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Takeaways from HSMAI digital marketing event

Capturing the attention – and business – of digital consumers increasingly requires hoteliers to make tough decisions about everything from website design to data analysis and blogging topics. And hoteliers are being confronted with these decisions at a breathless pace, experts said during the HSMAI Digital Marketing Strategy Conference 2014, held in New York City.

“There’s a blurring of marketing and IT,” said marketing expert Porter Gale, laughing about old-fashioned “annual” marketing plans people used to follow. “Now more integration needs to happen and there needs to be a shift to real-time planning.”

The relentless growth in mobile device use is a key factor driving change throughout hotel organizations.

  • 97% of people have a cell phone within three feet of them, giving consumers a tool to instantly amplify their feelings, Gale said.
  • 50% of all direct online bookings will be made via mobile devices by 2017, said Cendyn executive Anthony Parker.
  • More than 50% of Marriott.com’s traffic already comes from mobile bookings, said Andy Kauffman, Marriott’s vice president of global e-commerce marketing for more than 4,000 hotels.

Website design ‘responds’ to consumers

Of the cutting-edge digital marketing strategies underway, the overhauling of hotel and brand websites into smarter sites that “know” something about who is accessing them requires the biggest commitment.

Marriott International, for example, is in the midst of making all of its brand websites “responsive,” the term that refers to presenting content in a way that provides consumers with the best experience on each different device. The goal is to prevent them from having to scroll and swipe too much. The process will take up to two more years.

“Users don’t ask you for responsive. Business stakeholders don’t ask for it,” Kauffman said. “But we know we need to deliver responsive (design) due to the proliferation of devices.”

The rapid evolution of mobile devices is requiring experts to design for devices that don’t even exist yet, he said.

The shift to responsive websites, meanwhile, is forcing Marriott and others to make bets on which pieces of content to include – and exclude – on the smallest screens where space is tight. Smartphone users, for instance, don’t want to spend time looking at every single small detail about a hotel property that they might want to see on their larger laptop screen.

The investment should ultimately pay off as Marriott’s internal tests have shown that consumers who visit a responsive site are more likely to make a purchase, Kauffman said.

The company is in the midst of migrating Marriott.com to responsive design, with the renhotels.com website for the Renaissance chain already completed, he added.

As a hotel moves from non-responsive to responsive design, the most important aspects hoteliers must get right are clear navigation, prominence of information on hotel rooms, prominence of map information and hotel photos, said Bryan Estep, vice president, international, for buuteeq, a software company that provides digital marketing platforms for hotels.

The next leap after responsive is “adaptive” design, which takes site organization further by delivering site visitors content that is personalized and more relevant to them.

Regardless of design, the next generation of digital marketers must focus on engaging consumers with the best content a hotel can offer.

“Now that you’ve developed great content you have to deliver IT based on the device your customers are visiting you with,” said Michael Bennett, managing director, Digital Marketing & Strategy at KSL Resorts.

The HSMAI Digital Marketing Strategy Conference 2014 was held last week in New York City.
The HSMAI Digital Marketing Strategy Conference 2014 was held last week in New York City.

The KSL organization has fully embraced big data while working with Cendyn, Bennett said. The firm helps KSL collect guest data such as how often they visit, how much they spend and who they are and match it against third-party data such as credit card information and Neilsen Internet viewing data. “The quicker we get in engaged with big data in terms of how it influences the way we buy media, the better our rates of return are,” Bennett said.

The payoff can be rich. As an example, he cited KSL’s success with Facebook Exchange, the real-time bidding ad system. Using findings gleaned from big data, KSL can target the right consumers. “The reality is we can’t spend enough on it,” he said, citing a US$13.50 dollar return for every US$1 spent on ads that consumers see either on their Facebook wall or on the side of the page. While click-through rates are low, the people who do click are highly likely to buy, he said.

Making choices using data

Peter Kim, CEO of 18-month-old MightyHive online advertising firm, said more hotel companies are striving to use internal data to inform their media buying decisions.

“Aggregating data can create knowledge that hotels can use for marketing purposes, personalization, upselling and merchandising,” Kim said. Hotels would do best to focus on internal data since any value gained by using public data will be temporary until rivals figure it out, he added.

For one large non-hotel client, MightyHive used its call center data to increase bookings. A typical large company with a call center – including hotel companies – would be happy if 40% or 50% of callers make a purchase, Kim said. But given that people who called showed “serious intention” about buying, MightyHive can leverage their information to increase that figure.

Within 24 hours of a call, MightyHive targeted the large company’s callers who had not made a purchase with ads on Facebook and other websites. The ads “doubled the likelihood that someone will come in and purchase,” Kim said.

No doubt people are overwhelmed by the possibilities. One new client recently told Kim, “I’ve been told to use data. Were do we begin? I don’t know where to start.”

Data is helping hotels solve problems that in the past might have been written off as a money losing mystery, according to Patrick Bosworth, CEO of Duetto, a revenue strategy solutions provider.

While running the revenue management team at Wynn Resorts in Las Vegas, Bosworth recounted a story about a problem that could have been solved with today’s data capabilities. The Wynn’s Expedia agent told him that they were seeing unusually low conversion rates – and extraordinarily high search numbers – for a few dates in July. There were rumors on Twitter about an event people weren’t then familiar with – the Electronic Daisy Carnival.

“It was one of largest electronic dance music conferences in the world but we had no idea,” Bosworth said. “We had no way in our booking to see what dates were being queried for.”

Ultimately, the festival’s Las Vegas booking was made official and Vegas rooms sold out in about 16 hours. At the time, Wynn had promotional rates as low as US$119. “By the time we raised the rates to US$399,” Bosworth said, “we had already sold 80% to 90% of inventory. By 7 p.m., we were at 103% occupancy. That told me I didn’t have tools I needed to make decisions.”

After the festival, hoteliers estimated that tens of millions of dollars were lost as a result of failing to predict demand.

 


Contributed by Barbara DeLollis

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