The Hotel Marketing Blog from HotelSphere - Hotel Marketing

Are you wearing your lucky rocketship underpants?

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:25:06 +0100

"what's the point in wearing your lucky rocketship underpants if no one asks to see 'em?" - Calvin & Hobbes

Calvins' lucky rocketship underpants were very close to his heart. Of course, they were actually closer to his backside, but we'll not let that get in the way of today's post, will we?

He was very proud of them: They brought him luck and they had rocketships on them.

What really got on Calvin's &%$@s was the fact that nobody else showed any interest in them.

You go to all that effort...
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Customers can misinterpret what you say on the internet

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:15:51 +0100

Inspiration for today comes from my pal Jane - who delivered a nice presentation this morning on, er... presentation.

She mentioned something you might be familiar with - the fact that we've all sent a message using technology - an email, a text or a blog post - that has been misinterpreted by the recipient.

It struck me that the internet is indeed a "desensitised" medium. So you need to be careful what you say.
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The secret of how to increase sales at your hotel

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:30:40 +0100

Do you work in hotel sales?

Do you want to know how to start increasing sales at your hotel?

Here's a tried and tested approach. I first learned it from a fascinating hotel sales guru in 1994. Before the Internet.

It is still every bit as valid today. And it still works.

It works for room sales, banqueting sales, restuarant sales, leisure club sales.

So if your general manager or regional sales manager is hammering you to improve your sales figures. This is what you do. In the order specified.
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Social Media - never mistake activity for results

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:20:44 +0100

Here's the thing.

"Marketing" on social media can generate a lot of heat but no light.

Before all the social media zealots get in touch to rip me limb from limb, let me explain what I mean...
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How to give your advertising a chance of success

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:19:17 +0100

Taken from a conversation held last week with a prospect - as we tried to identify why his marketing wasn't working for him...

"We tried advertising last year. It didn't work. So I don't want to try it again."

What a pity. Because advertising can work - if you give it a chance.
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The peril of being risk averse

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:03:28 +0100

Let's start with a caveat, before I get messages from people blaming me for the accident they've just had...

No sane person will take a silly risk which could end up in disaster. Taking ill-considered risks is a job for the stupid, egotistical (I'm thinking bankers here) or anyone who doesn't have enough understanding of "self preservation".

There are two types of risk: Risks to be avoided (those with a serious impact) and those which you can learn from. Obviously, the former type of risk means that it's likely you won't last long enough to learn from it.

...stick with me, I'm coming to the marketing lesson shortly...
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Booking windows - you get the behaviour you reward

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:32:18 +0100

How far in advance do your customers book with you?

A day in advance? A week? A month? A year?

Do you measure it? If not why not?

Control over the booking window may appear to be tricky for you to establish, but it doesn't need to be. It really depends on how much you understand about your customers, their reasons for booking and the value they expect.

Late booking is an internet phenomenon which is fed by the fact that many hotels don't take the time to understand customer buyer behaviour. As a result, these hotels have less advance bookings than hotels with good marketing systems. A feature of this is panic "late availability" pricing on the internet.

If people know they can get good prices if they wait until they can hear your pips squeak - why should they book far in advance? Late availability pricing encourages customers to delay their purchase decision, then rewards that delay with a discount.

Is that really the way you want to run your hotel??

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If I could only reach you - if I could make you smile...

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:11:17 +0000

...if I could only reach you,
that would really be a

BREAKTHROUGH!

Ahhh, Freddie Mercury. What poetry.

How much work do you put in to reaching out to your audience?

On the face of today's advertising, I'd suggest the answer might be, "not a lot".
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How to deal with price comparison websites

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:35:33 +0000

I noted with some disappointment yesterday that Google are testing a price comparison feature using a combination of their maps and adwords products you can read about their plans here.

My disappointment isn't with what Google are planning - they've got the technology and the market opportunity appears to be a strong one - my worry is that the hotel industry will do what it always does when threatened with downward pressure on price...
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Do you qualify for higher prices?

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:07:16 +0000

It seems Google maps is going to become a price comparison site for hotels. I'll blog about this in another article when I've had a chance to think about it. But it's disappointing to think that, yet again, what could be a really useful route to market will probably get poisoned by "low price" promotions.

As all good hoteliers know (and so do your customers) - it is not all about price. Price becomes a default decision criteria when your marketing isn't up to the job.

So. Do you qualify for higher prices?
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Google says "travellers want compelling offers at time of search"

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:12:55 +0000

Interesting article fell into my mailbox this morning.

Interview with man from Google

The question about "predicting user perference" caught my attention. Not least because the following words formed part of the answer:

"The biggest unsolved problem therefore becomes this: how can we reduce the time to perfect fulfillment of the users’ online travel needs?"

I'm interpreting this (and forgive me if I've misinterpreted what's being said) as: "The biggest problem is working out what people need".

And I need to ask what is for me an obvious question. Who is running your marketing?
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Be ruthlessly relevant and decisively different

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:07:56 +0000

Well that's got today's alliteration out of the way.

It's amazing how many hotel websites use alliteration (consecutive words starting with the same letter) and think it will be entertaining. It usually isn't.

Inspiration for today's muse comes from my new pal Andrea. She's a skilled copywriter who tells me that,

"...every word on the page has to earn its living."

On the web, you can't afford to dress pages up with fine words and fancy formats. You can put them there if you like of course - it's your website after all. People just don't read 'em.
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Who knows what you know?

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:30:15 +0000

You know everything about your business.

You know what things cost. You know what your profit margins are. You know what you want to achieve.

So that's alright then. As long as you know what's going on, everything is going to be just tickety-boo.

It gets even better when it comes to your marketing:

You know what your logo means; you know what your headlines mean; you know what every paragraph in your website means...

...to you.

And that's when things start to go wrong. Because everybody else isn't you - and we often have no idea what you're talking about.
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If the phone rings, you answer it - what about email?

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:23:06 +0000

This is - as you might imagine - a rather sweeping generalisation, but in most businesses somebody, somewhere will answer the telephone when it rings.

Sometimes it can take a while. If your switchboard has more than one incoming line, for example, and you expect the person who answers calls at the switchboard to take reservations and handle enquiries. In this case a queue can build up very quickly and callers can let the phone ring, and ring, and ring, and ring,...

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When I grow up I want to be just like you...

nospam@example.com (HotelBlogger) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:36:18 +0000

Imitation is supposed to be the most sincere form of flattery.

Sitting in HotelSphere towers, looking at the behaviour of the businesses I can see, it's clear that there's a lot of imitation going on.

Times are hard. When times are hard different people respond in different ways. As such, we should be seeing lots of different ways of responding to the challenges 2010 will bring.

Today, I want to talk about just one of them...
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