Is what you said what you still want to say?

Is what you said what you still want to say?

It’s quiet. Not a lot of guests in the house (if you’re open). And we’re all dealing with a new current reality and the promise of one down the road that's going to look a lot different.

So use the time to get ready for it. One smart thing to do, we think, would be to take a hard look at your Brand Promise and whether or not it's a relevant position going forward. Maybe it needs a bit of a refresh, what with all that's happened.

This is probably especially true for anybody who does a lot of groups business. That’s not going to dry up completely, but it could be a long time before it is what it was. And in the meantime you’re going to have to do something to take up the slack.

A refreshed Brand Promise you can build into your marketing messages will be a valuable tool in attracting the extra transient business you’re going to need. 

"We used to specialize in meetings but nobody’s having meetings right now, so we have lots of room for you” isn’t going to do the job.

But beyond groups, travel habits are going to change and you would do well to put some effort into figuring out if and/or how that affects your hotel or resort and how you may need to refresh your Brand to stay in the game. 

We're not advocating change for the sake of change. Maybe your Brand Promise is still on point and maybe not. Could be, you just need to change what you’re saying about yourself. What we're saying is you’d be smart to take a look. Sooner rather than later.

Hospitality is going to loosen up – eventually. But, like many other industries, it’s probably going to look different when it does. So, is what distinguished you six months ago going to be the same thing that’s going to distinguish you six months from now?

You need to figure that out.

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Make hay in the dark.

Make hay in the dark.

Because the sun will shine again.

The travel industry has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.
But it’s not going to last forever, and you can use this “down time” to make sure you’re ready for a Comeback. One thing you can do right now is read this great piece on Hotel News Now. Some good stuff there.

(We especially like the part about the importance of creativity going forward.)

Here are few of our own thoughts:

Give people a reason to book in advance. Flexible cancellations and no charge for re-booking are common practices these days, so why not offer a discounted rate for rooms booked, say in the fall – and charge one night’s cost as a non-refundable deposit? That could generate some revenue now when you need it. And you could even offer an additional incentive by donating a percentage of that one-night’s deposit to a good cause. Sort of a "buy now/save later" thing. Your guests can save on a future stay and feel good about doing it. There is actually a group that provides the means to sell a "bond" and save you all the trouble. "Buy Now, Stay Later." Check it out here.

Don’t disappear. The economics of the situation aren't too different from a recession. And it’s a fact that businesses who maintain an advertising or marketing communications effort in the down times come out of it much better and much faster than those who disappear. This is not an opinion; it’s a fact. And, as an independent, you need to realize that your chain competition is certainly not going to go dark. They’re going to capitalize on their rewards club databases and stay very visible to their most important audiences. 

Smaller advertisers rely on a steady, ongoing drumbeat to build awareness and compete in a crowded environment with bigger spenders. If you stop advertising, it will slow or stop the awareness you have worked to build, and the cost to regain it will be higher. Playing catch-up always is. 

Look for media opportunities. Like everything else, media channels are changing because of the virus. Keep in mind that the number of businesses, wisely or not, going dark, means media channels are more desperate for advertisers. That means they’ll be open to negotiation, and you can get more for your money in a much less crowded environment.

So look for new products and ask for discounts and delayed payment options so you can continue being visible but pay later when business has started to come back. Don’t buy straight off the shelf at rack rate. Partner with your media outlets.

Take a hard look at your IT and website. One thing you may have noticed is that the way almost everybody does business has changed and a lot of it is going to stay changed. Distance learning, virtual yoga, overloaded online banking systems and the like. So maybe now, while things are slow, you could tune up your IT capabilities, get your database cleaned up and get the kinks out of your website.

There’s more you can do. We’ll share more ideas, and you’ll probably have some of your own. But the key to this is your mindset. Don’t hide and just wait for the crisis to pass. Plan ahead. And set yourself up for quicker success when the world opens back up for business.

It’s going to get better one day. The question is whether you’re going to be ready to take advantage of it or not.

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People don't stop thinking about sex when they go to work

People don't stop thinking about sex when they go to work.

They don't stop thinking about potato chips, either.

People are, after all, people.

And the same people who book hotel rooms and arrange for offsite meetings or contract for professional services, also buy cars, beer, auto insurance and movie tickets.

Which means you’re competing for your target’s attention with everybody who sells those things. So, doesn’t it make sense to use the same tools – especially creativity – those guys use? Of course it does.

There are two components to any decision, the intellectual part and the emotional part. In the hotel business, the intellectual part is what you have to offer – location, how many restaurants, whether or not you have a spa and so on.

The emotional part is how excited anybody gets about it.

That’s where creativity comes in.

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Simplicity

This is a simple headline. 

Thoreau implored us all to “simplify.” Occam’s Razor says that “entities should not be multiplied without necessity.”

At Nasuti & Hinkle, we go for the “do a few things and do them well” approach.

There are so many marketing toys and gadgets independent hotels can play with these days, it can give you a headache. Chat boxes, price checkers and pop-ups on your website, retargeting schemes, Facebook lookalike marketing, metasearch, geo-fencing, commission-only advertising, sponsorships, whirligigs and whimsies – more than anybody needs.

And there’s an army out there busy trying to sell you new ones.

Thing is, you can’t do them all. Or even most of them. Not with any real degree of effectiveness. The more of them you try to incorporate into a limited marketing budget, the less impact any of them will have. Doing a whole lot of things halfway probably isn’t going to do as much for you as being more selective and aggressive. 

It’s really pretty much like back when advertising only really employed print or broadcast. Running a small ad in a dozen magazines wasn’t going to have as much impact as running bigger ads in the six that would do the best job of reaching your target.

So maybe it’s worth taking a hard look at who you want to reach, what you want them to know and what the best channels are to do it.

Remember when your mom wouldn’t let you get a new toy unless you got rid of an old one? It’s the same kind of thing here. When you’re drawn to a Shiny New Thing, ask yourself which of the Shiny Things you’re already using it ought to replace.

It’s sort of like choosing between whispering to a whole lot of people or shouting to a smaller, better qualified group. 

 

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You hotel competes with Geico.

Your hotel competes with Geico. And Amazon.

And between the two of them, they spent $2.8 billion on advertising in 2019.

This is reality: Any advertising anybody does anywhere is, in a very real sense, competing for attention with all the advertising everybody else does everywhere else.

That means when you advertise, you're not just competing with other independent hotels. Or even any kind of hotel or resort. Not on this particular battlefield. You're competing with everybody.

Advertising - whether it's digital, email, print or broadcast - is a battle for share of mind. And share of mind is the kind of thing that can tilt a travel decision in your favor. It's the kind of thing that can take price out of the decision equation.

There is an astonishing array of tech gimmicks and digital advertising gizmos out there for you to choose from, but there has to be some art to go along with the science if it's going to work. 

That's where creativity comes in.

Creativity is what makes a smaller budget work harder. Creativity is what allows you to compete on that advertising playing field.
 
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Your ad agency has one? Do you?

Your ad agency has one. 

Your web design firm has one.

Your PR firm might even have one.

Do you have a creative director?

Hold on, you might be asking what do I need a creative director for? Good question.

With a good answer. Unless the idea is to somehow blend in with your competitors, it’s a good idea to deliver your Brand position at as many touchpoints as you can. And if you do it with some creativity, that’s even better.

Remember, every guest is a potential return guest – and if they found the experience more engaging at your hotel than Some Other Place, it’s more likely they’ll come back. And not just when you have a special offer that appeals to them, either.

And, if you’ve ever read anything we’ve written about hotel marketing, that pretyy much fits right in with our belief that competing mostly on price is no way to run a railroad.

So, circling back to our initial premise, there’s a good argument to be made for someone thinking about the on-site experience. Is everything about your hotel or resort expected? Look at things like the Do Not Disturb door hanger, the card keys, the names of drinks in the bar, what you call your specials and offers, holiday decorations in the lobby, signage, wi-fi sign-on, in-room cards . . . all of it.

It’s unlikely you’re going to hire a property creative director. And you may or may not feel you can cover the responsibility in-house. That’s cool. Lean on one of your outside agencies for some creativity and spread it around. If they are any use at all they’ll be happy to do it. Eager, in fact.

The point is, creativity is a practical tool for delivering your Brand in a point-of-sale kind of way. It shouldn’t be confined to your ads and your website.

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Has SEO overrun your website?

Has SEO overrun over your website?

It’s pretty simple, really.

Branded searches are far and away the most effective searches. That means if you deliver your Brand in external communications, people are likely to come looking for you, not just people who look like you.

Which is kind of the idea.

It’s not that you should ignore the potential of SEO. It’s just that maybe it’s not a good idea to let SEO-driven web copy overrun your website. The point, after all, is to communicate. And using 12 words when five will do, makes communicating more difficult. Especially, for example, if you're using some of them over and over in an attempt to manipulate search engines. Keyword stuffing is a big mistake and can actually hurt your SEO performance. So pace yourself.

There's this from an article in Search Engine Watch last year (emphasis added):

"Search engines are in the business of connecting an audience with the content that will satisfy their search intentions, which means they use algorithms that do their very best to favor high-quality, informative content. When content isn’t written for a human audience, but is instead structured to game an algorithm, the result is usually a spammy and artificial read that doesn’t serve a site visitor’s needs and (in almost all cases) doesn’t deserve their attention.

"Consequently, keyword stuffing is rightfully considered a black hat technique that goes against SEO best practices."

Say you’re a South Florida hotel. Don't load up on "South Florida" ticklers, like mentioning that you’re in South Florida and the weather in South Florida is pretty terrific and there are great restaurants in South Florida and the whole family is gonna love it in South Florida and South Florida is easy to get to and those South Florida beaches  . . .  hoo boy!

Never mind the problems keyword stuffing presents, is that sort of thing going to draw people to your property? 

And then there are the sites full of references to “downtown” or “center city” when the property, well . . . isn’t. That’s not even honest.

There’s real value in SEO, just don’t count on it for everything and don’t turn your website into a word-heavy SEO repository. Because your primary target ought to be people, not algorithms. 

And you reach people with advertising, PR and social media.

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