Loading ...Did the Basics Perform?
In June 2008, HeBS laid out a comprehensive, reliable, and tested action plan for hoteliers for the rest of 2008 through 2009. We advocated ample, ROI-centric marketing budgets; online advertising; direct response initiatives; and aggressive budget tracking and analytics.
Almost a year later, we have decided to revisit our recommendations in order to provide you with concrete case studies—case studies that illustrate how the steps in our 2008-2009 Action Plan produced both results and revenue. Entitled Getting Back to the Basics Part II: Case Studies & Best Practices from the ‘Hotel Internet Marketing Trenches’, this examination put our own recommendations to the test.
Read on to see how our recommendations fared in this tough economic environment, or click here for the full article.
Analysis of HeBS June 2008 Recommendations
1. Auditing the Internet Marketing Budget/Plan
HeBS has multiple clients who, as recommended, kept the same budget in 2009 from 2008. One client, a luxury boutique hotel in Burbank, kept the same budget and had Q1 online revenues of $157,075 (up from $145,244 in Q1 2008) with 358 online bookings (up from 255).
By shifting funds from offline to online and concentrating on ROI-centric initiatives, HeBS and this luxury boutique client were able to increase Internet revenues even while this hotel’s competitive set was suffering.
2. Web 2.0 and Social Media Initiatives
While we warned hoteliers not to experiment with unproven and “sexy” new media initiatives, we have found that Twitter has been successful in generating buzz and promoting legitimate travel offers. Our recommendation still stands, however, that unless a website is actively used in the travel planning process, precious marketing dollars should not be spent advertising your hotel on these websites.
Successful Web 2.0 and Social Media initiatives included TripAdvisor CPC, particularly for a client in North Seattle; Twitter accounts, particularly for a client in Northern California who sponsors many events; and online Sweepstakes for a Nevada hotel and casino client. Creating relatively inexpensive interactive relationships with site visitors generates interest and site stickiness and ultimately increases bookings.
3. Website Redesign
HeBS always maintains that your hotel website, especially in this economy, must reflect current industry’s best practices in being: user-friendly, search engine friendly, travel booker-friendly, and Web 2.0 friendly.
In Q4 of 2008, HeBS redesigned the website of a boutique hotel in San Antonio. The redesign included a widescreen layout, intuitive navigation, flash animation, email capture, and Web 2.0 functionalities, among other features complying with industry’s best practices. One month after re-launch, online revenues increased significantly, and the website redesign paid for itself within 3 months of launch.
4. Website Optimization
By optimizing your current website, you take advantage of cheaper organic search visitors to your site. HeBS recently optimized over 100 pages of a Florida Keys hotel website for the most relevant keywords, fixed typos, deleted expired packages, and added pages that were necessary to accurately and more thoroughly describe the resort. The website now comes up on the first page for very relevant keywords such as ‘Resort in Florida Keys’ and ‘Florida Keys luxury resort,’ and traffic to the website is increasing month after month. Effective SEO optimization is the quickest (and perhaps cheapest) way to boost your website.
5. Paid Search Campaigns
Paid search on the leading search engines is the fastest way to increase your presence in all types of search (including meta search, web 2.0 search, local search, etc.). In Q1 2009, HeBS optimized the PPC campaigns of a resort-style family hotel near DisneyWorld Orlando by filtering out keywords that were not producing, adding keywords that were bringing people to the website that we were not already purchasing, improving our CTR’s by testing different versions of adtext, adding foreign language PPC, and by targeting very niche markets (i.e. travelers with pets). Since the optimization, ROI on the PPC campaigns has increased markedly, and in Q1 2009 reached 1173%.
6. Email Marketing
Last year, HeBS recommended Email Marketing to the hotel’s own opt-in list as one of the most cost-effective, highest ROI-generating initiatives available. This past March, HeBS sent out the monthly eNewsletter for a hotel client in Seattle Washington that included the latest hotel offers, events in the area, and email-only promotions. The open rate for this client’s March newsletter, sent to over 8,000 opt-in subscribers, was 30.5%; there were 207 clicks and revenues reached $7,164. The monthly technology fee is $250, making the ROAS over 2100%.
7. Online Display Advertising
We recommended sticking with online proven display advertising as banners often perform poorly. HeBS manages online display advertising for a major hotel brand across several important online mapping services used during the travel planning process with various multi-slide GIF and Flash banners featuring the brand’s value proposition (especially important in these tough economic times). The average ROAS in Q1 2009, including revenue generated from cross-sells, was 16.3 times.
Conclusion
Almost one year later, we still don’t know what the immediate future will bring; however, we may determine that with a comprehensive ROI-centric Internet marketing strategy, hoteliers may continue to generate incremental revenues and out-smart their competition. This is proven through evaluating case studies of the actual performance of our recommended Internet marketing initiatives. Concentrating on proven ROI-centric Internet marketing efforts, focusing on the Direct Online Channel, and carefully tracking every dollar spent should be your methods of propelling your Internet strategy in the future—even after the economy has fully recovered.
For further analysis, please read the full article: Getting Back to the Basics Part II: Case Studies & Best Practices from the ‘Hotel Internet Marketing Trenches’.
