Good marketing does not start with Google Ads, a good website, or even trying ‘to go viral’ (I can’t even explain how frustrated this last bit gets me).
NB: This is an article from RMS Cloud
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Like most things in business, good marketing for hotels, serviced apartments, or parks starts with insights, also known as ‘the data’.
Before you start yawning, I know that data may sound boring for us in marketing, who, more often than not, thrive in highly collaborative and creative environments and not in front of spreadsheets.
But, but, but, like any ‘journey’ (if you don’t know where you are, or where you have been, you are unlikely to figure out where to go.)
So, on our quest to build more direct revenue for our business, we need to start with the data.
Data 101 for property managers – where and how to start?
The objective of this blog is to help property managers of all categories and sizes grow their direct booking channels, a job that typically falls on marketing.
For the purpose of this exercise, we are going to focus on three types of insights.
Starting with the guests
Know your audience is what I could have also called this blog. This is very true for hotel or park marketing teams. I imagine your place of work is in the property you help market or sell, so my guess is that you have a fairly good understanding of who your guests are already. However, anecdotal observations do not replace factual verifications.
Here are some top-level insights I recommend you start investigating and documenting:
Demographic data
- Country of origin: List the top five
- Family structure: Are they single travellers? Families? Business travellers?
- Average age: This will help determine marketing channels and services
- Occupation: Know whether your guests are professionals, retirees or students.
- Income levels: This would help inform your pricing strategy, but bear in mind there might be reluctance to share that level of information with you, so this is a nice to have
Travel purpose:
- Leisure or business: Are they travelling for work, vacation or special events?
- Event or occasion: What prompted the trip? A special wedding anniversary? A Taylor Swift concert or just a well-deserved holiday?
- Travel to your property: Did they drive to your property? Took a tube/train/bus? Did they Uber it?
Booking behaviour
- Booking channel: Did they book directly through your website or through an OTA? Did they have someone else make the booking on their behalf?
- Booking lead time: How long before the stay did they book?
- Average length of stay: How long are they staying in your property for?
- Are they returning guests?
- Pre, during, post check-in: Did they check in online through your guest portal? (If you don’t have a guest portal, you really should. RMS has a great one) Did they communicate with you beforehand? Or after their stay?
You don’t need every single answer to each question for your research to be valid. Start by aiming high, but leave blank if you can’t access the data you need and think of a way to collect the data later and populate it retrospectively.
Remember that no park, hotel, or business has complete data integrity. Don’t let the unknown stop you.
