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A collection of contributions from marketing experts at hotel chains, properties, vendors and consultancies globally. Curated by
W H AT ’ S I N S I D E 4
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Welcome
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Chapter 4 Optimal Channel Mix & OTA Strategy
Chapter 1 Education & Learning
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Chapter 5 Storytelling & Social Media
Chapter 2 Marketing Performance & Metrics
28 Chapter 3 Website Optimization
Meet the Experts 7
64 Chapter 6 Targeting & Personalization
72 Chapter 7 Technology
Final Thoughts 88
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W E B E L I E V E that the major changes in the hospitality industry and the constant evolution of digital marketing have created a demand for a truly definitive guide to hotel digital marketing, so we set out to create it. To make the guide as valuable, credible and definitive as possible, we decided to source the content from an elite group of experienced hospitality marketers from different areas of the hospitality industry around
THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO H O T E L D I G I TA L M A R K E T I N G
W el c o m e
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the world. We can truly say that this
If you’re a hotel digital marketer or
guide has been created for marketers by
eCommerce manager, you’re bound
marketers as it is made up of advice and
to be inspired by what you read in the
soundbites straight from the minds of
pages that follow. To all of the experts
experienced hospitality marketers who
featured, thank you for sharing your
have “been there, done that.”
insights and advice to make this guide
We asked each of the experts featured
A PREVIEW OF W H AT Y O U ’ L L LEARN 1
What hospitality industry experts believe today’s hotel digital marketers
come to life.
must focus on to achieve success
in this guide one question: “If I were new
John McAuliffe
to hotel digital marketing, what would
President, WebCanada
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you suggest I focus on for success?”
How some of the top hospitality brands are staying competitive in the
This question sparked many insightful
complex and quick moving
conversations, unique responses and
digital landscape
10,000+ words of valuable hotel digital marketing advice, which we’ve compiled for you.
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Best practices and ideas that will set you up for success in hotel digital marketing landscape
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HOW TO READ THIS GUIDE
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BY EXPER T
SPREAD THE WORD
Turn to the next page and choose an expert. You’ll
We would love to hear what you think about this guide. Please use #HDMGuide whenever you mention this guide online.
see the chapters they’re featured in on their photo. Click on the chapter numbers or flip through the book to see what they said. BY TOPIC Choose a topic you’re interested in. Using the table of contents, click or skip ahead to the page number indicated and enjoy the read. Then repeat with another topic. FRONT TO BACK Get comfortable and start reading.
J O I N O U R P R I VAT E LINKEDIN COMMUNIT Y Get answers to your most pressing challenges Learn from an elite group of hotel marketing experts Network with successful and like-minded hoteliers JOIN US NOW
MEET THE EXPERTS DANIEL KERZNER JOHN MCAULIFFE
Senior Marketing Leader for Global Luxury Travel & Hospitality Brands
President at WebCanada
IN C H A P T ER S: 1,5, 7
IN CHAPTERS: 2,4,5,7
JOSH HERMAN
SERDAR KUTUCU
FLO LUGLI
Director of Marketing & PR at Fontainebleau Miami Beach
Vice President Brand, Marketing & Communications at Design Hotels
Principal at Navesink Advisory Group
IN C H A P T ER S: 1,3,6, 7
IN CHAPTERS: 3 & 6
IN C H A P T ER S: 1,3, 4 ,6
MEET THE EXPERTS
MICHAEL BENNETT
Senior Vice President Global Marketing at Cendyn IN C H A P T ER S: 1, 2 , 4
ALAN YOUNG
MARK WONG
MICHAELA PAPENHOFF
President & Co-Founder at Puzzle Partner
Vice President Asia Pacific at Small Luxury Hotels of the World
Managing Director at h2c GmbH
IN CHAPTERS: 2,5,7
IN C H A P T ER S: 1,3,6, 7
IN CHAPTERS: 3,4,7
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest” B EN JA MIN FR A N K LIN
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Education & Learning
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O N LY 8 % of Fortune 500 companies and digital agencies identify their team’s digital marketing skills as strong across all areas. This comes as no surprise given the lightning fast pace at which digital marketing evolves.
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OUR EXPERTS SUGGEST that in order to be successful, hotel digital marketers must commit to continuous learning and education. What you will discover is that, in addition to learning new digital marketing skills, there are many different areas of education and learning to pay attention to.
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INSIGHTS FROM
Flo Lugli
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IN THIS CH A P T ER YO U WILL LEARN
Navesink Advisory Group Mark Wong Small Luxury Hotels of the World Daniel Kerzner Global Luxury Travel & Hospitality Brands
Strategies to stay
Hands-on ways to
How learning from
What you can learn
Michael Bennett
current on hotel
learn more about
other departments
from the customer
Cendyn
digital marketing
your hotel and your
and industries can
data you collect
guests
give you an edge
Josh Herman Fontainebleau Miami Beach
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SUBSCRIBE TO BOTH INDUSTRY AND NON-INDUSTRY P U B L I C AT I O N S
Digital marketing is constantly evolving.
You can do this by subscribing to
Google is frequently changing their
hotel industry publications as well as
algorithms and Facebook is regularly
non-industry publications about digital
changing what they’re offering, so you
marketing and consumer trends for
need to stay up on what’s going on by
some of your insights. It’s also a good
focusing on continuous education. The
idea to build up a network of folks to
FLO LUGLI
hospitality industry is not known for
interact with, compare notes and share
being the most innovative or forward
best practices, bounce things off of,
thinking. We tend to be followers and
and basically debate what’s going on.
not fast followers at that, that’s why I
By networking and educating yourself
suggest staying current on what other,
throughout your career, you’ll always be
faster moving industries (like retail)
learning more about digital marketing
are doing. The retail industry
and finding ways to apply trends and
does a lot of testing on their websites and there’s no sense in reinventing the wheel in our own industry.
initiatives in retail and other industries to your marketing strategy.
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U N D E R S TA N D E-COMMERCE AND H O S P I TA L I T Y
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s
MARK WONG
understanding of the e-commerce eco-system,
that you really need to understand the science behind the digital distribution channel and the art of hospitality. The ideal combination for success as a hotel digital marketer is to have a good plus customer service experience in the hospitality space. But I understand that not everyone has that mix and that’s why constant education on the job is still crucial to success. This is particularly true in Asia. Overall, we are trying to catch up to the level of sophistication of the North American space. There isn’t any curriculum that specializes in hotel digital marketing. Hence, a lot of it is on the job training or learn-as-you-go. As a result, many digital marketers don’t have the basics down.
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LEARN THE O P E R AT I O N S AND THE PEOPLE SIDES OF THE HOTEL BUSINESS D A N I E L K ER Z N ER
The hospitality industry is made up of
etcetera. I seriously thought, ‘Do I have
you really needed to understand the
people who have often been in the
the wrong job? I’m actually here to work
business in order to market it.
business for generations. I’m not one of
in marketing.’ So, if you’re coming from
those people. To help get acquainted
another industry, the first thing you
The people have given me the greatest
with the business, I spent my first two
need to do is learn the hotel business
understanding of the industry. At the
weeks going from working at the front
from the ground up and the inside out.
end of the day, hospitality is a people
desk to housekeeping, to bellman
It was ingrained in me from day one that
business. If you don’t learn the people
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L EAR N THE O PERAT I O N S A N D THE PE O P L E S I D E S O F THE H O TE L B U S I N E S S
side of it, you won’t be successful. When I first moved to London, I spent two months living in the Sheraton Grand Park Lane Hotel. I made it my mission to sit in the lobby observing and talking to guests in the evenings. The knowledge that I gained was invaluable. Still to this day, I try to connect with guests no matter where I am in the world. Whether it’s going for a coffee, a drink, or breakfast, sitting in a lobby or pulling together a casual focus group, I’m constantly making a point to hear what guests have to say and watch what they do.
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I F Y O U O P E R AT E I N S I L O S T H E H O T E L I S D E S T I N E D T O F A I L . A C T U A L LY, I T ’ S A L M O S T G UA R A N T EED TO FA I L . I ’ V E S EEN I T H A P P EN . When you work together with both revenue management and sales, you can make smarter, better educated decisions about how to spend your money and what type of business to drive, which your hotel owner will love because it’s good, high rated, more profitable business.
C O L L A B O R AT E WITH REVENUE MANAGEMENT AND SALES MICHAEL BENNETT
Revenue managers have a wealth of data and successful digital marketing is all about data. You need to get to know your revenue manager because they will be able to share information about the rate, the demand, the market, who your competitors are and what they’re doing. They can tell you things like, ‘There’s x demand in the market so we think we can charge x.’ Ideally, you want to leverage their data with
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what your agency is telling you. If you
business comes from group sales,
set agenda. That’s all it takes to get
can marry the two together, you can
they’re going to lay it in and then they’re
it started. You’ll develop a cadence
get pretty sophisticated and improve
going to tell you where the gaps are.
over time especially when the hotel
conversion. While there are some
They will tell you things like, ‘We’re
or corporate leadership is committed
very specific disciplinary things that
slow in September. We’re slow around
to holding the teams accountable. For
a revenue manager does in terms of
Christmas. We’re slow around X.’ This
example, at White Lodging, marketing,
turning the dials and a marketer does
intelligence lets you build a marketing
revenue management and sales had
in terms of creating campaigns, I see
calendar around the right promotions to
KPIs that crossed over and bonuses
the lines between digital marketer and
fill these gaps. If all goes well, you fill the were impacted.
revenue manager becoming more and
gaps and then everything on top of it is
more blurred. It’s really all about driving
gravy.
demand and rate. You don’t have to spend hours You also need to talk to sales. Their
and hours in meetings. Start a
job is to lay the base business in
routine of getting together
the hotel. So, if 50% of your hotel’s
once a week with a
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GET TO K N OW YO U R CUSTOMERS T H R O U G H D ATA J O S H HER M A N
Start by getting to know your customers. We see millions of customers a year come through our doors at Fontainebleau, but I bet if we lined up a dozen of our leaders and asked them to describe our ideal customer, you’d get a dozen different answers. Everyone would paint a different picture of the customer – it’s impossible not to. That’s why it’s so important to use our data to get a clear picture not just of our customers, but our best customers.
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I can tell you that for us, we focus on the The data really takes the guesswork following:
out of understanding our customer. I’m a strong believer that you can’t
What kind of experiences does the guest engage in on property? Where do they spend their money?
“The customers that you may perceive or assume to be the biggest spenders may not actually be once you look at your data.”
What do they like to do? What feedback do they give us? We assemble all of these data points together to paint the picture of our ideal customer which becomes the foundation of every piece of marketing.
always judge a book by its cover. The customers that you may perceive or assume to be the biggest spenders may not actually be once you look at your data.
“Measurement is fabulous. Unless you’re busy measuring what’s easy to measure as opposed to what’s important” S E T H G O D IN
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Marketing Performance & Metrics
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ACCORDING TO HUBSP OT 4 0% OF MARKETERS IDENTIF Y PROVING THE ROI OF MAR K E TING ACTIVITIES AS A TOP CHALLENGE. Based on our conversations with our experts, it’s a challenge that hotel digital marketers need to face head-on. Doing so requires keeping your end goal in mind, continually measuring your marketing performance and letting metrics be your guide. When you take this approach, you have the power to make more informed marketing decisions that maximize your ROI.
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IN THIS CH A P T ER YO U WILL LEARN
INSIGHTS FROM
Alan Young Puzzle Partner Michael Bennett Cendyn John McAuliffe WebCanada
What question you need
How to evaluate your
Why a metrics driven
to ask before you develop
hotel and your agency’s
approach to marketing is
a marketing strategy
current marketing
an absolute must
performance
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BEGIN WITH YO U R END GOAL A L A N YO U NG
Digital marketing is multi-faceted and means different things to different people and companies. Regardless of how you define digital marketing, what really matters is that you know what you want it to do for you. So, before anything else, you need to figure out what your priorities are and be able to answer this question: What is the end goal of our digital marketing strategy?
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S I N C E T H E M A J O R I T Y O F A H O T E L’ S M A R K E T I N G S P E N D T O D AY I S D I G I TA L , TA K I N G A L O O K AT Y O U R D I G I TA L M A R K E T I N G P E R F O R M A N C E I S Y O U R F I R S T S T E P. I would assume your property has an agency partner because they don’t have a brand supporting the marketing so you’ll want to connect with your agency and get access to the digital media plans and results right away. When I worked at KSL the properties were all independents. While I was on the corporate level, my property level marketing teams were almost all teams of one. If this is the case for you, your agency is your team.
ASSESS YO U R AGENCY MICHAEL BENNETT
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AS SES S YOUR AGENCY
You need to know how the agency and campaigns are performing right off the bat. If they’re underperforming, you need to address that first and foremost. It’s the peel-off-the-band-aid mentality. It might hurt, but you just have to do it fast. At the end of the day, you will be held accountable for driving business. So, if you have an agency partner that is spending money and you can’t connect what they’re doing back to revenue, it’s time to find a new agency. The expectation of any owner in the
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“You want to be in a position where you can go to your executive team whether you’re at a property or a corporate and say, ‘We spent two million dollars this year and it generated 20 million.”
industry is a 10 to 1 stabilized return over time. It gives them confidence in their forecasts and the ability to report out to their investors and/or the street. You want to be in a position where you can go to your executive team whether you’re at a property or a corporate and say, ‘We spent two million dollars this year and it generated 20 million.’
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PUT METRICS IN THE DRIVER’S S E AT J O H N MC A U L I F F E
You need to understand what your costs to acquire a customer are. Once you understand that, you can put money where its best spent, where it’s most effective and efficient. I recommend setting up a framework for acquisition effectiveness and acquisition costs for both direct and indirect digital channels and even beyond digital to front desk, call center, etcetera. It doesn’t have to be sophisticated but it does need to help you understand the value of each channel, where you’re spending your money and your return on that money.
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P U T M E T R I C S I N T H E D R I V E R ’ S S E AT
“You need to understand, what are these things we’re doing actually costing us? What are they doing for us?”
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Let the metrics drive your decisions. It
measuring things you don’t know what
goes back the whole argument about
to do, you don’t know what you’re trying
whether marketing is art or science.
to achieve.
I think that over the last few decades the balance between art and science
The demise of any marketer is when
has shifted—particularly for digital
the CEO asks, ‘What’s our return
marketing. Digital is much more direct
on marketing investment?’ And the
response oriented than brand oriented
marketer has a blank stare on their face.
in nature so the science side of it is much stronger than the art side. You need to understand, what are these things we’re doing actually costing us? What are they doing for us? It goes back to that whole “what gets measured gets done” so if you’re not
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Website Optimization
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6 1% O F U S E R S W E R E U N L I K E LY T O R E V I S I T A MOBILE SITE IF THE Y HAD TROUBLE ACCESSING I T, A N D 4 0 % G O T O A C O M P E T I T O R I N S T E A D , A C C O R D I N G T O M C K I N S E Y & C O M P A N Y. Your hotel website needs to be mobile optimized, but mobile optimization is only one small component of an effective website today. As our experts reveal, a high performance hotel website is built on data, provides relevant content and is constantly tested and optimized for booking conversion.
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INSIGHTS FROM
Michaela Papenhoff
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IN THIS CH A P T ER YO U WILL LEARN
h2c GmbH Flo Lugli Navesink Advisory Group Josh Herman Fontainebleau Miami Beach Mark Wong Small Luxury Hotels of the World Serdar Kutucu Design Hotels
What the basics of a
Why data, analytics and
Why having a website
high performance hotel
testing are so crucial to
doesn’t guarantee you
website are and how to
driving direct business
top rankings on Google
implement them
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A L W AY S S TA R T W I T H A N A LY T I C S MIC H A E L A PA P E NH O FF
Always start with analytics. Your website analytics tool and your booking engine analytics will provide you with the information that you need in order to understand: Is my website performing? How good is it in terms of usability, information, revenue conversion and so on? Is my website responsive? Is it easy to use? Is it fast enough? Once you’ve looked at the analytics and have your action points generated, then you can go ahead hire a developer or agency to build your website.
“Once you’ve looked at the analytics and have your action points generated, then you can go ahead hire a developer or agency to build your website.”
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I need to emphasize that before you start this
HERE ARE SOME TIPS ON HOW TO
process, you need to do your analysis. We see it
ME ASURE PERFORMANCE:
done the other way around too often. Always define your website KPIs so you have Website conversion rates differ depending on
criteria to measure performance against.
the market, region, specific location and property type. It helps to benchmark your conversion rates with your
Analyze your website reporting based on your pre-defined KPIs regularly.
competitive set (if it exists).
Use heat maps to understand how to improve your website’s usability and where to position your booking link. Remember, ease of use is always more important than sophisticated features!
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K N O W W H AT ’ S HAPPENING WITH YO U R WEB S IT E FLO LUGLI
Just because you have a website doesn’t necessarily mean people will visit it. I always say if you don’t have budget to market your hotel, then having a website probably isn’t going to generate a big return. One of the reasons for this is because Google is pushing organic search results further down the page and sometimes onto the second page (the entire first page is typically ads and paid search). Even if you have a really great fully optimized website, it may never make it to the top of the page. Plus, there’s no way an independent hotel (or a hotel brand for that matter) can compete with the marketing dollars that an OTA is spending.
“If you don’t have budget to market your hotel, then having a website probably isn’t going to generate a big return.”
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The only way you’re going to know what’s happening on your website is by having a good understanding of your website analytics tool. You also need to be able to understand what the analytics are telling you. If you don’t, I would look to engaging with a third party to do a website assessment for you. Once you’ve completed a website analysis and can see the areas that need improvement, do some very simple A/B testing to see how the results change. You would be surprised how simply changing the color of the book now button can impact performance.
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B U ILD YO U R WEBSITE ON D ATA JOSH HERMAN
The Fontainebleau website is built on data. We have so many rooms and so many room types. Many of them are suites, which carry a certain price point. We’ve built our imaging and messaging around things that appeal to the type of customer that is affluent enough to purchase suites and higher categories of rooms as well as on-property experiences and services. We know that lot of the beverage and wine and the
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B U I L D YO U R W E B S I T E O N D ATA
high-end restaurant program really appeal to the affluent customer. That’s why you’ll see a lot of imaging around dining. Using our data and really focusing our marketing spend on the best type of customer for the hotel has allowed us to be so much more efficient with our spending and drive increases in market share. Our digital marketing efforts and the customers that we target online produce such a significantly higher ADR than customers that we’re not targeting or customers that book direct without seeing our ads, or book through an OTA, wholesaler, or any type of third party.
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“Customers that we target online produce such a significantly higher ADR than customers that we’re not targeting or customers that book direct without seeing our ads, or book through an OTA.”
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D I G I TA L M A R K E T I N G H A S B E C O M E S O M U C H MORE COMPLEX In the past, it was just about having a website. Now, we need an integrated approach to our digital assets. Our website is just a starting point. As we learn something new, something new always crops up. It’s a constant educational process in this space.
G E T YO U R WEB S IT E BASICS RIGHT MARK WONG
I see that hotel companies are very attracted to “hot topics and trends” in the digital marketing world and tend to forget the basics of good website design, search engine marketing, and search engine optimization – the fundamental things that are taken for granted nowadays. If you look at statistics year after year, they say that 70%
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GE T YOUR WEBSITE BASIC S RIGHT
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of website traffic still starts from
in place so that 70-80% of the traffic
search. That’s significant. Yet search
is coming from organic search results.
engine marketing and search engine optimization are being de-prioritized in favor of “sexier” social media listening and reviews, programmatic media - things like that. We need to bring it back to the basics. For example, when I speak about hotel digital marketing at conferences, I always cite the 80:20 or 70:30 rule. What I mean by that is: the basics of the website need to be
We should only be paying for the
“The basics of the website need to be in place so that 70-80% of the traffic is coming from organic search results.”
remaining traffic, not the other way around. Unlike the OTAs who have the capacity to basically buy the whole search results page, most hotel brands (even the luxury ones) have very small marketing budgets. So, a smart digital marketer should focus on the basics, meaning a search engine optimized website before anything else.
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SELL THE EXPERIENCE SERDAR KUTUCU
We’ve built the Design Hotels website in a way that makes navigation easy for the visitor. People don’t want to lose time and you actually lose people if you don’t give them the right guidance. We cluster the hotels into motives for traveling or interests from our guests’ point of view, including city hotels, modern hotels, beach hotels, etcetera. This way, we can give them easy access to the experience they’re seeking. You’ll see this on the homepage and the section called “Original Experiences” where we actually present the experience and not the product. When you click on
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S E L L THE E X PER I E N C E
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“Community” you can see our culture blog where we provide information from the world of Design Hotels — it can be about a designer, it can be
“We don’t need to do everything, but we need to do something very well. We focus on what is key to us and the right way to position the brand. It’s quality over quantity. That’s our strategy at Design Hotels.”
about an owner, it can be about an event that happened in one of our hotels. What I am trying to say is that we’re not trying to punch people in the face with a discounted offer. We’re trying to sort the products by motive for travel and give them interesting stories about our hotels. Digital marketing has become so complex with so many opportunities. It’s time for us to filter and focus. We don’t need to do everything, but we need to do something very well. We focus on what is key to us and the right way to position the brand. It’s quality over quantity. That’s our strategy at Design Hotels.
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T E S T, T W E A K , R E P E AT MARK WONG
Doing a deep dive into the analytics of
potential business. All those things have
your website and the user experience
to be taken into consideration in your
should really be the first step. I don’t see enough focus on analysis today. If your hotel information
analysis. Then you can map out the next version of the website based on what the analytics tell you.
is not properly presented, your website takes too long to load or the user experience is just poor, you are losing
As with any website, our website is constantly being improved. We’re always testing. For example, when we launched the search bar on the homepage, we tried many different placement and design options to see which would help visitors find what they’re looking for
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more effectively. Adding new content is also not a random process; it is a decision based on country-specific yearly search patterns and trends. We’re continuously experimenting different ways of enhancing the experience including balancing the hosting around the world so the website always loads instantly and launching our new Chinese website within the China firewall so that the Chinese audience can easily access it. Again it’s going back to the basics of understanding who the primary user of the website is and applying relevant techniques to make the website more efficient and effective.
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CHAP TER 4
04
Optimal Channel Mix & OTA Strategy
D EE FF II N N II TT II V V EE G GU U II D O D EE TT O TTHE HE D
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WHEN A GUEST BOOKS A ROOM
This is true in theory, but it’s not always that
THR O U G H YO U R WEB S ITE , THE
simple. Today, with the complex and ever-evolving
B O O K I N G I S M O R E P R O F I TA B L E T H A N
hotel shopping journey and the numerous
A B O O K IN G M A D E O N A T HIR D - PA R T Y
channels that play a role in it, digital marketers
W E B S I T E O R O TA .
need to see the bigger picture in order to achieve maximum profitability. Our guests explore a variety of different scenarios and strategies for achieving an optimal channel mix, even one where it may be more profitable for all of a hotel’s bookings to come through OTAs.
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IN THIS CH A P T ER YO U WILL LEARN
INSIGHTS FROM
Michaela Papenhoff h2c GmbH Flo Lugli Navesink Advisory Group
Michael Bennett Cendyn John McAuliffe WebCanada
Why less is
How building
Why taking a
Questions to ask that
sometimes more
positive
proactive approach
will help you optimize
when it comes to
relationships with
to your channel
your conversions on
managing multiple
the OTAs can
mix yields better
all channels
channels
benefit you
results
46
FO C U S O N YO U R M O S T R E L E VA N T CHANNELS MIC H A E L A PA P E NH O FF
Talk to your OTA market managers, they have access to data that can really help you understand the dynamics of your market. This is one reason I always advise clients to treat the OTAs as partners, not enemies. In working with chains, we often find that they’re only managing content on three or four of their most important distribution channels, while the
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others are being left behind. We suggest
(depending on how
that they focus on managing their content
many room types
on the most relevant channels for them,
you have) you could have
beyond the three or four major channels
more than 4,000 - 5,000 different
that bring them revenue, ideally 10 or 12.
fields that need to be updated. That’s something that hotel chains simply don’t
Trying to manage content on more
do. Neither do independent properties
than 50 channels is a waste of time,
for that matter. It’s a lot of work, it’s time
mostly because there’s really no central
consuming and there isn’t a technology
database for managing content on all of
solution that does it for you yet.
the distribution channels. If you manage content on 10 different OTA extranets
48
BEFRIEND THE O TA S FLO LUGLI
I always tell people to look at what the OTAs are doing and what they’ve done in the past. The OTAs were the first to come out with strikethrough pricing. They were the first to come out with things like ‘three rooms left at this price’ or ‘14 people have looked at this hotel today.’ Just like retailers, they’re doing thousands of tests every year so there’s no sense in trying to figure out the best way to optimize your hotel website for conversions. If you see it on an OTA, you can be quite sure they’ve done the tests to show that it drives higher conversions.
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49
I don’t subscribe to the theory that OTAs
through the OTA. Regardless, I’m a firm
are enemies. Quite frankly, there’s a
believer that having a strong, positive
lot of rhetoric out there from the major
relationship with the OTAs is in your best
brands about the OTAs, but I know for a fact that every single one of them has commercial agreements with OTAs. In fact, they have relatively cordial discussions on a day-to-day working basis. In your specific case, if you’re paying an OTA commission of 18% (it’s probably higher for most independents) and your effective commission rate on your digital marketing is 30%, it may make more sense to allow that booking to come
“It’s all about determining your optimal business mix, perhaps making OTAs a bigger part of the mix in low periods and smaller in stronger periods.”
interest. You need to think of OTAs as channels to be managed just as you manage wholesale business, corporate contracts, and so on. You want
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to think about what your optimal RevPAR is relative to occupancy and rate and determine how OTAs can contribute to that mix. That said, I don’t think it’s wise to base your entire distribution strategy on OTAs and have them deliver 60% of your business all the time. It’s all about determining your optimal business mix, perhaps making OTAs a bigger part of the mix in low periods and smaller in stronger periods. Ultimately, you have to understand your cost of sale and the ROI on your digital marketing. Only then can you understand better what your optimal channel mix should be. Work with your local OTA representative to help you identify opportunities that can drive more business for your hotel.
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BE PROACTIVE M I C HAE L B E N N ETT
51
I’d say you need to make sure you
the return?’ Our account managers at
understand your media mix and
Cendyn look at our customers’ activity
proactively look at your results. In most
on a weekly basis. Conversations with
agency situations, the hotel gives the
our customers often sound like, ‘Hey,
agency 10,000 dollars. They spend
here’s what we’re seeing—and by
that money during the month and they
the way we’ve moved some money to
come back 15 days after the month end
TripAdvisor metasearch and we’ve seen
and say, ‘You got a five to one return on
a massive increase so we’re going to
that. You made 50,000 dollars back in
continue to shift until we see a
revenue.’ The first question you should ask yourself is, ‘Is there anything we could have done differently with that money to maximize
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52
diminishing return. We’ll re-allocate the
and we got to an eight to one return.
budget from this other channel because
Now we’re going to look for additional
it’s not performing.’
opportunities to try and get a couple of those points back.’ That’s an example of
The idea is to be proactive around your media mix so there are no surprises and you don’t have to sit in front of an owner and say, ‘Sorry we’ve missed the return estimations by five points.’ Instead, you can say with confidence, ‘We did everything we could
a conversation that inspires confidence that you know your business, how guests are booking, where you’re spending your money, and so on. It’s about being proactive.
53
I know that direct bookings are all the rage today but I think every marketer must look at their own hotel and determine the best mix of direct and indirect channels to maximize the effectiveness and cost efficiency of acquiring a new guest. By understanding what it costs to acquire a guest you can focus your efforts on those channels that are most effective.
OP TIMIZE CONVERSIONS O N YO U R TO P CHANNELS J O H N MC A U L I F F E
Once you’ve determined the right channel mix (which you should be continually monitoring and adapting), your next step is to optimize conversions. You want to maximize the effectiveness of how your hotel is presented on its most important channels.
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O N DIRECT CH A NNELS , YO U WA NT TO
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O N D I R E C T C H A N N E L S , L O O K AT:
CONSIDER THINGS LIKE: Is your story compelling?
Are all your text descriptions complete and up-to-date?
Is there a clear path to booking? Are your photos current and compelling? What are your conversion metrics? Are you participating in the right programs to What strategies and tests do you have in place to improve upon those metrics? Do you have a re-marketing program to motivate visitors to return to your website?
drive appropriate rankings?
CHAP TER 5
05
Storytelling & Social Media
D EE FF II N V EE G GU O N II TT II V U II D D EE TT O TTHE HE D
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S T O R Y TE L L I N G & S O C I A L M E D I A
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W E U S E D T O C O M M U N I C AT E BY PA IN TIN G T HE INS ID E O F C AV E W A L L S . C O M M U N I C AT I O N H A S C H A N G E D D R A M AT I C A L LY, WITH THE EXCEP TION OF ONE ELEMENT -STORY TELLING. Today we post photos of our lunch on Instagram, we tweet to express our opinions on current events and we share our travel photos on Facebook. On top of that, we value the stories shared by peers far more than brand stories.
In fact, a study found that groups shown the photo of a hotel room next to a story from someone who had stayed in the room thought it was worth 5% more than a photo of the same room with only a technical description. Our experts explore how to leverage the power of social media and storytelling for your hotel.
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IN THIS CH A P T ER YO U WILL LEARN
INSIGHTS FROM
John McAuliffe WebCanada Daniel Kerzner Global Luxury Travel & Hospitality Brands Alan Young Puzzle Partner
How to uncover
A great example of
Steps to take to
What happens when
your hotel’s story
how to empower
empower guests to
you start sharing
guests to tell your
be spokespeople for
stories about your
story
your hotel
hotel and your guests
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D EFINE YO U R STORY J O H N MC A U L I F F E
Think of your hotel’s story as the
the cause-and-effect relationships
foundation of a house. Understanding
underlying a particular problem. As
the attributes and benefits your ideal
an example, I have adapted it to
guests derive from your hotel will
better understand things like why a
help you write your hotel’s story. This
Tempur-Pedic mattress is important to a
story will drive how you “talk” in the
guest.
marketplace, what you focus on in your marketing, how you present yourself and What it comes down to is that you need so on. It sounds simple but in reality,
to invest the time to define your ideal
this is the hardest part of a marketer’s
guest and understand what value or benefit that guest gets from staying
job.
at your hotel that they are willing to I like using a technique called the Five Whys, which is an iterative interrogative technique used to explore
spend money for. Think beyond the cursory features of your hotel to the real benefits.
STORY TELLING & SOCIAL MEDIA
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EMPOWER GUESTS TO TELL YO U R S TORY DANIEL KERZNER
I would say empowering guests to tell your story is the “must.” Guests’ social networks are often larger and more credible than a hotel’s social network. I believe that our role as marketers is to empower our guests to tell our story. The reach and value that you’ll get through the guests telling your story is much greater than telling the story from the hotel’s perspective. The Four Seasons at the Avenue George V in Paris is a great
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example of how to empower guests to tell a story. This hotel over invests in their lobby flowers because they want people to be “wowed” and tell that story. Guests (and people who walk in off the street) are always sharing photos and videos of the flowers on social media as you can see on the hotel’s Instagram. Every hotel has a unique selling proposition - whether it’s their view, their food, their staff that come from around the world, and much more. That unique selling proposition needs to be front and center and guests need to know what that is when they walk in the door. I don’t think that there’s a hotel in the world that doesn’t have a story to tell. Know what that story is, tell your guests that story, and empower them to be your spokesperson.
“I believe that our role as hotel marketers is to empower our guests to tell the hotel’s story.”
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EMP OWER GUES TS TO TELL YOUR S TORY
61
FLO LUGLI
Today, guests start sharing stories as soon as they
Help articulate the story for them with cues
arrive. They take pictures and videos and create
and clues
content that they share with their social networks. We can direct those conversations without the
Leverage technology to measure and see the
guest knowing that we’re even directing them.
impact
HERE ARE THE STEPS I WOULD FOLLOW: Know your unique selling propositions Put them out there front and center Enable and give connectivity to your guests to share with others
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TURN GUESTS I N T O A D V O C AT E S A L A N YO U NG
I suggest using social media to empower your guests to become advocates of your property by sharing their photos, videos and stories.
“When you use your guests’ photos to tell your hotel’s story, you start creating fans of your brand.”
Our industry looks at guest engagement as being a communication methodology and they’re not really engaging with the guest, they’re talking to them not with them. Digital marketing is not about servicing guests, it’s about engaging them. We’ve forgotten how to engage with guests. What’s the difference between a standard room in a Marriott,
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a Hilton, a Hyatt and a Starwood? They’re all 350
their brand or property and start encouraging and
sq. foot rooms. They all have flat screen TVs.
embracing it - good, bad or indifferent. It’s one
They all look basically the same. So how do you
thing for someone to rant or rave about a hotel in
differentiate your hotel?
a written review, it’s another to post a picture that says it all.
By telling stories. Very few hotels post guests’ stories on their websites but it’s stories that help
Kimpton has always been great at telling stories
build relationships and engagement between the
about their properties and guest experiences.
brand and the guest and differentiate the hotel
Progressive hotel companies like Two
from the rest.
Roads Hospitality are much more “open” while public companies
The hospitality industry as a whole needs to
never want the truth to be out
start sharing stories about their hotels and their
there. No matter how big
guests. When you use your guests’ photos to tell
your brand is, we live in
your hotel’s story, you start creating fans of your
a world where the
brand. This only happens when hotels stop being
information will
fearful about what guests are going to say about
get out.
CHAP TER 6
06
Targeting & Personalization
TT H H EE D D EE FF II N N II TT II V V EE G GU U II D D EE TT O O
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W H O I S S TAY I N G I N Y O U R H O T E L? W H Y
It’s a marketer’s job to know the answers to all of these
A R E T H E Y S TAY I N G AT Y O U R H O T E L?
questions, and more. Making assumptions or asking your staff
W H AT L E D T H E M T O B O O K Y O U R H O T E L
isn’t the right way to get the answers. Your data is. It will give
OVER THE ONE DOWN THE ROAD?
you the intelligence you need to deliver targeted, relevant, personalized messages to your target guests, resulting in better conversions. Our experts share their opinions and experiences on effective targeting and personalization.
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IN THIS CH A P T ER YO U WILL LEARN
INSIGHTS FROM
Josh Herman Fontainebleau Miami Beach
How to make sure your
Tips for keeping your
Why you need a
Serdar Kutucu
marketing is appealing to
content relevant and
360-degree view of your
Design Hotels
the right types of guests
interesting to your target
customer journey
Mark Wong Small Luxury Hotels of the World
guests
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TA R G E T Y O U R MESSAGING JOSH HERMAN
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Fontainebleau has a young, hip, ‘cool
types of customers and its data that
place to be’ image in the marketplace.
helps us allocate our marketing budgets
It’s a true celebrity “see and be
toward targeting the guests that have
seen” destination, and an image
the highest propensity to book and
we’ve worked extremely hard to
have a great experience. Everyone has
build. I was surprised that our data
a target customer base, regardless of
told us that certain times of the year
property size, image, etc.
we do a significant amount of family business. Or, certain times of the year
As a luxury property, if we attract
our customer base can really vary in
customers that can’t afford to be here
age or geographic location. So, we
or are not going to take advantage of all
adapt our marketing programs and messaging accordingly.
the great amenities then shame on us because we’re not doing our job from a marketing perspective. The same
It’s our job as marketers to make sure that we’re appealing to the right
applies to any property.
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B E R E L E VA N T AND INTERESTING SERDAR KUTUCU
I think the most important thing today is that consumers become part of the business. We need to start seeing consumers as partners and look for ways to collaborate with them as opposed to market to them. We can see clearly that consumers have a very high influence on public perception of brands, products and services across the board. This is a signal that we as marketers need to engage consumers in different ways than we have in the past. There’s no button you click to change your entire digital strategy. As an example, we’re really focusing on engaging
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consumers through meaningful and
know what’s important, interesting and
relevant communication. There’s so
helpful to them.
much information available to people today. Your message needs to be meaningful to peoples’ lives and relevant to them personally in order to capture their attention. This implies that you need to know who you’re talking to. We’re always working on creating more relevant content for the consumer and talking to them about what we believe will interest them. To do this, we invite them to participate actively in letting us
Our next step is to improve the
“We need to start seeing consumers as partners and look for ways to collaborate with them as opposed to market to them.”
relevance of the content in our email marketing. This is a very simple example I always use: It doesn’t make sense to send a newsletter offering weekend getaways in South America or Europe to someone living in Tokyo. Instead, offer a weekend getaway in their region. This is just one example that involves information about the consumer’s country or city of
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residence. The more information we can gather,
which rates they book, how often they book, how
the more relevant the message can be.
long they stay and which destinations they travel to. We’re currently considering data warehouse
Going back to what I said in the beginning, as long
model where we can feed and actually
as you receive meaningful and relevant information enrich profile information from for your individual needs, you will engage with that channel. The more information we have about the people we’re talking to the sharper we can be in our content and communications. That’s how we earn their engagement with our brands, products and services. One way is to do this is by tracking user habits through the website and booking engine. At Design Hotels, we see the behavior through the customer journey on our direct channels. For example, we can see which hotels a person books,
other data sources.
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CONSIDER THE COMPLETE CUSTOMER JOURNEY MARK WONG
I think e-commerce has evolved from just being an online booking platform to more of a customer relationship management (CRM) channel. This is because we need a 360-degree view of our customer journey and the website is only one touch-point to interact with our customers. The way I see it, e-commerce has expanded beyond its transactional purpose (from an online store) to a more customer-centric relationship tool where we know every contact point and interaction our customers have with our brand.
“E-commerce has expanded beyond its transactional purpose (from an online store) to a more customer-centric relationship tool.”
CHAP TER 7
Technology
07
H EE D D EE FF II N N II TT II V V EE G GU U II D D EE TT O O TT H
Chapter 7
MA AR RK K EE TT II N HO O TT EE LL D D II G G II TTA A LL M NG G H
TECHNOLOGY
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J U S T G O O G L E “ D I G I TA L M A R K E T I N G T E C H N O L O G Y ” A N D Y O U ’ L L Q U I C K LY B E C O M E O V E R W H E L M E D B Y T H E N U MBER O F S O LU TIO NS YO U FIND. There’s a technology solution for just about anything you would ever want to do from a digital marketing standpoint, with new solutions hitting the market daily. Which technology do you actually need? There’s no easy answer, except that no matter what it is, it needs to serve your marketing strategy. You might not need to invest in six-figure marketing software in order to achieve the results you desire, whether it’s guest engagement or acquisition, it could be as simple as downloading a free app. Our experts weigh in on the role of technology in hotel digital marketing and the guest experience.
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INSIGHTS FROM Josh Herman Fontainebleau Miami Beach
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IN THIS CH A P T ER YO U WILL LEARN
Daniel Kerzner Global Luxury Travel & Hospitality Brands Michaela Papenhoff h2c GmbH Michaela Papenhoff h2c GmbH John McAuliffe WebCanada Alan Young Puzzle Partner Mark Wong Small Luxury Hotels of the World Michael Bennett Cendyn
How technology should
Why a positive mobile
Which technologies can
serve your marketing
experience needs to
help you enhance the
strategy
be number one on your
guest experience
priority list
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C O L L E C T, O R G A N I Z E , A N A LY Z E A N D A C T O N Y O U R D ATA JOSH HERMAN
Almost everyone wants to talk about data, but I’d say the vast majority of people are overwhelmed and don’t know what to do with it. I suggest setting yourself up for success by finding a technology tool that can help you collect, organize and analyze your data so you can take action on it.
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76
As marketers, we need to see the world through the guests’ eyes. If the guests’ eyes are on WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat or on a mobile device, we need to make sure that our marketing is built around that and certainly built for that. I’ll share an example. When I was working with the W Doha, I always found they did a really good
job building their marketing around their guests. One thing they learned about their guests is that they’re always on Instagram and they take and share photos of their food in the hotel’s restaurants. So, they created an Instagram page for each of their restaurants and posted photos of the food and pricing. Their Instagram feed was essentially their menu, only better. They also noticed their guests use
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E N A B L E Y O U R G U E S T S THR O U G H TE C H N O L O G Y
WhatsApp to talk to colleagues, friends and family and wondered, ‘why can’t they do the same to speak with the hotel?’ So, they launched a service called Let’s Chat, a text-based guest communication tool where they were able to better service their guests needs, and upsell/cross-sell through effective dialogue. When a guest wanted to book a wakeup call, they would ask over WhatsApp. This real-time interaction gave the hotel the opportunity to ask, ‘Would you also like to arrange breakfast in your room?’ or ‘I see you’re leaving tomorrow. Would you like a car transfer?’ Most importantly, it was about speaking with guests on their own device, on their own terms. Let’s Chat was later rolled out to hundreds of hotels and tens of thousands of guests. A great sign of a best practice!
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“If the guests’ eyes are on WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat or on a mobile device, we need to make sure that our marketing is built around that and certainly built for that.”
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Individual properties rely on the technology that is available to them from industry vendors, which can have its challenges and limitations. Meanwhile, chains have the freedom and budgets to build their own technology and tools, but doing so takes a lot of time and effort – it’s just not fast enough. What success really comes down to is how technology serves the marketing strategy. Bringing technology and marketing strategy together has always been a challenge in our industry,
BRING TECHNOLOGY AND MARKETING TOGETHER
although in different ways for individual properties and hotel
MIC H A E L A PA P E NH O FF
at h2c and we consistently find that their websites and
chains. We’ve done several studies with independent properties internet booking engines are not performing well in terms of conversion, on both desktop and mobile.
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INVEST IN TECHNOLOGY TO S CA LE YO U R MARKETING ACTIVITIES
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Marketing is still marketing and to be
Take email for example. While it’s no
successful you need to get the basics
longer “new technology,” I defy any
and foundation right. Technology is
marketing person to say that email
an enabler and when used effectively,
marketing programs don’t work. I highly
it can help you scale your marketing
recommend investing in a good email
activities.
marketing tool that has solid analytics so you can send relevant personalized
J O H N MC A U L I F F E
Technology allows us to interact with
content and messages and know
our customers, talk to them, and engage the performance of your efforts (your them more than ever. We can have open rates, your conversions and your one-to-one conversations through
returns, etc.).
social media channels, and give our customers a more personalized
Technology in marketing boils down to
experience in multiple ways
helping marketers get a better grasp on
and with many devices.
customer preferences, their behavior and purchase trends, and to design the
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INVES T IN TECHNOLOGY TO SCALE YOUR MARK E TING ACTIVITIES
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most effective marketing strategy based on this intelligence Marketing success will depend on how well we can leverage mobile as the customer’s
“Technology is an enabler and when used effectively, it can help you scale your marketing activities.”
most preferred method of consumption; how we can make sense of Big Data and pull out from it everything that relates to our business; how we use social to listen, learn, and have better conversations that lead to happier more satisfied customers; and of course, how we utilize the cloud which is becoming the center of marketing automation, and the connective tissue between an organization’s automation platform and their communication to the world. Software, tools, and new technologies help marketers devise new ways to engage customers.
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BUILD REAL R E L AT I O N S H I P S WITH GUESTS A L A N YO U NG
Digital marketing needs to become
where customers take up residence
foremost, meaning the conversation
more personal. That’s something you
in a room that’s owned by a company,
should be two-way. Hoteliers tend to
want to keep top of mind as a hotel
a relationship actually needs to be
forget that digital marketing is not about
digital marketer.
developed.
sending someone an offer and hoping they take it.
We believe that technology will take
In terms of mobile, everything you
care of engaging with guests for us.
do needs to have a mobile capability.
Yes, technology can and does facilitate
To take that a step further, mobile
guest engagement but in an industry
engagement needs to be first and
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Mobile optimization is one of the basics of digital marketing. The online experience has evolved so much that it’s no longer a laptop environment. Meanwhile, agencies are still presenting laptop versions of website wireframes. They should really be presenting a website from a mobile perspective first, followed by the laptop. It’s kind of a
SHIFT TO A MOBILE FIRST MINDSET MARK WONG
shame we’re stuck in this desktop/laptop mind-frame when the consumers are already progressed to the mobile environment.
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COMPLEMENT TECHNOLOGY WITH HUMAN INTER ACTION MICHAEL BENNETT
We like to think of a technology platform that complements digital marketing as a seamless customer relationship management (CRM) solution that resides in a hotel to manage what the human layer of CRM simply cannot, including: Communicating with guests online, on mobile, or email when they’re considering booking Catering to guests while they’re in residence at a property
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Delivering targeted and personalized marketing campaigns Encouraging guests to book again Ensuring data privacy across all technology systems All in all, CRM plays a big part in completing the guest journey and making the unnecessary, clunky aspects of travel, seamless and a delight to experience. The sheer amount of data that can be collected on each guest, multiplied by the thousands of guests that may pass through the doors of a large hotel in a given year will always call for a CRM software system that can handle this huge number of
unique records. What is important however, is to not only use the data captured to entice guests with seamless technology, but to also provide personalized human interaction at the right time, with the right information for every guest to create those unique, unforgettable moments.
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FINAL THOUGHTS
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T H I S G U I D E has touched on so many significant points that must be considered as a digital marketer in the hotel industry, and all should be taken on board. From staying on top of industry trends, understanding digital marketing advancements to fine tuning your strategy based on your marketing analytics and data, we’ve covered it all. Two fundamental aspects of this guide however should be considered at the very basis of your digital marketing
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strategy before getting started; know your brand
we see day-in-day-out that hoteliers are able to
and your audience from the get-go; understand
learn more about their guests, communicate with
your guests’ journey - from path to purchase right
them using the right message, at the right time,
through to their return to your property. These
through the right channels and learn from their
two aspects of your strategy will flow through
results and data. This in turn, allows for more
everything you do and enable your guests to
surprise and delight moments for guests during
understand, through whatever marketing mediums
their stay or during those important moments
you use, who you are and why they should pick your property.
before they decide to book with you again. You know when you’re on the right track when those
Technology has an incredible way of complementing these strategies too. From understanding data, to team collaboration to guest empowerment,
moments start turning your guests into brand advocates. Michael Bennett Senior Vice President, Global Marketing, Cendyn
NEXT STEPS We invite you to join our mastermind community on LinkedIn, where you can learn from an elite group of hotel marketing experts and get answers to your most pressing challenges. If you liked this book, which we hope you did, we’d love for you to share it with your friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn using #HDMGuide.
A BO U T CENDY N
ABOUT WEBCANADA
Our 20 years of success in the
For over 20 years, WebCanada has
hospitality industry shows that we
been helping hotel brands grow
don’t just have innovative solutions
online commerce with affordable,
– we have products that are tied to
easy to use, comprehensive digital
proven revenue producing business
marketing tools that really work.
models. That means we understand
We are a group of experienced
your struggles. We’ve been on
technology and digital professionals
your side of the table and we know
focused on empowering people
how to make your life easier and
everywhere to achieve.
more successful. We know what is
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working, right now. Just ask any of
or compliment? Contact us at
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