Listen up, hotel owners and asset managers.
Want to sleigh the holidays this year for your hotel marketing team?
No holiday is complete without our annual Official Gift Guide for Hotel Marketers to keep the season bright.
Just one heads up: This wish list is unlike any other. Don’t expect to be asked for the latest tech gadget or an all-expenses-paid vacation.
What hotel marketers really want are the necessary assets, funds, and tools to reach their 2019 goals.
So, pass the festive cocktails. Bring on the cheer.
Here’s what hotel marketers REALLY want this year:
1. They want a budget correlated to revenue goals
Let’s be realistic.
If you’re holding your marketing team accountable to loftier revenue goals, you’ll need to support that with a loftier budget. Unfortunately, there are still many hotel owners who believe marketers are miracle workers who can achieve more revenue with less resources, less tools, less staff, and less funds.
Want to achieve more in 2019?
Calculate how much you spent in OTA commissions in 2018, you’ll quickly realize that investing in DIRECT marketing is one of the smartest moves you can make to boost margins. Support your hotel marketing team’s efforts with the appropriate budget needed to hit revenue goals and to make the desired impact on 2019 profits.
2. They want compensation for driving measurable revenue
The sales team isn’t the only department accountable to revenue goals anymore.
Hotel owners and asset managers are now expecting hotel marketers to contribute to the bottom line in a tangible way, beyond pretty pictures, Instagram posts and squishy “branding projects.” In return, hotel marketing teams are beginning to track direct ROI, such as marketing cost per booking (MCPB), return on ad spend (ROAS) and direct website conversions.
Armed with these figures, hotel marketers want to be rewarded and compensated for contributing to their piece of the hotel revenue pie.
3. They want better digital marketing talent
To outperform your compset, you need an army of top talent at every level of your marketing department. After all, someone is behind every digital touchpoint – from social media, to the hotel website design, to email. Not to mention all the expertise needed behind-the-scenes, such as search marketing, data analytics, and CRM systems. While talented digital marketing professionals are aplenty all over the country, they are being reeled in by other industries that offer higher pay and better benefits and perks (think Google, Facebook, and virtually any major corporation with a website).
