How eMarketing affects your Profit Margins
January 29, 2008
There is a fine line between being online and having a presence online. And, depending on which side of the line your hotel lies on will have a major impact on your profit margins.
Today’s eCulture has ensured that majority of hotels at least have an Information website where potential guests can learn more about the hotel and the amenities offered. Within this segment, approximately 60% of hotels have an eCommerce element that ensures that they can close sales instantly online. However, despite hotels taking these steps to capture a share of the online market, many are still not reaping the benefits of having an online sales engine (eCommerce-enabled websites).
The question then arises is ‘Why?’ - the guests are online, the hotel is online, the hotel has a payment gateway which allows them to accept and confirm bookings instantly. So why are the online sales figures so low?
The answer is simple ‘If your guests can’t find you how are they supposed to book!’
The key to changing this dismal scenario is marketing or more precisely eMarketing. eMarketing is a general term for a wide array of activities - advertising, customer communications, branding and relationship-building efforts, loyalty and retention programs, and more - all of which is conducted over the Internet. It involves much more than creating a website, e-marketing focuses more on communicating online, using a customer-directed dialogue with your company to find new prospects, increasing loyalty and making it easier for your guests to book at your hotel. In short, e-marketing are all the things your hotel does online to find, attract, win, and keep guests.
Here is a list of online options* which will help you build your hotel’s online presence and drive traffic towards your hotel website:
Banner Advertisements
A graphic file which when ‘clicked on’ takes potential guests directly to your hotel website. Banner advertising is mostly used to drive traffic to your website. It invites a call-to-action such as – “Want to vacation in Goa. Reserve a room today.”
Banners advertisements are a popular form of advertising and come in different shapes and sizes as you can see on large portal websites such as www.rediff.com, www.msn.com
Classifieds Listings
Like newspaper classifieds, online classifieds are a powerful way to place your hotel in front of people who are ready to book. The strength of online classifieds over offline classifieds is that users can search for exactly what they want very quickly through clever indexing technology (product, price, location, etc)., Also, because of the technology advantage, online classifieds extend not just to traditional classifieds but also online auctions which offer a whole new way of selling products and services.
Email marketing has two options
Apart from email, more people search the Internet using search engines such as Google and Yahoo more than any other application. Most people who don’t know where to find what they are looking for on the World Wide Web start at a search engine. Therefore, optimizing your hotel website or getting listed on a search engine is a great way to attract attention online. It is important to make sure your site is registered with all the major search engines. Some of these are free, others cost money. If you have a little more money you can actually buy keywords. For example, if you hotel is located in Rajasthan, India and you buy the words “Rajasthan, India, Hotel”, your website will be display on the results page whenever someone uses any of those to search.
* Online marketing can be broadly categorized as any or all of the options above. Each method is purpose specific and has its particular strengths and weaknesses. Before you invest in any eMarketing, make sure you are using the appropriate element that will deliver the outcome you need.
January 29, 2008
There is a fine line between being online and having a presence online. And, depending on which side of the line your hotel lies on will have a major impact on your profit margins.
Today’s eCulture has ensured that majority of hotels at least have an Information website where potential guests can learn more about the hotel and the amenities offered. Within this segment, approximately 60% of hotels have an eCommerce element that ensures that they can close sales instantly online. However, despite hotels taking these steps to capture a share of the online market, many are still not reaping the benefits of having an online sales engine (eCommerce-enabled websites).
The question then arises is ‘Why?’ - the guests are online, the hotel is online, the hotel has a payment gateway which allows them to accept and confirm bookings instantly. So why are the online sales figures so low?
The answer is simple ‘If your guests can’t find you how are they supposed to book!’
The key to changing this dismal scenario is marketing or more precisely eMarketing. eMarketing is a general term for a wide array of activities - advertising, customer communications, branding and relationship-building efforts, loyalty and retention programs, and more - all of which is conducted over the Internet. It involves much more than creating a website, e-marketing focuses more on communicating online, using a customer-directed dialogue with your company to find new prospects, increasing loyalty and making it easier for your guests to book at your hotel. In short, e-marketing are all the things your hotel does online to find, attract, win, and keep guests.
Here is a list of online options* which will help you build your hotel’s online presence and drive traffic towards your hotel website:
Banner Advertisements
A graphic file which when ‘clicked on’ takes potential guests directly to your hotel website. Banner advertising is mostly used to drive traffic to your website. It invites a call-to-action such as – “Want to vacation in Goa. Reserve a room today.”
Banners advertisements are a popular form of advertising and come in different shapes and sizes as you can see on large portal websites such as www.rediff.com, www.msn.com
Classifieds Listings
Like newspaper classifieds, online classifieds are a powerful way to place your hotel in front of people who are ready to book. The strength of online classifieds over offline classifieds is that users can search for exactly what they want very quickly through clever indexing technology (product, price, location, etc)., Also, because of the technology advantage, online classifieds extend not just to traditional classifieds but also online auctions which offer a whole new way of selling products and services.
Email Marketing
Email marketing has two options
- The first is to place an advertisement or a banner in a related online newsletter. This is a great way to neatly target your audience. All you have to do is find a newsletter that is sent to the desired target market and you can market to that group very effectively!
- The second form of email marketing is by actually publishing a newsletter. This is a great way to keep top of mind with your guests. You can offer a ‘Sign up’ option on your hotel website, ask departing guests for the email information, etc.
Apart from email, more people search the Internet using search engines such as Google and Yahoo more than any other application. Most people who don’t know where to find what they are looking for on the World Wide Web start at a search engine. Therefore, optimizing your hotel website or getting listed on a search engine is a great way to attract attention online. It is important to make sure your site is registered with all the major search engines. Some of these are free, others cost money. If you have a little more money you can actually buy keywords. For example, if you hotel is located in Rajasthan, India and you buy the words “Rajasthan, India, Hotel”, your website will be display on the results page whenever someone uses any of those to search.
* Online marketing can be broadly categorized as any or all of the options above. Each method is purpose specific and has its particular strengths and weaknesses. Before you invest in any eMarketing, make sure you are using the appropriate element that will deliver the outcome you need.
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