PAII newsletter September 2015.pdf

10 Marketing Tips to Boost Profitability at Your Inn
by Scott Frangos
Innkeepers and hoteliers wear so many hats, that it can be hard to concentrate on lifting your marketing game. Fortunately we live in an era with
a wealth of online marketing resources and technologies plus research for boosting results. But the the best solutions go beyond tactics and
technology to the core of persuasion psychology. I’ve learned a lot about all this in close to 35 years in the trenches, so I’m pleased to share my
own top 10 list to help you win the quest for heads in beds:
1) Tri-Leverage your blog content: Make your blog do triple duty. First, write each blog post with highly relevant content to increase your
rankings. Second, use an automation tool (we like Hootsuite, or Delvr.it) to automatically push posts to social media — set it and forget
it. Third, set your blog RSS feed to go out monthly with excerpts from your posts and a special or two using a smart email service
like MailChimp (great pricing — send to 2,000 subscribers monthly for free).
2) Sell the sizzle, not the steak: Should a sailboard manufacturer sell the composition of the board, or the experience of sailing across the water?
Should a restaurant show it’s store front and food only, or sell the social experience the venue affords? Should an Inn show only its rooms
(the steak); or show guests enjoying breakfasts and heading off to local adventures (the sizzle)? You get it. Sure, it’s easier to settle just for
room and building photos, but you’ll sell more when you present the sizzle of the vacation.
3) Upgrade your Inn’s Social “Tradeshow Booths”: Recently I’ve reviewed over 100 independent “boutique” hotel and inn websites. Only 2%
are taking full advantage of the opportunity to present compelling images and an authentic presence across the major social venues. Would you
buy a tradeshow booth, then fail to have any photos of your property and locale? Worse, would you fail to staff the booth with friendly people?
The answer should be no to both questions, but innkeepers and hotel marketing managers are pressed for time, so often they only do this
well on one social venue (or “tradeshow booth”) like FaceBook. I’ll be doing a webinar on this soon, but for now remember to use attractive
images properly on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ (yes — this G+ is important in a number of ways including to garner reviews which place you
higher on maps), Pinterest, YouTube, Yelp, and LinkedIn. Pipe your blog posts to these venues automatically, and periodically use a time saving
tool like Buffer or Hootsuite to show up live in your tradeshow booth, field guest questions and post some engaging tweets.
4) Capture prospective guests before they reserve a room: I’ve seen many inn and hotel websites with some great package specials.
While almost all hoteliers have a basic contact form — it’s on a different page. Very few think to put a form on the special pages, and fewer
still think to give folks incentive to fill out the form. Why? Your webmaster can do this very affordably. And when you wed a form with a
smart “call to action” (ie. “Get on our list and we’ll send you our packages plus an exclusive special”) you’ll capture a marketing list of those
showing interest in staying at your hotel.
5) Test. Analyze. Test: What is your reservation system abandonment rate? How many people are downloading key PDF brochures at your
website? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you can’t make any improvements. Install analytics (we like Google Analytics, it’s
free but powerful). Then when you have a handle on key performance indicators (KPIs… this industry is full of acronyms), test your landing
pages for incremental improvements. We like to use A/B tests where every other visitor sees a different version of a page to test key elements
like headlines, graphics, and specials. Google analytics has a built in mechanism for this, and on average we see 20% – 40% improvements in
lead gathering. This tactic alone will boost profitability though it is often overlooked by your competition.
6) World Wide Web = World Wide Market: Our preferred cloud booking provider, Checkfront, has recently added translation features on booking
listings, and we’ve worked with hoteliers to configure translation systems (manual or automatic) for WordPress websites. Plug in translations
and turn on the power of an occupancy boost from international guests.
7) Make your OTA play pay: Get a smart Online Travel Agency (OTA) game plan and automate it so that your inventory system stays current
and up to date, you increase occupancy rates, and don’t lose bookings to competitors. I’ve written a longer post about an inventory allocation
technology we like. One opportunity a lot of properties seem to miss is allocating rooms to TripAdvisor, where millions surf each month. When
you fail to do this, TripAdvisor shows competitors in your area that have rooms in inventory. What about AirBnB? Think progressively and
embrace the breakthroughs of a new generation of travelers. Why not AirBnB if it will help you increase occupancy rates?