The right marketing tactics help hotels drive satisfaction
and build brand loyalty.
$32,800 per second. That’s the amount the U.S. Travel Association estimates U.S. travelers spent on residential and international travel in 2017. Add up all those seconds and the total spent for the entire year was $1,036 billion. If you are in the hospitality industry, you definitely want as big a piece of that pie as you can handle. One way to do that is by providing the best service to keep your consumers satisfied, coming back for more and recommending you to others.
Accentuate the personal
Personalization really matters to people. So much so, in fact, McKinsey found that technologies that personalize experiences for consumers lift your revenues by 5 to 15 percent and increase the efficiency of what you spend on marketing by anywhere from 10 to 30 percent. You have the data, from online bookings, customer service and on-site reservation data, that will allow you to capitalize on people’s love of personalization, but are you taking advantage of it? If not, you could be leaving money (and loyalty) on the table for another hotel to grab on to.
Even something as simple as a warm welcome at check-in or small in-room gifts will give your guests a warm and fuzzy feeling. And before you know it, you’ve created a customer for life.
Engage the data
Once upon a time, customer relations were about adhering to a set list of items to keep guests satisfied. With the advent of big data, gathering all the touchpoints that impact customers is too big a job for any one individual. Utilize today’s technology to help you find patterns to customer engagement. For instance, if you know that a guest typically has a drink with their dinner, consider texting them a coupon for a beverage so they will dine at your property’s restaurant that evening. Or, if your predictive customer data sees an opportunity to upsell, seize it. Say a family on vacation is checking out on a Friday, find out if you can sway them to stay the weekend with a discount offer.
All the big data that technology has made available to us today can be used to create more and better incentives that your loyal guests will actual want to use. Look at your regular guests to see what they do and use that to guide your efforts to keep them coming back.
Tap into social
It is easy for businesses, including hospitality, to fall into the trap of thinking social media is only about marketing. While it is definitely an effective tool for promoting your property or brand to the public, it can also be helpful in helping you better understand your guests and turn them into repeat customers. How? When consumers use social media, they are regularly giving you a peak into their own personal likes and dislikes. This intimate information not only provides you with insight into what is trending, but also what consumers’ preferences are. This is valuable data that you can use to better serve guests and make their experience more personal. And yes, now we’ve come full circle.
Keeping customers costs you less, believe it or not, then trying to capture new ones, according to Harvard Business Review. They found that it can be five to 25 times costlier to woo a new customer (depending on the business/brand) than it can be to hold on to someone who already uses your services or product. Loyalty is important, obviously, and keeping your guests happy and coming back for more should be super high on your priority list.
