Three things to consider in hotel distribution and marketing in 2012

Today’s hotel marketing landscape is changing rapidly. The advent of new distribution channels has created more options to truly personalize a strategy to suit the needs of your property. With that in mind, it was no surprise when a recent survey of Sabre Hospitality customers revealed that understanding new distribution and marketing trends presented one of the top challenges to their business.

When planning their online strategies, hoteliers regularly look for guidance on choosing the top trends to follow. Mobile, social media conversion, and channel management are three key areas where some of the most significant trends for hotel marketers are emerging. This article intends to provide an overview of each and what to look for as you plan your 2012 strategy.

1. MOBILE: This trend is number one for a reason: as computing and communications become increasingly personal and user-customized, the term refers to more than just smartphones with internet browsers. Obviously hoteliers must consider mobile as an important marketing channel, but must also be aware of the trend to expand on-property with the advent of NFC and other device-activated services. Below is a list of five tips to help maximize your mobile-marketing strategy:

• Start with an optimized mobile website and booking engine which considers user experience across multiple mobile devices, including tablets. Take advantage of this trend with an excellent mobile site designed to get your mobile visitors to the answers they are looking for quickly and efficiently, with the ability to book on every page.
• Think of mobile as its own channel so you can offer special rates, promotions, product descriptions as well as tracking specifically for this market.
• Take advantage of SMS/text message marketing programs. Guest can opt-in and receive messages pre- post- and during their stays at your property.
• Work with sites with geo-location services such as Foursquare, Facebook, Gowalla, and Yelp to offer promotions. Participate in the free marketing programs that many of these sites offer, such as adding links to your website and other social media accounts, uploading pictures or offering check-in deals and specials.
• Optimize your location for mapping and mobile search. Consider running a mobile targeted AdWords campaign with click to call and tailor your message to mobile users.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA: By now you have hopefully initiated conversations and established relationships with your customer base through various social media channels. If you’re a hotel or a hotel group, you will have an active presence on at least Facebook and Twitter, if not other channels, and use these to engage and retain fans of your brand. The next question is, are you using social media to convert?

In the past year, social media channels such as Facebook have created more and more opportunities for hotel marketers to use social media as an extension of their direct-to-consumer strategy.  Some areas to consider to help your business grow through your social media efforts:

• Leverage Facebook as an extended booking engine and include call to actions just as you would on your own website to prompt fans and new customers to book directly.
• Take advantage of push-marketing opportunities on Facebook and include a specially designed optimized landing page that encourages interaction and engagement.
• Update your own content with targeted tags for the channels that are right for your brand. Consider including new tags such as Facebook send and Google +1 to leverage your customers’ networks on the larger social networks.
• Plan your social media advertising campaigns with your marketing efforts on these channels, giving new fans and viewers the opportunity to easily convert and engage with your brand.
• Are you investing in remarketing to capture interested consumers? Remarketing is an advertising campaign directing users back to your website or social media profile after they have already viewed your content and clicked away, and can help you capture a segment that may not have otherwise converted using your channels.

3. CHANNEL MANAGEMENT: Even though hotels do not want to be dependent on third parties/OTAs, there is still a value to these partnerships in the overall marketing and distribution landscape. The Billboard Effect trend has been one that we have been telling customers to pay attention to throughout the year, and it is still relevant for 2012. Managing and maximizing your presence across channels, including OTAs, can help you use third-party relationships to drive business back to your own property website.

The Billboard Effect tells us that 23% more bookings direct to brand website when present on OTAs (Cornell study).

The average online travel consumer spends 10 searching sessions over and average of five weeks before a reservation is finally made, accessing at least 20 websites in total. Your strategy should embrace their research – but ensure that you offer rate parity across channels, and that your own property is optimized to convert and be the place that more customers choose to make their bookings.

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