May
12
One of my new clients has recruited a "Revenue Manager".
We sat down last month to look at pricing strategies for the rest of the year.
Nowadays, hotel pricing is full of jargon: BAR; ADR…blah, blah. You know the sort of thing I mean? Well, this chap knew every term and was equipped with a special program on his PC that told him what rates he should be using to sell online every day.
Online sales hadn't been so good, so he calculated the "optimal" prices, and he loaded them online. These were special prices! carefully crafted to wrest sales away from competitors. You might call them "cheap", but I couldn't possibly comment.
This week we were reviewing progress for the past month. If anything, online sales were down.
We sat down last month to look at pricing strategies for the rest of the year.
Nowadays, hotel pricing is full of jargon: BAR; ADR…blah, blah. You know the sort of thing I mean? Well, this chap knew every term and was equipped with a special program on his PC that told him what rates he should be using to sell online every day.
Online sales hadn't been so good, so he calculated the "optimal" prices, and he loaded them online. These were special prices! carefully crafted to wrest sales away from competitors. You might call them "cheap", but I couldn't possibly comment.
This week we were reviewing progress for the past month. If anything, online sales were down.
"I just can't explain it!" he exclaimed.
"These prices should have worked!".
After a short debate, I persuaded him to indulge me for a moment and we took a look at the hotels website, and the descriptions on the OTA websites he's using, from a customers point of view.
You see I have long held that price is just one part of selling online. There's nothing unique about price. And it's easier to lose money with a silly price (either too expensive or too cheap) than it is to make money with a sensible one. The critical thing about price, is that it needs to be accompanied, or at the very least preceded by, some sort of attractive invitation to consider making a purchase.
…and at this hotel, the invitation wasn't very attractive.
Whilst every page on the website resonated with "BUY NOW" messages, nowhere did it give you a reason why you should buy.
Nowhere did it say: Here's what you're going to get; this is what it's going to look like; this is how special you'll feel.
Instead the website pages droned on about a "recent" sympathetic refurbishment (completed 5 years ago), well stocked bars, curtains, trouser presses and locally sourced produce.
Why do people do that? Have you ever heard a guest order "a plate of locally sourced produce" in your restaurant??
…and carried on warbling about our staff, our car park, our philosophy and our uniqueness… without ever coming to the point and actually trying to engage the reader.
It was the same on the OTA websites. Utterly boring, uncared for words, accompanied by a price that had more science applied to it than the space shuttle.
Paragraph after paragraph of cliched, tiresome, boring, confusing drivel was everywhere. Preventing potential customers from going anywhere near the price.
Which is a pity, because it's a nice hotel and the customers would love it.
The problem is, that the hotel is so in love with itself, that it forgets to talk to its customers about the experience, the value and how clever they would be if accept the deal to stay.
Your price is on one side of the equation, what your customers get from you is on the other side.
You need to promote both sides of the equation. Otherwise you're not talking about your deal at all! So how does the customer know what he's going to get?
"These prices should have worked!".
After a short debate, I persuaded him to indulge me for a moment and we took a look at the hotels website, and the descriptions on the OTA websites he's using, from a customers point of view.
You see I have long held that price is just one part of selling online. There's nothing unique about price. And it's easier to lose money with a silly price (either too expensive or too cheap) than it is to make money with a sensible one. The critical thing about price, is that it needs to be accompanied, or at the very least preceded by, some sort of attractive invitation to consider making a purchase.
…and at this hotel, the invitation wasn't very attractive.
Whilst every page on the website resonated with "BUY NOW" messages, nowhere did it give you a reason why you should buy.
Nowhere did it say: Here's what you're going to get; this is what it's going to look like; this is how special you'll feel.
Instead the website pages droned on about a "recent" sympathetic refurbishment (completed 5 years ago), well stocked bars, curtains, trouser presses and locally sourced produce.
Why do people do that? Have you ever heard a guest order "a plate of locally sourced produce" in your restaurant??
…and carried on warbling about our staff, our car park, our philosophy and our uniqueness… without ever coming to the point and actually trying to engage the reader.
It was the same on the OTA websites. Utterly boring, uncared for words, accompanied by a price that had more science applied to it than the space shuttle.
Paragraph after paragraph of cliched, tiresome, boring, confusing drivel was everywhere. Preventing potential customers from going anywhere near the price.
Which is a pity, because it's a nice hotel and the customers would love it.
The problem is, that the hotel is so in love with itself, that it forgets to talk to its customers about the experience, the value and how clever they would be if accept the deal to stay.
Your price is on one side of the equation, what your customers get from you is on the other side.
You need to promote both sides of the equation. Otherwise you're not talking about your deal at all! So how does the customer know what he's going to get?
0 Trackbacks