It’s times like these - when old ways of solving problems no longer apply - that spawn completely new and creative ways of thinking.  You have a choice:

• Keep pounding your head against the wall and expecting different results (the definition of insanity), or
• Look at the market the way it is today, throw out yesterday’s strategies that no longer apply and think different.

And nowhere have I seen this “think different” approach expressed more clearly and succinctly than in a recent Advertising Age interview with John Wallis, Head of Marketing and Brand Strategy for Global Hyatt Corporation.

In the article John talks about how Hyatt has shifted more of its marketing online and how analytics are becoming increasingly important.  Nothing new here, loads of hotels are doing the same thing.

But here’s the catch - and what makes John’s way of thinking so interesting and refreshing.  He says,

“Our goal is to become a database driven company that’s in the hotel business.”

Brilliant!  Hyatt is thinking beyond hospitality, and certainly shifting its strategic approach to the business.

Today business is all about relationships and the most profitable companies have the strongest relationships and the most loyal customers.  And the only way to get there is through integrated 1to1 marketing launched from a marketing database.  You’ll also need highly skilled direct marketing professionals to design and manage your program.

It doesn’t matter if you are selling rooms, widgets or cell phones.  It’s the database and using it to better understand and serve customers and prospects that spells success.

In the meantime John Wallis is my nominee for our First Annual MP&A Think Different Award.  Congratulations John!

What do you think?  Safe Travels - Madigan Pratt

The TripAdvisor Home Page proudly boasts, “more than 15,000,000 travelers from 190 countries planned trips here this week.” An astonishing statement.  Adding weight to this is word-of-mouth impact.  Research shows consumers believe reviews read online almost as much as they do personal recommendations from friends and relatives.

While many hospitality marketing professionals and travel agents don’t care for TripAdvisor (how’s that for PC?), our clients embrace it.  Through a series of proactive, custom-tailored strategies each hotel actively manages TripAdvisor and encourages guests to post reviews.  We treasure every TripAdvisor review - especially those with 5-Stars (or 5-Owls as TA refers to them).

But here’s what gets my goat.  And the only reason I’m bringing it up is it’s happened a couple of times now.

A guest writes an absolutely glowing review of a property and rates everything 5-Stars - Service, Value, Location, etc.  But in posting the review at the end they make an obvious mistake and rate the hotel as 1-Star.  The first time this happened customer support was contacted and asked to simply correct the guest’s mistake and change it to 5-Stars which was obviously what the guest intended.

Instead of making the change, a few days later the review disappeared!

This happened again recently for another hotel.  Instead of contacting customer support an email was sent to management. It explained the situation as well as what had happened previously and asked them to please make the correction to 5-Stars.  A couple of days later the review disappeared!

When I post a golf score that’s well outside my normal range (usually higher) the computer informs me it looks like a mistake and asks me if I want to change it.  With all their technological prowess, you’d think a similar fix would be simple for TripAdvisor.

Then I could rave about TripAdvisor all the time.

What do you think?  Safe travels - Madigan Pratt

 Related Blog Posts about TripAdvsor:

• Nowhere to Hide 
• TripAdvisor Reaches 20 Million Reviews
• Where’s Your TripAdvisor Strategy
• How Important is Word-of-Mouth Advertising

Adweek Magazine was determined to find out.  It surveyed nearly 1,500 advertising and marketing members of LinkedIn - the professional social network.  The overwhelming answer - Value.

In fact, when offered a list of five choices the majority of marketers said “It’s the Value, Stupid.”  Well, maybe not in those exact words, but 52% did say communications should “focus on value.”  Hospitality marketers should note only 8% of executives thought marketers should “focus on price” - the lowest rated of all five choices.

Here’s how the voting went -

Now, one would assume hospitality marketing professionals would know value is the message, but you wouldn’t know that based on a number of hotel email messages we have monitored recently.  Here are some sample headlines:

• Receive a $400 Credit for a Four Night Stay
• $70.00 Off Our Sunday Champagne Brunch Package
• Arizona Vacation: Breakfast + Golf from $159
• South Carolina - Hilton Head  $87 - $167

Looks as though quite a few hotels may need to rethink their marketing communications messages (if not their advertising agencies).

One smart hotel that understands “It’s The Value, Stupid” is 9 Beaches in Bermuda.  Bam!  The first thing you read on their web site is - “9 Beaches - Bermuda’s Best Resort Value.”  Copy then goes on to offer prospective travelers permission to believe it is indeed Bermuda’s Best Resort Value.

A hotel chain that “get’s it” is Courtyard by Marriott.  Over the weekend they ran a series of TV commercials which all have “Value” as its main message.  Nice.

What do you think?  Few hotels will be able to get through this recession without some discounting.  But do you feel hotels are focusing too much on price as opposed to communicating the value travelers will receive at their hotel?

Safe travels - Madigan Pratt.

But jumping in and adding a blog, Facebook page or start Tweeting without doing your due diligence can be a huge mistake.  You need to know how each social media can be integrated into and compliment your brand message.

Denise Zimmerman has written an excellent article -  “4 signs you’re a social failure“- every hospitality marketing professional should read.  In it she cites Gartner research showing 75% of Fortune 1000 companies with web sites will attempt some sort of online social media initiative for marketing or customer relationship purposes.  Gartner also projects 50% of those initiatives will fail!

If Fortune 1000 companies are failing, what’s a small luxury hotel to do?  The article contains several case studies and lessons learned along the way.  What I take away from the article is hotels need to approach social media the same way they do any other media - with a disciplined approach and solid foundation in marketing fundamentals.  Here are my top five:

• Have clear objectives in mind for social media programs, and focus on achieving them.
• Know your audience and create content that fosters a dialogue and has mutual value.
• Anticipate any and all backlash.  Experienced PR folks know this all too well.
• Transparency is crucial to social media success and establishing trust and credibility.
• Identify clearly defined criteria for success and monitor your social media.  Failure occurs when you don’t know your options, consider your constituents, or plan upfront accordingly.

Sounds like solid marketing advice - it is - and that’s the point.  Don’t let your social media decision making be driven by hype.  And don’t think it is “free.”  It will demand a considerable amount of manpower ($) to create and manage successfully.  Approach it with a plan and sound strategic thinking designed to enhance your brand and there’s a good chance you will avoid becoming a social failure.

What do you think?  Safe travels - Madigan Pratt

At the center of all this Internet activity is the hotel’s own web site.  So it’s not surprising in today’s economic environment hospitality marketing professionals are keenly focused on finding cost effective ways to increase quality traffic to their site.

A good way to do this is through banner advertising, right?  Not according to a recent study conducted by Opinion Research for ARAnet Adfusion.

Of the five different marketing formats measured in the survey, the two most effective ways to get Internet users to take action (click through to your site) are having your brand included in an online article (51%) and providing them with an email offer (47%).

Banners ads are less than half as effective in delivering visitors to your site as being mentioned in an article.  So it makes sense - to increase web traffic you should stop advertising.

So rev up your public relations and beef up your online direct marketing capabilities and start driving more traffic to your web site.

And if you really want to supercharge your PR and DM efforts make sure they are integrated into a comprehensive customer relationship marketing (CRM) program.

One last thought - think of each TripAdvisor review as an online article mention and you’ll see why having a comprehensive TripAdvisor strategy is so important.  Need help?  Contact me.

What do you think?  Safe travels - Madigan Pratt

So what should a luxury hospitality marketing executive do - and not do now?  That’s what David Wilkening, Associate Editor for Hotel Interactive set out to answer when he interviewed six top hospitality marketing professionals.

David’s article “Leveraging Your Luxury Property - Ways to Fill Luxury Hotels While Demand is Soft” was published in the April 13th issue of Hotel Interactive.  The article has practical advice to help attract affluent travelers.  Click here.

I am pleased to be one of the hospitality marketing professionals David quotes in his article.  If you would like more information on how CRM can increase customer loyalty and hotel profitability you can find out more by visiting MadiganPratt.com.

What do you think?  Safe travels -Madigan Pratt

But don’t despair.  There is still hope for some hoteliers.

Peter was presenting the 2008 Y Partnership/Yankelovich Monitor research when he showed a chart indicating “Airline Brands” no longer matters to 51% of leisure travelers - an all-time low.   That’s down from 57% in 2006 and expected to crash below 50% for the first time when 2009 study results are published.

Why?  Lack of differentiation, increasing price sensitivity on the part of travelers and the introduction of comparison shopping web sites like Kayak and SideStep.  The industry that pioneered loyalty programs is becoming a commodity - much to the chagrin of the airlines, their marketing departments and ad agencies.  Brand differentiation and loyalty are declining rapidly.

The same forces are at work against chain hotels as they too are becoming commodities.   With increasing “sameness” the chains will be left to compete primarily on price.  Anybody see Hilton’s announcement on Monday saying they were reducing the price on all rooms by 20%?

Now For The Good News!

There is a silver lining in this story and it pertains to smaller independent luxury hotels - those hotels that offer guests a truly unique experience - an experience discerning travelers are willing to pay a premium for.  These are the hotels that can effectively resist  becoming a commodity.

But it is only an advantage if you capitalize on it.  You can by developing a strong, benefit oriented positioning and do everything in your power to continually strengthen your brand.  Make sure your hospitality marketing team understands your brand and communicates it effectively across all messaging.  Create an integrated customer relationship marketing (CRM) program and nurture your guests and prospects through communications the same way you do on property.

Create Brand Advocates.  Nurture every guest before, during and after their stay. 

Small independent luxury hotels have never been in a better position to compete against the chains.  Take advantage of it while you can.

What do you think?  Safe Travels - Madigan Pratt

The chart below shows the various tactics marketers use and were covered in the study.  The usage axis shows the percentage of marketers using the tactic with the horizontal axis showing the percentage of marketers reporting great return on investment.  The size of the circle represents the relative budget compared to other tactics.

“Paid Search” (big blue circle) is a winner with about 50% of marketers surveyed saying it produces great ROI.  In second place is “House Email” (small orange circle) with about 45% indicating it produces great ROI.  In third place at around 40% is search engine optimization (SEO - even smaller purple circle).

Note however the difference in the size of the circles.  “Paid Search” is significantly bigger than either “House Email” or “SEO.”  As the report points out:

“The relative size of the circles means the tactic [House Email and SEO] requires far less budget than “Paid Search.”

Conclusion:  If you’re dealing with a hospitality marketing budget smaller than you need (and who isn’t?), make sure you are maximizing your house list email marketing efforts and SEO before branching out into paid search.

FYI - if you want to get the most out of your email marketing program be sure to avoid The 7 Deadly Sins of Email Marketing For Luxury Hotels.

What do you think?  Safe travels - Madigan Pratt

As the economy expands businesses should focus more on acquiring new customers.  And as it moves into a downturn, where it is today, companies should be focusing more on servicing and growing their existing customers.

With budgets tight and research showing it costs 6-10 times more to attract a new customer than retain an existing one hospitality marketing professionals need to focus more on their current customer base - making them feel like VIP’s and inviting them back.

Hotels most successful at re-attracting past guests share common marketing philosophies.  They:

• Focus on capturing correct/complete contact data at registration
• Keep that information up-to-date with regular NCOA
• Understand the lifetime value of each guest
• Follow a strategic vs. a tactical approach to marketing
• Embrace Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM)
• Actively promote both offline and online word-of-mouth advertising
• Understand and employ direct marketing best practices

You’ll find plenty of customer retention ideas on the Hospitality Marketing Blog.  I’m sure other readers would love to hear your ideas.  Please feel free to share - add a comment.

Safe travels - Madigan Pratt