If your hotel – or government agency – is considering using online behavioral advertising, you might want to test drive it yourself first to see what your guests will experience.

At its best, behavioral advertising makes you feel like royalty; at its worst it’s like a pesky mosquito that will not go away. The key is: relevance.

I recently was the target of this growing online strategy by accident when shopping for leather luggage. The three pieces I clicked on now pop up each time I check my weather or news sites. I sort of  like that because it edges me closer to something I want, new luggage.

A colleague, however, sees a similar banner ad pop-up attached to her online profile that is no longer relevant to her interests. It’s a nuisance she cannot get rid of.

So, if you are considering targeting your guests and constituents with online behavioral advertising, be sure you have a “game over” mechanism in place.

Click here for a viewpoint:　 “Hotels, Guests Shift to Behavioral eAdvertising” by our client Cendyn.

Click here for more info on the online ad shift to local and behavioral marketing.

What about you? What is your experience with audience-targeted advertising in your online travels? I would like to know.

[Updated September 1st.  More content; thanks to our client Cendyn.

• New York Times August 29, 2020 "Retargeting Ads Follow Surfers to Other Sites"
• Advertising Age, March 2009 "Google Turns to Behavioral Targeting to Beef up Display Biz"
• Advertisign Age, April 2009, "Will Using Behavioral Data Lead to Smarter Ad Buys?" ]

I recently set up a client interview with Josiah Mackenzie of Hotel Marketing Strategies. It was pure pleasure mainly because Josiah gave me online access to his real-time calendar via Tungle.me. This is the kind of little energy saving application that keeps you fresh.

Try it out.

Speaking of wellness, New York Times technology journalist Matt Richtel gives us proof positive that you officially need a vacation, without your smartphone. Click here for the “Digital Overload: Your Brain on Gadgets” podcast.

So to help you plan your vacation, try Gliider, a PhoCusWright innovation award finalist and cool tool. Take your brain on a daily mini-vacation as you “gather and save travel info from across the web.”

It’s fun. Watch the Gliider demo above.

At Softscribe Inc., we are committed to using technology to take care of ourselves, so we can take care of our clients and industries.

What about you? What are your favorite productivity tools?

Quick question for hotel operators:  Who would you rather cater to — clientele that stay one night? OR clientele that stay for four nights?

The answer is easy and obvious, except when you look at the clientele.

According to the Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management at New York University, the average length of stay for business travelers is 1.2 nights; the average length of stay for vacationing families is 4.3 nights.

And families with teenagers are an even more lucrative niche for hotels to target because they spend more and allow their children more say in where to stay.

Increasingly, hotels are taking advantage of this trend and are catering to teens with a host of activities and amenities.

What’s Popular                               What’s Not
Internet lounges                                Scavenger hunts
Mocktails (virgin drinks)                Ice-breaker games
Video arcades                                     Camp activities
18 and younger dance clubs
Teen-oriented spa treatments

The U.S. Census Bureau says there are 42.1 million people ages 10 to 19, representing 14 percent of the total American population.

More teen data from Packaged Facts, a market research firm:

• The overall value of the teen market is predicted to be worth $208.7 billion in 2011.
• Parents spend more than $110 billion on their teenagers.
• Forty percent of teens live in households with incomes of $75,000 or more.

At Softscribe, many of our story ideas for clients are rooted in research like this. Let us know if we can help.

What about you? What amenities does your property offer for teens?

BONUS Quote of the Day: “I bet deep down you still wish your mom would take you clothes shopping every August for the new school year.” — Bridget Willard

Photo credit: Flicker http://ow.ly/2s8VS

Advances in email marketing are made for guest-centric hoteliers.

You remember email; that cost effective communications tool which Forrester Research says will “balloon to $2 billion by 2014 — a nearly 11 percent compound annual growth rate.”

Chances are you already send targeted eNewsletters to your hotel guest database. But if you do not yet market with eNewsletters, cheer up. There is no need to walk, run, fly. With the social advances in email marketing, you can go right from walk to fly, provided you have three basic disciplines in place.

1. Set your goals.
Typical goals for hotel eNewsletters are to

 
2. Develop your content schedule.
At Softscribe, each of our eNewsletters has three simple buckets of content. We create a yearly content calendar month-by-month. This planning gives us plenty of time to shoot video, interview customers, and research statistics that add value.

3. Measure your success.
Typical metrics hoteliers want to measure are:

 
How social are your email subscribers? Our email provider, MailChimp, added Social Pro to give hoteliers and other people that information. Social Pro also tells you which networks your guests are on, so you can engage them in the right tone; lets you geo-target, measure engagement and generate reports on age, gender and influence.

Way to fly.

For more resources on how to succeed with your hotel eNewsletters, please click here.

What about you? Are you using eNewsletters at your hotel? If so, is there a social element?

As the world continues to ride the digital wave, video has emerged as the dominant trend. Video is a valuable tool hoteliers and government agency staffers can use to stimulate minds and accomplish goals.

Part I of the series covered “How to Use Videos to Stay Relevant.” If you are ready to use video, here is how to begin.

Five Best Practices to Create a Successful Video:

1)    Prepare. Consider what are your goals, who is your audience, when is the launch date, and where will you distribute.

2)    Keep it simple. People will hear a clear concise message. Motion graphics, sound, and images increase a video”s appeal, but too many elements will create confusion.

3)    Key in on a benefit. Create a video that spotlights your product and service benefit. Promotional collateral is obsolete. Enable people to connect and remember to include a “share” button.

4)    Keep it short. Condense the message for a greater impression. Make your video’s run-time 1min 30sec or less.

5)    Allow it to stand alone. View the video as an individual piece: it may be the first experience people have with you. Let it intrigue them enough to want to see more.

Remember, have fun. Step outside the box and let video stimulate your mind. Have as much fun with the conception as the creation.

At Softscribe, we work with our clients to create highly engaging videos. Our services include script writing, filming, voice-over recording, editing, and distribution at a price point for every mood.

How are you currently using these five best practices in your video marketing mix?

Would you like to know How to Use SEO to Leverage your Video? Stay tuned for Part III of the “Video World” Series.

There is only one word to describe Tory Johnson’s three-day Spark & Hustle conference in Atlanta last week – WooHoo!

We – mostly women – sparked our high quality ideas and hustled our entrepreneurial, storytelling spirits to greater profitability.

One bright spark, Jennifer Abernethy aka @saleslounge on Twitter, shared some pithy sound bytes about social media.  You might enjoy her one-minute video.

More sound bytes from Jennifer at thesaleslounge.com:

• “Energy attracts followers.”
• “Video is the return of face-to-face.”
• “Update your Facebook status every day.”
• “Put words in the box under your Facebook photo.”
• “Bring audio to your Facebook with AudioBoo.com.”
• “Facebook is the TV network of social media.”
• “LinkedIn is the cable channel.”
• “Your digital suitcase could contain:
  • A good headshot of yourself.
  • A digital camera.
  • Flip video recorder.
  • A texting device/iPad.”

At Softscribe we hustle you towards your business goals using a mix of PR and social media.

What about you?  Which elements are already packed in your digital suitcase?

The world is riding a digital wave. From smart phones to iPads, today’s public is thirsty for the latest technology. People want to be entertained and engaged.

How can hoteliers and government agencies stay relevant and ride the digital wave? One word, Video.

Video engages users on a level that stimulates the mind and emotions.

Instead of telling a guest why they want to entertain your service, tease them with a video that whets their appetite for more.

As of February 2010, YouTube alone had over 48.2 million users, a statistic that does not include the number of non-users who browse the site each day.

The first step to ride – and leverage – the digital wave is to formulate a plan of action to utilize video. Here are 3 ways hoteliers and government agencies can step into the visual world of video:

1) Show service benefits in a real environment. Allow the public to experience a service without seeing it in person.

2) Bundle video with your other marketing content. These include eNewsletters, press releases, and banner ads.

3) Provide “how to” product-and service-related information. Video excels as a virtual how-to for complex services and products that may require step-by-step training.

At Softscribe, we embrace the Video World for our clients in three ways: flip videos, more complex motion graphic videos, and soon – multi-themed videos from Vipe.

How are you currently using video in your marketing mix?

Would you like to know the Five Best Practices to Build a Successful Video? Stay tuned for Part II of the “Video World” Series.

Photo Credit: Apple.com

My friend and colleague Glenn Hasek asked me to guest blog for his Green Lodging News site, which has over 175,000 viewers per month. It is the definitive portal in hospitality and travel for anything green.

If you want to get your green hotel message out consistently and to the right channels while keeping your staff fresh and effective, check it out.   Here’s the beginning and click through to read more.

“In my experience, your hotel can achieve its green-oriented marketing goals when your team uses public relations as the organizing principle.

Our company does this through a simple approach that prioritizes:

Content, Search, and Social Media.

An added benefit is that this approach helps members of your marketing team stay more effective and fresh. They can leverage the pressure of daily deliverables instead of being swamped by them.

I will take these priorities one at a time and also share a key hub-and-spoke organizing idea.

Read More.

Photo credit: daisykate14 on flickr

I was I was one of the 4,500 hospitality professionals who attended HITEC  in Orlando in late June, and it was an upbeat experience.

My one-word synopsis? Digital.

Two of the coolest offerings, though, were not even on the show floor. They were seed ideas in the wings; watch them grow.

I liked the Clarabridge sentiment engine, which I saw in the Aptech Computer Systems booth (disclaimer: Aptech is a long time Softscribe client. I have their permission to share this secret sauce).

It was the first time I’ve seen business intelligence data and actionable guest sentiments (“Had a great stay but the refrigerator leaked all over.”) on the same page. That combo is easy on a marketer’s brain power and eyeballs. Similar solutions overload with too much information.

Also in the wings and discussions was XIPWIRE, which lets you “Mobilize Your Wallet.”

Remember how you donated $10 to Haiti Relief, texting on your cell phone and paying via your phone bill? Imagine being able to pay your restaurant tab the same way – from your table, via your cell phone and bill. Talk about sidestepping PCI compliance. And I hear tell it turns a table eight to ten minutes faster.

Mobile payment, digital anything and sentiment engines that measure emotion – not words – are just a few of the ideas that brightened up HITEC 2010.  Vendors were happy.

Softscribe’s hotel technology clients are part of the industry’s DNA.  Join us next year at HITEC 2011, set for June 20 to 23 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas.

Mainframes →Minis → High-speed RISC computing → PC LANs → ASP cloud →Handheld.

The force behind mobile-ready development, iPhone apps, and having a mobile-ready website goes way beyond being cool.  It is about company survival and meeting travelers where they are with effective tools to make business decisions.

Fast-moving business travelers today are not hairy-knuckled laptop draggers.  They use a handheld and breeze through airports stroking an iPhone, Android or Droid X to do their work.

Business travelers are power users. Mobile by definition, they use web phones to search flights, hotels and car rentals, and book millions of dollars in reservations based on what they see in their hand.

This is why mobile solutions, including iPhone apps and iPads, dominated this year’s HITEC (Hotel Industry Technology Exposition and Conference) in Orlando in late June.  Hospitality tech vendors know their solutions must be mobile-ready.  No one whips out a laptop to book a room or check a flight anymore.

The handheld future of travel is coming from companies like TripCraft with its mobile total enterprise platform.  This new system enables travelers to see an entire hotel chain with regional attractions, availability, and instant reservations for loyalty-powered bookings.  Its integration with Cendyn’s eCRM suite also lets travelers access their frequent-stay profile to personally engage the chain. (Cendyn is a Softscribe client)

With technology evolving to a smaller and smaller physical presence, the question is: what is next?  We give you a view into the future in our next blog entry – stay tuned.

What did you see at HITEC 2010? Let us know.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevendepolo/