Every hotel experiences need periods. Whether it is the shoulder season, big group cancellation, missing pace, or just a bad month, these things happen to almost everybody in our industry. Some of these are predictable and can be avoided and some are last minute thus needing quick and decisive actions.
NB: This is an article from Cendyn
Our strategy team at Cendyn has compiled a Cendyn digital marketing toolkit comprised of tactics that correspond with any of the aforementioned situations. From brand building to direct booking generation, the toolkit offers a quick and easy guide to digital marketing channels and tactics to utilize in these need times.
Although I can’t share the entire toolkit, I will offer up two proven digital marketing techniques to help you fill excess room inventory quickly.
Re-connect with your best guests across multiple touchpoints with special offers
One of my all-time favorite Cendyn digital marketing toolkit tactics is the Data Append Campaign. This 360-digital marketing campaign has a two-phase approach. First, we’re able to pinpoint guests who have been identified as high-value customers (“your best guests”) within the property’s internal database. Next, we reach out to them via email campaigns, and we can also target those exact consumers online as they browse different sites by matching online guest profiles to segmented audiences within the internal database.
Target promising prospects with look-a-like audience models
Then, we study the demographics, psychographics and behavioral attributes of your “best guests” gathered through first party and append data; and target new in-market consumers that exhibit those same high indexing attributes. This allows us to extend our reach beyond past guests to new look-alike audiences.
For example, if your property experiences a slow shoulder-season, we can look at guests who stayed during those months over the past three years and reach out to them with unique and custom offers via email, and display campaigns, then find similar guests through a look-alike campaign and target those potential guests via display, paid search and social tactics. This will not only bring past guests back to your property, it will expand your reach to new prospects.
Be ready long before the crisis hits
As with anything, good preparation is a key, so follow these 5 steps to execute a successful marketing campaign during need times.
Start planning for need periods during your annual strategy sessions.
Seasons, holidays, special events happen every year (and normally at very specific times), so plan for those early, of course. But also have a well-thought-out need period boost strategy in place, so you can shift your focus to mind the gap.
Be prepared and have a digital marketing toolkit in your back pocket. Rely on the tactics for each need period in case of emergencies.
Design creative templates in advance.
Speed-to-market can be a huge road-block for some campaigns, so have email, banner and video campaigns designed in advance (even if you don’t have an offer available, you can prepare your template) to minimize preparation time.
Be realistic with your expectations.
You might need more than one tactic to fill the gap. If your digital campaigns historically achieve 10:1 ROAS and your budget is $10K, you probably won’t generate a $1M in missing revenue, but you might get $100K, which is a good start.
Don’t panic.
Take a deep breath, and reach into your toolkit!
