It comes down to 2 things
1. Increase traffic Get generic / organic / more visitors without having to pay via google
2. Convert the traffic into sales
Most companies’ challenge lies in #1 above
Conversion and numbers:
• The benchmark for conversion is 0.5-1.0% (and 2-4% if we are in top notch form).
• Thus for every 200 visitors we will get 1 booking.
• Thus in order to get REAL numbers, we need to set traffic targets.
• To get to R500k in sales at R2 000 ARR, we need 250 bookings (if they stay 2 nights average)
• To get 250 bookings we need at least 40 000 – 50 000 visitors per month to your website
• This target can be tied in with the annual budget.
Where do we find 50 000 people to visit your site?
THE 5 THINGS
1. Get your target audience to share your content.
Publishing content that appeals to your target audience isn’t enough. You need influencers amongst your target audience to SHARE your content. For example travel bloggers, magazine columnists, radio and TV personality, influencers to help spread your content, to enrich their own site or blog or company’s content
2. Find out what you target audience care about. If you want your content (product) to be shared, you need to know what the audience care about or will trigger their interest
a. If you advertise, or email or host topics that ‘push their buttons’ you can create content that appeals to them
b. Example is infographics: ‘2 reasons to stay us’ or ‘R20 is all you will pay for a coffee’
3. Once you know what triggers them as per #2 above, create content twice a week on that topic.
a. Thus when you create content it needs to appeal to people in your audience
4. Add share triggers
a. These are called viral marketing or compound interest in the financial world
b. People share things to make themselves look good
5. Get your website to rank higher
a. Publish relevant, quality content at least once week. Via a newsletter, blog, write up, review or video of a new menu item. Anything and everything from new employees to new curtains! Share it on the your social media
b. Update your content once a month. New photos, change working around a bit, add a new section, post a new special etc.
c. Metadata: in the title, description, and keyword (done by webmaster)
d. Have back links. Hide a URL behind a keyword. i.e. link your booking engine behind the word rates
e. Use alt tags : Always describe your visual and video media using alt tags, or alternative text descriptions. They allow search engines to locate your page. Ross needs to action
Some questions arise from the above
1. Where / how / what do I find my target audience?
a. Conduct surveys on your website (‘take the survey and get a discount coupon’)
b. Look at google analytics and its trends
c. Look at facebook’s insights and run a couple of sponsored ads to diferrent areas, with different age groups and gender and see which combination yielded the best result
d. Use guest history stats from your PMS
e. Monitor your best and worst posts and see which worked better and single out why
f. Ask for feedback during the guest review email upon departure
g. Look at your competitor’s social media followers
2. How do we know what they care about?
a. The items ‘a’ to ‘g’ above will help indicate
b. Trial and error
It’s a marathon and not a sprint and its a long term strategy
Once we have the traffic numbers we can convert them into sales by offering compelling rates, offers and deals!
still lost? contact us now +27 21 551 7440 / jaco@hotel-revenue-manager.com
