PAII newsletter September 2015.pdf
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10 Marketing Tips to Boost Profitability at Your Inn continued…...<br />
8) Smart questions win reservations: Do you have a bland, standard “contact us” form, or do you ask about prospective guests interest in weddings,<br />
wine tastings, local tours, and events, then deliver an auto response that caters to their desires? A good WordPress plugin, or smart forms<br />
program (Wufoo is one, plus we offer 1-2-3 Forms for all our clients) will facilitate this. One example is how the form at a mini-site we just<br />
built for a hotel client, will send a PDF weddings brochure if respondents indicate an interest in weddings, or different information if a different<br />
interest is selected on the pop-down field.<br />
9) People buy on emotion — use it as a sales tactic: I know this is difficult for the scientific mind to accept and a lot of innkeepers have backgrounds<br />
in accounting, finance, business, economics with a no nonsense mindset. Ok. Just realize that the same science shows, in study after<br />
study (here’s a recent one), that even though you may believe you’re making a nice rational decision about where to stay — emotional arguments<br />
win more guests every time. Just one of many tactical examples — smiling guests versus a tidy but empty room photo. Sure… you can have a<br />
nice room photo in your booking engine, but should they be primary on top-level web pages? No. Sell with emotion. Sell the sizzle.<br />
10) Your stories engage prospective guests: Humans love stories. When a story is told well, we live within it — every fiction lover knows<br />
this. So, smart innkeepers and hoteliers will keep this in mind when writing blog posts and website copy. Don’t just tell me about your inn —<br />
instead tell me a compelling story detailing a particular visit, celebration, event you’ve held… so I can place myself in the story and in your hotel.<br />
This way I’m in the scene and more likely to book a room.<br />
11) BONUS TIP: Become a connected concierge: Lodging industry studies show that a good percentage of guests list smart concierge services<br />
as a bonus in their stay with you. The most successful hoteliers and innkeepers we’ve seen go beyond a simple list of local tourist attractions<br />
(which you should have and deliver automatically to guests and prospective guests), to setting up cross promotions with local tour operators, and<br />
event promoters. Imagine if you can offer a special to your guests for a tour of a local winery? It’s a win-win-win for you, the winery and the<br />
guest. Most of this relies on your negotiating and business connection skills along with key memberships in the local chamber of commerce and<br />
similar groups. Our preferred cloud booking platform, Checkfront offers a “partner” technology where you can set-up discounts with event promoters<br />
and other businesses. You can even give them a snippet of code to place on their own websites, so people can book rooms there for your<br />
property. Imagine a winery, or jazz festival even website showing and helping book your rooms. The Checkfront system automatically updates<br />
you, and pays a commission to your promotional partner. This gives you a powerful local travel agent (I like to call that an “LTA play”) option<br />
and makes you a well connected concierge.<br />
12) BONUS TIP: Smartphone-Ready Booking AND Website: I almost left this one off, because the overwhelming statistics and so the parroting<br />
by “experts” must have already reached you — the percentage of guests booking on mobile devices is rapidly increasing. Great… you know<br />
that. Now when’s the last time you took a look at your website on a small screen smartphone? Do it. Too many times I see sites without true<br />
mobile ready (browsing with fat little fingers) booking systems. Worse… I’ve seen a number of websites whose booking pages are mobile-ready<br />
but getting there is very difficult because the main site is not optimized. If you can’t click a small<br />
little link to your reservation page with your finger, then your site is not mobile ready.<br />
-<br />
Contributed by: Webdirexion, LLC<br />
4400 NE 77th Ave. – Suite 275<br />
Vancouver, WA<br />
http://webdirexion.com<br />
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