Hotel Sales and Marketing

How To Generate Revenue and Gain Market Share By Blogging For Non-Techies.

Have you ever read an article proclaiming that you must start blogging to drive new sales and increase customer satisfaction? These proponents never tell you how to make this happen or they use acronyms and technical terms that leave the reader dazed and confused. The purpose of this article is to clear up much of the confusion and provide simple advice in plain, simple English.

A blog is nothing more then a simple web page. The term blog comes from “web log" and was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997. It describes a basic website where regular entries can be made or read and is presented in reverse chronological order. Currently there are 45.3 million active blogs connected to the internet via 2.6 billion links. The Pew Internet Study estimates that about 11%, or about 50 million, of Internet users are regular blog readers.

Creating a blog is easy to do and requires no additional marketing or advertising funds. It requires a little time each and every week but it will help you attract new customers and drive revenue literally overnight.
There are many ways a blog can attract new customers, but there is one overriding reason to start blogging today. Search engines love blogs and your customers love search engines. Searchenginewatch.com summed it up in one sentence, “Your favorite thing about having a blog is that they naturally attract search engine traffic to your website.” The editors at WebSearch.com put it a little more succinctly, “Blogs attract more search engine traffic to your web site, period!
For example, Sydney Johnston the owner of Cyberweb Solutions depends on the Internet to sell her training course about ebay auctions. A friend suggested she try creating a simple blog for ebay enthusiasts. In less than a year, visits to her Web site jumped from 11,000 to 45,000 a month.
Why do blogs attract potential new customers? Most blogs are presented as static HTML pages in standard compliant designs. In short, they provide keyword rich content and are extremely easy for search engine spiders to access.
The most recent findings from Pew Internet & American Life tracking surveys show that about 60 million American adults are using search engines on a typical day. PhoCusWright claims three-fifths of online travel shoppers cite search engines as a top resource to research their vacations. Forrester Research found that 53% of business travelers use search engines to find information about a destination.
A blog can help you outsmart your competitors who are out-spending you in search engine optimization. For example, Tony Rothwell, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Creative Hotel Associates was born and raised in the UK. His blog provides first time British visitors with friendly advice, travel recommendations, shopping tips and restaurant recommendations. He also promotes his full service and mid-priced properties located throughout the US. As a result, Tony is viewed by his readers as an industry expert and advisor and not as a marketing professional trying to sell more rooms.
Bernadette Ruby, regional vice president of Sales for Extended Stay America Hotels, recommends that extended stay properties create a local blog for their long term guests enabling them to easily share information on neighborhood shopping, sightseeing, where to find cheap gas, even provide movie reviews.
Meeting Planners are attracted to the blog of Bill Todd who is both a motivational speaker and best selling business author. Over 200 tips and trends for meeting and convention planners can be easily accessed. This blog positions Todd as a partner, thought leader and advisor not simply another speaker promoting his services.
Kevin Brett, President of Hat Marketing, represents many of Orlando’s most popular theme parks and sightseeing venues in Europe. His blogs steer European visitors to his clients by providing insider tips on car rentals, lodging, advice on what to pack, when attraction lines are short, and where to find the best American food.
Blogs help you create a relationship and communicate effectively with clients. With very little effort these three bloggers build trust with clients before they arrive. As a result, they have tremendous advantage over their competition and have begun to strategically shift market share.
The least appreciated, yet most profitable reason to blog is it gives you the capability to communicate with and gain quick, honest and affordable feedback from your guests.
There is too often an assumption that because you have serviced a client in the past that they will gladly return to your hotel on future trips. Sergio Zyman, former chief marketing officer for Coca-Cola said, “If you don’t make the effort to tell your clients exactly what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and why they should continue to buy your product, they will ignore you and take their wallets to someone who will tell them those things.”
This new, powerful way of communicating with current customers will allow you to create customer evangelists. In his best selling book, “Blog Marketing”, Jeremy Wright tells us that, “… with blogging you’re engaging your guest who is reading your blog by choice. Every reader is choosing to interact with you and every reader wants to hear from you. This new communication tool empowers customer evangelists in ways that were impossible before blogs existed”. In short, word of mouth advertising is still the most affordable and effective tool you have. Blogging allows you to kick it up a notch.
Your brand is not just a logo brochure, advertisement or tag line. Your brand is the impression you leave with each guest you serve. Malcolm Gladwell, in his recent best seller, The Tipping Point states “… that even the small, very small changes in the way guests perceive you can have radical effect on your bottom line.”
The good news is, launching a professional looking blog can be completed in less than 30 minutes. So what are you waiting for? For easy, step by step instructions on how to launch a blog for free please visit www.BTodd.com.

About the Author
Bill Todd is a high energy, entertaining, speaker, motivator and sales trainer. He focuses on helping business to drive sales, generate more profits and quickly shift market share. Hundreds of leading sales and marketing professionals have adopted his powerful ideas and proven tactics. Pick up FREE articles, audio excerpts, sales tips and marketing ideas at http://www.btodd.com/ or call          301.633.5856      

How to out sell the competition during the lodging industry’s most competitive marketing year.

Bill Todd, hotelier and co-author of Speaking of Success is offering lodging professionals a free E-book detailing how to out sell the competition during the lodging industry’s most competitive marketing year on record. According to Todd, “During 2007, leisure travelers, meeting planners and corporate travel managers will be inundated by an avalanche of new competing sales and marketing messages. For the first time since 2001 individual hotels, management companies and lodging chains have armed their marketing people with substantial sales and advertising budgets. Collectively they intend to make a lot of marketing noise before for the year is out. Hotel customers will be hard pressed to differentiate between the array of sales messages that will be converging on them in 2007.”

Todd’s E-Book focuses on time-tested, proven and highly creative strategies for sales, marketing and advertising success in a competitive marketplace. He provides the reader with a unique insight into what differentiates the average sales person or manager from those high achievers who consistently out-perform their peers. He then clearly describes five proven success strategies that, when implemented, will have an immediate, positive impact on both the readers’ business and personal success.

Bill Todd, a twenty-five year veteran of the lodging industry is a recognized expert in hospitality marketing and sales. Today, he is a highly sought-after motivational speaker, sales trainer and executive coach. To download the free E book simply log on to www.BTodd.com/EBook

Looking For New Customers? Start First With Your Direct Competitor’s Clients.

Your overall success in prospecting for new clients depends upon identifying potential customers who need your product now and are comfortable with your price range. The good news is that your competitors’ clients fit the bill perfectly. In fact, year after year, research has confirmed that 17% of an average business’s customers would readily switch if simply asked. Over time, most dissatisfied customers continued to do business with their current suppliers simply out of habit.

Yes, this means that today, 17% of your competitors’ clients are ready to listen and switch. Remember it only takes one bad experience with your competitor for a client to be ready to shift their business. According to The Guerrilla Group, 68% of repeat customers who switched to a new supplier did so because of the indifference of just one employee.

One very reliable source of intelligence on your competitors’ clients is your very own staff. Many of your front line employees may have worked for the competition in the past. They can tell you who to call first.

For more great ideas and proven strategies on sales and marketing visit Hospitality Impact Marketing's website http://www.HotelImpact.com

TURNING DATA INTO DOLLARS

Too Many Numbers, Not Enough Time

Nightly occupancy analysis, weekly forecasts, monthly management reports, annual audits … if you’re like many decision makers today, you are drowning in data but may be starving for information – information that can boost occupancy and make your operation more profitable.

Reports can do more than tell you if you did a good job last night, last week, or last month. If you approach them as sales tools, reports can tell you the two most important things you need to know:
What Kinds Of Customers Want What I Have?
Where Do I Find Them?

More than Just Numbers

Let’s take a brief look at some standard reports that might be available to you from your brand, your management company or your reservation services provider:

• Distribution analysis – tells you how the customer is finding and booking your hotel
• Rate plan / plan code report – tells you what kinds of customers book your hotel
• Area code report – tells you where the customer calls from to the reservation center
• Denial report (by rate plan) – tells you when customers want your product
• Travel agency commission report – tells you who some of your biggest producers are and where they are
•
If three of your biggest clients are pharmaceutical companies from the Midwest … then chances are other pharmaceutical companies from the Midwest also come to your area!Corporate ID report – you may also receive reports that enable you to identify the companies, and therefore the types of companies, that use you based on the guest’s corporate id

In addition, there are a variety of other sources of data about your customers. These may include:

• Leads from the CVB or Chamber – tells you the kinds of customers coming to your area and where they originate
• Analysis from your state’s departments of tourism and economic development – again, these report tell you the kinds of customers who come to your area and where they come from.
• Business cards – the business cards of existing guests tell you the types of companies that come to your area and where they come from! If you are not collecting them – start today.
• Your competition’s parking lot and reader board. Remember, customers who want what your competition has … want you.

And this is where that Italian economist comes in …

More than a Theory

Over 100 years ago, Vilfredo Pareto discovered an economic principle that can make your property more successful … right now. It’s called “Pareto’s Law”, but you may know it better as “The Law of 80/20”. Technically Pareto’s Law states that “80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes”.

But it’s what Pareto’s Law allows us, as salespeople, to do that matters. The law of 80/20 allows us to separate the “critical few” from the “trivial many”. You don’t have to go after every customer in the world … only the ones that are like the ones that already use you or your competitors[2].

A Practical Approach to Getting More Customers

Pareto’s Law allows us to work smarter, not harder! It also points out where to spend your sales budget most effectively! Let’s look at how it applies to hotels
• 80% of your business comes from 20% of your market segments
• 80% of your business comes from 20% of your feeder cities
• 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers
• 80% of your energy should be spent on the 20% of your customers who are most profitable
• 80% of your innovation comes from 20% of your employees/customers

Armed with this information, you then know
• Where to make sales calls
• What kinds of businesses to call on
• What types of companies to direct mail … and in which cities
• Where and when you should advertise
• What message to use on a brochure, a website or an ad
• Where to place billboards
• Which visitor’s centers to stock with your expensive brochures.

Cutting Your Losses

Despite what some sales motivators might tell you, there is nothing intrinsically wonderful about going after the “impossible sale”. While you are spending precious time working on someone who doesn’t really want nor need what you have, think of all the customers who do. Someone else is selling them.

To put it another way:

FISH WHERE THE FISH ARE BITING
[1] As a sales tool, these reports must be shared with the sales department as well as operations.
[2] If you want a different kind of customer, you may very well have to change your product.

...Mary Wiley, Principal, Hospitality Impact Marketing          301.633.5856      

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