptake
  • “You cannot have a ’set it and forget it’ approach to SEO. Constantly create fresh content.” – Microsoft
  • Be diligent – search marketing is an ongoing process
Reputation Management
  • Your online reputation plays a huge role in the level of success you achieve
  • The majority of travelers today use the internet to make travel plans, and say the reviews they read from other guests influence their buying decision
  • Reputation management begins by listening to what people are saying about you online
  • Use tools like Google Alerts, Technorati, and Radian 6 to track praise and criticism
  • Monitor all important terms: your hotel name, any old hotel names, your restaurants, the names of your manager and concierge
  • Review sites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Qype allow management responses, and this is a good chance to participate in the conversation.
  • A recent survey by TripAdvisor/Market Metrix found that 85% of hotels have no guidelines on how to handle negative guest reviews published online
  • Develop your response policy ahead of time, and make an effort to followup with all feedback
  • Complaints can be an excellent opportunity to improve your hotel
  • If you get legitimate negative feedback, thank the reviewer for pointing it out…and explain the steps you’re taking to ensure it never happens again
  • TripAdvisor: The most important thing a hotel can do to improve rankings is provide a great experience for their guests
  • Effective online reputation management is more than just playing defense – it’s all about proactively building a positive buzz. Social media is a great way to begin doing this.
Social Media
  • The conversation about you will go on with or without you. It’s better to be involved.
  • Serve as a concierge of the organization – “how may I help?”
  • Start by figuring out your social media goals. Is it education? sharing? community?
  • Present your blog and social media presence as a way for people to connect with their peers, not just receive your marketing messages
  • Embrace a light branding approach – let your customers tell the story and build the brand.
  • Guestsourcing” is the technique savvy hotels are using to involve their guests in the content production process. It’s the combination of user-generated content and crowdsourcing.
  • Guestsourcing can build loyalty and raise your online visibility. Active participation in content production creates a sense of brand ownership.
  • If you’re small, people may not be talking about your business by name….but they’re probably talking about your region and issues you care about.
  • Monitor who writes about the topics you care about. Build relationships with them.
  • If your online content sucks, you’re wasting your money and my time. Make something remarkable.
  • People love to look at pictures…are you giving people lots of pictures online? Encourage your fans to take & upload their own photos.
  • Add photos of your hotel’s design to the Hotel Design Blog
  • Hosting your hotel photos on Flickr increases your web presence, building awareness among potential guests
  • Use Creative Commons licensing on all Flickr photos to increase distribution
  • Introduce your staff with video interviews, and post to YouTube
  • Viral video is for generating buzz and awareness…but it’s not the best way to generate sales
  • Hyatt Hotels launched @HyattConcierge to provide 24/7 global concierge services via Twitter. Could you do the same?
  • Use Twitter search to locate people searching for solutions
  • Facebook marketing is all about “transitive trust” – reaching people through people. Helping your fans tell their friends.
  • Facebook isn’t about answers. It’s friends sharing with friends.
  • This makes Facebook a poor platform for direct marketing.
  • Facebook adds new features fairly rapidly, so take the time to educate your readers about how they can use the new tools.
  • Encourage people to like and comment on your Facebook content as much as possible to raise visibility.
  • Get a “vanity” personalized Facebook URL as soon as you can for search optimization purposes (you need 25 fans first)
  • Employee blogging is more powerful than executive blogging. According to Edelman research, readers find them five times more credible. Get your team involved.
  • Consider using multiple sites/blogs for each of the niche audiences you’re trying to reach
  • Use destination blogs to attract corporate and leisure travel planners. Especially in rural or remote areas, your biggest competition is not the hotel down the street but another location.
  • Get your social media fans to meet up offline as much as possible. “Tweetups” are a popular way to do this.
  • Create a social media management routine to ensure consistent participation
  • “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” – Dale Carnegie
Advertising
  • Present a realistic picture of what people can expect at your hotel. (There is nothing worse than a disappointed guest)
  • Test advertising messages in low-cost online channels before investing in big-budget media
  • Monmouth Plantation shifted focus from low rates to selling their lavish experiences using “sensory overload” and enjoyed a 30-40% increase in response rate.
  • Test using feedback from your guests in your advertising. It’s more credible, and makes your ad stand out. Stories sell.
  • Educational-based advertising works best in today’s environment of empowered buyers
  • Audit your advertising performance frequently. Ineffective advertising must be stopped immediately.
  • OTAs offer international distribution and significant marketing budgets that can supplement hotels’ budgets when times are lean. Small & independent hotels should ride the backs of OTAs for these benefits.
  • OTAs get first-time consumers in the door for new brands. They may book later directly & become brand loyalists. According to Expedia research, for every booking made on their site, they send the supplier two extra direct bookings.
Email
  • Email may have taken a backseat role to social media hype, but it’s still a very powerful tool when used correctly. It is the cornerstone of permission-based relationship marketing.
  • Email usually has higher psychological value than other types of online communication.
  • Email is an effective branding tool for creating top-of-mind awareness
  • Email drives action and profits
  • Messages don’t always have to be sent to your guests and customers. Build systems to nurture partner relationships. Fairmont Hotels sends nearly half of their newsletters for other business partners.
  • You must create your lists organically with the explicit permission of your prospects.
  • Always provide a strong benefit for the person signing up for your list. Receiving updates (marketing messages) alone isn’t usually a very strong offer. Exclusive discounts and preferred service are more compelling.
  • Choose a publishing frequency that works for you. Too often, and people will unsubscribe; not enough, and they will forget. If possible, ask your subscribers how often they want to hear from you.
  • Test, test, test. Email marketing success comes through continual testing…and making changes based on what you learn.
  • Ideas for testing email campaigns include: sending day and time, frequency, personalization, subject and contents, prices, and call to action.
  • Segment your list as much as possible to deliver relevant messages.
  • Kimpton Hotels built lists around affinity groups for subjects like wine, pets, and dining – and increased average revenue generated by a customer email campaign from $70,000-80,000 to $350,000-750,000.
Press & Media
  • Traditional PR assumes media editors & journalists are gatekeepers
  • New PR understands consumers will decide for themselves what to view
  • Savvy “PR 2.0″ organizations are using social media to communicate with journalists and increase their media coverage.
  • Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a 3 times daily email newsletter with dozens of ‘expert source’ requests from journalists
  • Involve your fans and customers in your PR distribution – get them to pass information along
  • Social Media Press Release Builder can help you create stories to share via the social web
  • LinkedIn and Jigsaw can be used to find reporter contact info and start conversations
  • Media on Twitter is a more focused directory of journalists on Twitter
  • Web analytics more important in consumer-directed PR than traditional PR measures of success
Customer Service
  • Getting a new customer costs approximately five times what it costs to keep an existing one
  • Make collecting guest feedback a top priority. Make sure employees understand the value of this.
  • Biggest operational challenge for hotels today is showing staff how company values look in action [Christoph Schmidt]
  • Never ask a guest “Have you stayed with us before?” Build a great recognition system so you know that answer already.
  • Collect as much information as you can about your guests. The more details you know, the higher level of service you can provide.
  • Offer free WiFi. As Rajul points out, it makes for happier guests, and just might help you rank higher in TripAdvisor.
  • Understand the power of consistency. This is crucial for building loyalty, and there is nothing worse than letting a customer down after they have a good experience. Use operating procedures and training to provide consistent excellence.
  • Build loyalty through offering unique amenities, not just slashing prices [New York Times]
  • Get inspiration from Ritz Carlton, which permits each employee to spend up to $2,000 to “move heaven and earth” to satisfy a guest – without obtaining prior permission
Going Global
  • 60% of online searches are conducted in a language other than English (Forrester)
  • Potential guests from abroad prefer information about your hotel in their own language… even if they speak English
  • The best translator translates into his/her native language (watch for dialects)
  • On your website, don’t use flags to link to alternate language versions. Use text links in the top right corner.
  • Alternatively, present a one-time landing page when someone first visits the site that says “Welcome” in different languages. Use coding to remember the guest’s preference.
  • SEO optimize each page on your local sites for the local language.
  • Make sure to promote local content online (social media, etc) as well as the English version.
Measurement & Metrics
  • What is measured gets improved
  • Metrics can (and should) determine the direction you take your internet marketing campaign
  • New technology requires new metrics.  Create new, insightful measures of success.
  • Metrics need to be put in context to make any sense. Raw data is useless unless it’s viewed in relation to something else.
  • Top email marketing metrics: open rate, clickthrough rate, and conversion rate (people taking the next step)
  • Top website metrics: average page views per visit, average time on site, booking engine abandonment rate
  • Use Analytics to show which keywords are most important to your website (by time on site, bounce rate, etc)
  • Determine which keywords produce the most conversions (sales), and build your search marketing plan around that
  • Always ask guests, “How did you hear about us?”
  • Build a statistics dashboard that shows the money. You must know which tactics are actually providing revenue.
For over 1,000 hotel marketing ideas and strategies for implementing these concepts, I encourage you to get the Savvy Hotelier’s Guide to Hotel Marketing Ideas
If you found this list helpful, please share it with your colleagues via email or through Twitter. Thanks!

7 trips you should never buy online


Some vacations should never be booked through anyone but a travel agent, and a honeymoon is arguably one of them. But there are others, too, as travelers like Fletcher are discovering.
A recent Forrester Research study suggests there’s something of a backlash when it comes to booking travel online. It concludes 15 percent fewer travelers will use the Web in 2009, compared with two years ago — a finding that comforts many travel agents who previously saw themselves on the endangered list.
-> zum Artikel

Travel trends for 2010

-> zum Artikel