Push notifications may be one of the best marketing tools to create added value and increase your revenue when used wisely.
NB: This is an article by Hammad Hussain, Managing Director for the UK and Ireland, Tink Labs
It is broadly a text message that pops up on the user phone screen, containing hyper-relevant and real-time engaging information send by the hotel, such as the latest or exclusive offer or relevant news from your hotel.
According to recent studies by Localytics, the conversion rate is about 15%, which clearly suggests that the content of the message in these notifications has to be relevant to the targeted audience and catchy.
Often considered as a double-edged sword with a remarkable strength to yield best conversions, many hotels are now using this tool as a way to promote their restaurants or spa offer. But when do you stop being relevant and become annoying to the point you drive your guest away?
The key point here is RELEVANCE, here are two tips hotel marketers can consider:
#1: Segment your guest through data available on platform
By segmenting your guests’ preferences as deep as you can would be the easiest approach when you use data available through a CMS analytics tool. For instance, hospitality technology provider Tink Labs’ solutions handy enables a full-fledged analytical platform named ‘handyPortal’ that gives hotels aggregated information about in-house guests.
They can learn about their guests’ preferences, interests or demographics. With the “handyPortal” tool, you can analyse and target who are right among in-house guest.
#2: Be selective of the messages that you push and when
Hotels can get in touch with your in-house guests without appearing to intrusive. Get their attention with beautiful content and images. Set specific objectives with bespoke Call-to-Actions to generate leads for your namely time sensitive promotions, event reminders and promotional offers.
For instance, if your restaurant has a low occupancy on the evening, sending a push message to all hotel guests in the afternoon and offer a complimentary F&B items, or, discount that will generate bookings with a call-to-action to a reservation link.
Personalizing experience: a successful case
Started in October 2016, the UK hotel group Ashley Hotels including eight properties turned to handy for guest to enjoy a hassle-free travel experience, and they have leveraged the device’s “send push message” feature to engage with their guests. The push messages will engage guest when they are inside or outside of the hotel.
“Push Notification for in-house guests allowed us to show our best offers and message for each user based on their interest in our properties, and delivered 3X return compared to usual printing visual materials” said Zamir Hirji, Director & Owner at Ashley Hotels.
Ashley Hotels is able to design, manage, automate and send push message at any time to their guests. The handy device has in average 90% activation rate; therefore, Ashley Hotels was able to capture a communication gateway with its guests to constantly promote their mission and services.
Once having set the push notifications priorities right, there are numerous ways to measure your success, such as call-to-action statistics, conversion rate and the one that would have hit the sweet spot of all hoteliers: incremental revenue increase.
