And just like that, evetything changed.

Everything changed, didn't it?

To say these are hard times for the hospitality business would be way past understatement – and it may well be hardest for independent hotels and resorts.  

It’s a chaotic marketing arena. Lead times are shorter. Your target now is within a 300-mile drive. Alternative accommodations are becoming an even bigger threat. ROAS as a measurement tool is out the window. So is the idea of a single-market budget based on historical data or what you’ve done in the past. Budgeting is going to be a singular thrill for a while. Covid-19 restrictions have put a damper on restaurants and spas as revenue sources. Groups business is as close to dried up as it gets. 

 
And the big chains have an edge with those rewards programs of theirs. 

There’s some serious re-thinking needed. You can’t just throw out a PPC campaign and get the business you want anymore. (Not that PPC alone was ever really good enough.) There’s a need for strategy.

But the one thing you absolutely cannot do is sit on your hands and wait for business to get better all by itself. 

Because it won’t.

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Do good, tell people.

Do good, tell people.

According to an article in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, Gaylord Hotels expects to spend between $10-$12 per room per night on new safety procedures. And, given the economies of scale at Gaylord, there’s a good chance that some smaller independents out there will spend even more per room.

It’s gonna add up.

And that’s where “do good, tell people” comes in. If you’re going to spend that kind of money gassing up your safety procedures in light of Covid-19, you really ought to invest some in letting people know you did it. And that you’re ready to welcome guests. 

Pick an amount that works for you. Maybe a percentage of what you’re spending on safety enhancement. Think of it as applying part of your total Covid-19 adjustment costs to marketing in order to make sure the rest isn’t wasted. However you come up with a number, it’s an investment. Because, not only do you have lost revenue you want to make up, but also, you’re spending more on equipment and procedures than you did before. 

It’s not really a question of whether or not you can afford to promote yourself with advertising and marketing communications right now. 

It’s more a question of whether you can afford not to.

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On good ads and doing them

On good ads and doing them.

George Tannenbaum is a LinkedIn connection of ours. He publishes the Ad Aged blog and sends out a newsletter version. George is one of those for whom common sense is a given. 

It’s a good read and always full of good stuff. Check that - it's a terrific read. Check it out here. 

We thought on recent post would be interesting to anybody who traffics in advertising. Here it is in its entirety: 

And here’s the part we hope those who won’t click through to Ad Aged will read anyway: 

"How to Tell if an Ad is Good." 

Surrounded by other ads, would this one get my attention? 

• Do I understand what the product or brand does?
• Do I like the product or brand? 
• Did I learn something interesting about the product or brand? 
• Am I interested enough to learn more? 
• Did I learn something from the communication? (A new feature, capability, offer.) 
• Was I persuaded to do something? Learn more? Clip a coupon? Visit a website? Buy? 
• Did the communication affect positively my feelings toward the brand or product? 

These are all good things to keep in mind when you’re evaluating work your agency brings you. This is what you want them to be doing. 

Reward them when they do.

You need money to make money. Usually.

Getting around the Catch-22 of your comeback.

“Catch-22 – a circumstance with mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.”

Which is to say, sort of like having to advertise and promote your property so you’ll be able to get business when things open up, but not having revenue from recent months to fund it.

But one thing is clear. You’re going to have to do something. You can’t just wait for the dawn to break and open up for business as usual. And any number of studies after recessions (which, in many ways, is where we are now) show that companies that maintain an advertising and marketing communications presence when the economy is down, come out of it faster and better than those who don’t.

So, back to the original question, how do you fund your marketing over the next 4-6 months? Be creative. Assuming they have your best interests at heart (along with their own, of course), your outside marketing communications firms should be willing to work with you. 

We certainly are. We’re open to talking about all sorts of mutually beneficial arrangements. Just remember what Somebody Smart once told us: “A deal isn’t a good deal unless it’s a good deal for everybody.”

And as far as media is concerned, they're most likely going to be open to some creativity when it comes to paying for things. After all, just like everybody else, they could use the business. 

Things have changed, and it’s time to think differently about a lot of things. So here are some ideas. They're geared primarily toward your creative partners, but most can apply to media as well.

Barter.
This works especially well if you’re a resort or in a vacation / getaway-friendly location. Sure, if you’re working with an agency that does a lot of hospitality work, they’ve stayed in a lot of hotels, but here’s the thing – they’re always working when they do.

Take it from us, staying at a resort or hotel and just going from a meeting to a photo shoot to a meeting to a presentation isn’t the same as chilling by the pool and seeing the sites around town for a few days. It may seem like a busman’s holiday, but it’s not.

Stretch out payment terms.
Maybe pay for three or four months of work in five to seven. OK, for the agency, it might be half a loaf for a while, but a) what’s good for you is usually good for them, b) half a loaf is better than none and c) if it’s a project, the agency will still see some income after they’re done.

Deferred payment.

There’s always the possibility of a “no payments for 60 days” kind of thing, perhaps for a small premium. Car dealers are doing it. Of course, the healthier the assignment, the greater the chances an agency will want to do it, but it’s worth exploring in any case.

Performance compensation.

This comes up in the Ad World now and then and the industry is fairly well split on it. We don’t see anything inherently wrong with our compensation being tied to performance, provided everybody agrees on the KPIs up front, and we’re pretty much free to do what we think will work best and have decent resources to do it. Nobody is going to want to take on a project where they get paid for performance unless they get to call a whole lot of the shots. “We’ll pay you based on how successful you are, but we’re going to dictate the approach” isn’t going to work.

Then again, if you’re working with somebody who knows what they’re doing and has a track record of success, you’re not taking much of a risk. Just don’t expect to pay on performance and get a deep discount.

This one may seem obvious and self-serving, but here it is anyway. 

A really good way to make limited marketing dollars go further is to work with an agency that will give you a lot for your money. Like maybe a small agency that can keep costs down and knows how to do a lot with a little and has 30 years of hospitality advertising success. (We can hook you up with an agency like that.)

Honest. There is a way to finance a marketing plan to promote your comeback. 

Just don’t skip doing it.

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"On logos" (A blast from the past - from 2015 actually.)

(This is a re-run of a post we ran in 2015. We liked it then; we like it now.)

That's a beautiful logo. So what?

An award-winning logo never brought anybody any business.

Neither has a really cool color palette or set of identity guidelines.

Those are all part of Branding – usually the domain of design studios and often confused with "Brand." Not the same thing. And in all honesty, it kind of honks me (me, Woody Hinkle) that design studios often seem content to let the distinction go unnoticed by clients.

If you've read anything on our web site or know anything about us, you know that the two things we do are Brand Development and Creative. We're not a design studio and don't seek out that kind of work. Oh, we can design a logo or web site and produce a corporate identity guide. And Frank (that would be ace art director Frank Salonek) can come up with a color palette with the best of them.

But we tend to try to avoid doing that stuff if the client doesn't have a clear Brand or until we've helped them develop one. What the hell good does it do to have a beautiful logo on a snazzy brochure if your marketing materials aren't telling anybody why the hell they ought to do business with you?

And I'm here to tell you right now in no uncertain terms that people don't do business with you because of your logo. We can go out back and fight about it if you want, but it's the truth

People will do business with you because of what you offer that the Next Guy doesn't. Or you offer it in a way that's more appealing than the Next Guy. That differentiation is what you have to clarify first. Then, you can make sure your Branding – the logo, ad campaign, tag line and all the rest (which we can and will produce very well for you thankyouverymuch) – follow your Brand.

While I realize that I can't paint everybody with such a broad brush, it has been my experience that design studios and PR firms often have one thing in common: They are focused on tactical things – what the logo looks like, what type face works best, what hot-diggity-dog cool stuff they can put in the web site, or what the message ought to be in the next press release.

And none of that stuff matters at all, if they aren’t working off a single Brand strategy.

Because your Brand is, well, it's the reason why anybody should give a damn what the hell you're selling.

The old joke about clients often revolves around "make the logo bigger." I'd say, make the logo second.

Do the Brand first.

"This is not my first rodeo."

The case for “been there, done that.”

Hotels and resorts will start to re-open before long and, in a way, it’s unnerving as hell. It’s kind of like we’re standing on the edge of a cliff and about to step off. 

That’s some scary territory down there – serious “we need to change what we are and how people look at us” stuff. A bigger boat is definitely in order, because that’s a big-ass shark of a challenge headed our way.

And it’s not a problem new PPC keywords or cosmetic changes to your website or nudges or teases or even Instagram alone can solve. It’s a lot more than that and gets down to some basic strategies about who you are and the overall thinking behind your marketing communications.

Which means you need somebody on the team who’s seen this movie already. There’s no substitute for experience.

It's almost like starting over - 

No matter what sort of hotel or resort you are – tropical, urban, convention, all-suites, all-inclusive, limited-service, suburban or luxury – you’re going to have to re-think a whole lot more than just your AdWords. Like who you are, how you do business and why the hell anybody ought to come by and stay for a few days. You’re going to need the kind of 360-degree thinking skills and knowledge of how hotels and hotel marketing works that one simply doesn’t pick up in their first five years in the business.

It’s going to take experience to pull the hospitality industry out of its current nose-dive, not just technology. The expertise a seasoned hand can offer was hard to get, and it’s precisely because of that experience that they can help. Someone who has stared into the abyss once or twice already will come in handy.

For example - 

If for example, you do a lot of groups business or you’re (yikes!) a convention hotel, your challenge is about as close to re-purposing as it gets in the hotel business. That calls for some creative thinking.

Here’s another example. Sadly, the younger, more junior people at companies all over the country were some of the first ones out the door when layoffs started. Many Millennials who are already saddled with college loans and not a lot of cash on hand are now out of work – so they’ll probably be travelling even less.

Your target audience just got older.

You’re going to want a message (and creative delivery of it) that resonates with that more mature, moneyed group. Somebody who can actually relate to that target is your best bet for getting that particular job done. Sorry, but most 20-somethings simply don’t know that much about how 50- and 60-somethings think and process.

The point is - 

There’s more, of course. But the point is, the expertise of Brand, advertising, public relations and marketing communications pros who can honestly say “this is not my first rodeo” and the breadth of their experience is going to . . . well, let’s just say it’s almost impossible to undervalue their contribution, as we head out into that post-Covid-19 world.

There's plenty of experienced talent out there you can call on. If you have an agency, make sure there’s a seasoned hand or two on your team. If you have anybody left in-house, think about getting some outside consulting to help out for a while. And if you use a freelancer, make sure they aren’t right out of art school. 

Because you are going to need a bigger boat.

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Take a look at the little things.

Take a look at the little things.

One of our favorite restaurants is the Tastee Diner, a local treasure here in Bethesda. The food’s good and the company is great.

And right now, like all Maryland restaurants, it’s closed.

But they’re still busy going over the place, top to bottom, painting, repairing, replacing, improving – all those things a 24-hour diner can’t do when it’s full of customers. They’ll be ready for the re-opening.

You can do that, too. With occupancy way down, this would be a great time to do a physical audit of every room in the place. Take stock. Tighten every screw, repair every scratch, replace every worn or torn in-room card. Make sure the lights all work exactly right, everything in the bathroom is perfect and there aren’t any worn spots on the carpet. Maybe even look at all the power cords for things like the lamps and the clock. Are they neatly secured or a jumble?

When was the last time you physically walked every single room in the place? Do you really think everything is perfect?

Look at the little things as a guest would. Check the details housekeeping can’t be expected to manage with a schedule of room cleaning. But things a guest would notice.

Maybe you don’t have the facilities staff on hand right now to make all the corrections you find. That doesn’t mean you can’t have the world’s best To-Do List ready when they come back.

God is in the details, as they say. Now’s a good time to take a close look at those details.

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