We at AccuBook agree an Online Marketing Plan with all ourt Hotel Customers on a yearly basis.
Although the Plans are all individually tailored in practise the content is very similar. It can be a useful exercise to address specific weaknesses, if for example a hotel is having problems creating and maintaining a Customer Database it may be useful to make this a target ie 'Add 100 Customers to the database per month'.(working to the old maxime that if you want to improve something measure it!).
In general our Marketing Plans are structued in 3 parts.
A. Results - What key targets are we trying to acheive, the most obvious one being online sales. (We might as well be honest here and admit that web companies do not speak the same language as busy hotel managers, but no one can argue with clear financial results).
- Turnover Value Month by Month
- Website Visitors on a daily basis.
- Search Engine Ranking for specific Keywords
B. Enablers - What has to be done to generate the results. We at AccuBook are a firm believer in content, content, content!!!!!!!!! In other words we believe the results above are driven by the content on the site. Typically we measure and encourage Hotels to add content to the site ie:
- Qty of Press Releases added to the site per month.
- Qty of Entertainment and Events added to the website per month.
C. Online Marketing Campaigns - In this category we try to encourage and measure what the hotel is doing to reach out to the customer. ie
- Qty of E Zines distributed in a year
- Qty of SMS Messages sent in a year
- Qty of Google Adwords 'Click Throughs' in a year.
- Qty of Customers in the Database.
A statistic we have added more recently to Marketing Plans is 'Conversion' ie how many people search for a room and how many actually book. Theoretically this should indicate how well the Booking Engine is being managed ie Are their rooms available and are prices being adjusted to suit demand? In reality there are a lot of factors that can effect 'Conversion' and this particular stat does need some 'translation'.
Buy-in - Finally, a successful Online Marketing Campaign in the hotel trade is without doubt a 2 way process. The Hotel and the Web Designer both have tasks to do. To cement this we again use the Online Marketing Plan by defining who has to do 'What' and 'When', and then get all parties involved to sign off.
It is said that there are Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics!!!!!. Setting some form of targets does without a doubt play a part in encouraging them to be met, but more importantly presenting the results on a monthly basis in a readable (graphic) format does help Hotel Managers assess what if any progress is being made.
We in AccuBook do not get over concerned with the make up of the stats so long as they are consistent. Instead we follow trends. ie Whatever a particular graph is telling us today, we want it to double by the end of the year!.
See a sample Online Marketing Plan here