Smart hotel marketers are using new, affordable marketing automation tools to close more group and meetings business.
Marketing automation technology is one of the biggest advancements in the marketing world over the last ten years.
And hotel marketers were among the early adopters.
The vast majority of hotels use basic forms of marketing automation to improve relationships with leisure segment guests: automatic booking confirms, post stay surveys and reservation recovery emails have been deployed by hotel marketing departments for many years.
But now, thanks to new, more affordable and simplified software, marketing automation could very well be your group sales department’s new best friend and the catalyst for driving more meetings and events to your property.
Marketing automation can send the right message at the right time to the right meeting planner or group lead. And keep your sales team informed as your target prospects engage with your website and marketing materials!
First, here’s a simple explanation of how automation works for hotel sales and marketing departments:
1. A small piece of code from your marketing automation vendor or agency is embedded in your hotel website’s code. This code allows your automation platform to monitor every visitor who comes to your direct hotel website.
2. Each visitor’s behavior, actions and referral source is now tracked, collected and viewable via your automation platform.
3. You can trigger automatic actions to occur when a visitor or lead meets a specific condition. This can be anything from an email being sent, a retargeting ad being delivered or an alert being sent to a salesperson.
