Hospitality Marketing Blog Has Moved!!!

Our Blog offering marketing advice and insights for small luxury hotels as moved.

Find us and solid marketing information at Hospitality Marketing Blog . com.

See you there.

Safe Travels – Madigan Pratt

 

Email – Double Opt-In or Don’t Bother

What happens when you don’t use a double opt-in process? Presidential candidate Barack Obama sure found out the hard way.  Pranksters signed up prominent anti-spammers to Mr. Obama’s email list and included derogatory first names.

Personalized emails that included these rather rude first names were then sent by the Obama campaign to these unfortunate individuals.

When setting up an email marketing program for small luxury hotels we always recommend using a double opt-in process for capturing email addresses.  This follows industry best practices.

Double opt-in increases the quality of your database and building relationships with customers and prospects for small luxury hotels is more about quality than it is about quantity.

Share your thoughts on double opt-in.   Safe travels – Madigan Pratt

 

The Death of Advertising – Part III

In the previous post I showed how television viewership of the Oscars has plummeted over the decades and suggested the Internet was somehow involved.

Wham!  Today I received The eMarketer Daily newsletter and low an behold – there it was…research from the International Data Corporation (IDC) showing the average time spent per week watching TV vs. on the Internet vs. reading newspapers.

If you want to know where people are – it’s on the Internet.  In fact, folks 15+ years of age spend twice as much time on the Internet then they do watching TV.  A whopping 32.7 hours/week for Internet vs. only 16.4 hours for TV.

Let the global brands waste their money on TV.  As a small luxury hotelier, you’ll do better fishing where the fish are.  Good luck! 

What do you think?  Do you believe these numbers?  Safe travels – Madigan Pratt

 

The Death of Advertising – Part II

Last month I wrote a short article on The Death of Advertising.  Although I wasn’t planning on writing a sequel an article in yesterday’s New York Times prompted me to do so.

The article was about The Oscars and included television ratings back to 1960.   In 1960 when Ben-Hur won The Oscars the program had a rating of 45.8!  That means that 45.8% of all households with television sets (virtually every one) tuned in to watch the show.  An amazing figure.

The average rating for the show over the past five years however has been  a measly 23.7 – almost half of what it was in 1960.  Guess people have more interesting things to do today than watch television.  On the Internet maybe?

This is good news for small luxury hotels that can’t afford TV.  Let the chains waste their money chasing after the elusive (and increasingly downscale) television viewer.  Stick to personalizing your quest experience before, during and after their stay.

That’s the way to build brand advocates and positive word-of-mouth advertising.  Do this and you’ll succeed where chains oftentimes fail even without TV advertsing!

Let me know what you think.  Safe travels – Madigan Pratt

 

Create More Brand Advocates in 2008

Are you looking for a profitable New Year’s resolution? Why not resolve to create stronger customer relationships and more Brand Advocates for your luxury hotel.

The linkages between relationships on one end and profits on the other are well documented.

• Research from the prestigious consulting firm Bain & Company shows that depending on the industry, when firms retain just 5% more of their best customers, corporate profits can be boosted 25 to 85%
• There are numerous studies reporting that companies lose between 10% and 20% of their customers every year. At the high end, this equates to a 100% customer every five years.
• In the seminal book on the subject, “The Loyalty Effect”, Frederick F. Reichheld informs us that companies with the strongest customer relationships grow at close to twice the industry average and do so more cost effectively.
• In a 2004 McKinsey Report it’s stated that the average business spends $100 to acquire a new customer and only $10 to keep one.

Creating stronger customer relationships and building Brand Advocates offers a bonus – positive Word-of-Mouth. Studies abound showing recommendations from friends and relatives is the most effective advertising a company can have.

Richheld says is best: Customers who show up on the strength of a personal recommendation tend to be of a higher quality – that is, to be more profitable and stay with a business longer – than customers who respond to conquest advertising, sales pitches or price promotions.

So if you would like your luxury hotel to be more profitable in 2008 – resolve to strengthen customer relationships and build more Brand Advocates.