1.Don’t be afraid to continually adjust your market segment mix (markets change – we need to adapt) increase lagging market segments that are less reliant on external / macro environmental factors affecting production
2. Use web analytics (own website) once a month or quarter, take a look at your hotel’s referring domain report. This is the report that tells you which websites are sending traffic to you when their users click on a link to go to your website. If tagged correctly, you can see revenue by each referring domain. Not only can these reports help you measure success from PR efforts and digital advertising, but you may encounter additional direct sales channels you may not have been aware of investigate traffic trends vs specific time periods and filter out specific actions that could cause a rise in engagement and hits or visa versa
3. Trust but verify “Random spot checks and scheduled audits can reveal many opportunities” daily parity checks, see if channels are open and bookable, see if price is correct
4. If you can’t measure it – don’t do it: don’t heavily invest into marketing activities where we cannot determine the effect or measure rooms value booked as a direct result of those activities
5. OTA as an acquisition tool: OTAs are a sensible and meaningful channel. Treat the margin as a cost of doing business, and when that guest arrives to the hotel, create a proactive program to collect their personal information for remarketing post departure, incentivizing them to book direct on subsequent visits. Even though OTA do their best to ‘won’ the guest we should always offer compelling reasons to ‘take ownership’ of the client, these could be return stay incentives, reduced rate, unique return guest benefits
6. PMS data: Work with your front office team and go through the arrivals daily. Do not just look for existing clients, look for the people you don’t know. Look at their email addresses; you may find opportunities to negotiate corporate accounts identify arrivals, qualify them for possible 10 minute coffee with GM in order to get more info on company, travel with the aim to create relationship and obtain all future travel
7. Selling property enhancements Information and data are your best tools. Collect feedback from customers on what they want. What business can you get by adding to or updating the existing product? What business will you save by making updates? Having this information at your fingertips can help you proactively support the operations team when requesting the resources to enhance or update your hotel amplify the USP of the hotel, ie large rooms, self catering, ease of access etc
8. Talk to your call centre (switchboard / person taking the calls) The voice channel is an amazing resource of information. Call center agents can be the first to hear when something is not working (e.g. website). They also know when there are gaps in the information, (e.g. “people always ask how high the ballroom ceilings are.”) screen calls, get more info, don’t lose the sale, allow negotiations, give power to add value or slight discount
9. Pick up the phone I know your clients can choose how, if and when they want communication from you, but in this age of email and texting, some of your newer team members may rely a bit too much on electronic methods to prospect and communicate. Maintain contact with bookers, if they dropped off in production ask why, if their stays doesn’t increase, ask what can be done to get more
10. Check progress of top 10 sales channels Monitor what your team is doing to pursue and convert their top corporate and meeting planner prospects. Go over the competing properties for each event, review the planner’s pain points and hot button issues and what would push the decision in your favour. Actions per producer, goes hand-in-hand with point 9 above
(repost from original author)
