Social Media and Marketing

IN-DEPTH: Guests don’t distinguish when researching travel purchases online, so it makes sense to integrate messages and track across the online channels to be able to better understand how guests shop, according to Jo Hill, Director of Web & Interactive Marketing, EMEA, InterContinental Hotel Group.

Published: 25 Jul 2011

IN-DEPTH: Guests don’t distinguish when researching travel purchases online, so it makes sense to integrate messages and track across the online channels to be able to better understand how guests shop, according to Jo Hill, Director of Web & Interactive Marketing, EMEA, InterContinental Hotel Group.

By Ritesh Gupta

Travel brands are increasingly thinking about customer experience across all the touchpoints and developing integrated, aligned initiatives that deliver a consistent brand promise.

The approach of marketers has shifted toward tracking all marketing touchpoints and monetising across all online channels at once and not each in a silo. Each channel has a role and the return on investment is measured within channels. Also, travel companies now consider real-time outputs from single to multiple channels and have got the granularity to know which touchpoints are used by different audiences and can design specific campaigns to appeal to different user segments.

Berlin, Germany-based Bernd Neff, VP Brand, Marketing & Communications, Design Hotels agrees and says one needs to consider all touch points as a whole but it’s important to also review each channel individually.

“This should be done by monitoring first through last touch points, re-allocating revenues accordingly, and at the same time keeping track of global RoI,” Neff told EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta in an interview.

“It is true that more marketing teams are using touch points across all online channels. We have found guests don’t distinguish when researching travel purchases online, so it makes sense to integrate messages and track across the online channels to be able to better understand how our guests’ shop. We have found this leads to a more efficient use of marketing spend,” says Jo Hill, Director of Web & Interactive Marketing, EMEA, InterContinental Hotel Group.

Sabre Hospitality Solutions has been encouraging hoteliers to look at the overall impact of their promotions and campaigns via all channels for some time.

Other industries realised the billboard effect of their marketing a while back but for hotels this concept has taken a little longer to take effect, says Sabre Hospitality Solutions’ VP, E-marketing & Revenue Consulting, Paolo Torchio.

“The challenge has been in that different channels may have traditionally been managed by different groups within the hotel organisation, and sometimes not funded by a centralised marketing budget, which may have lead to these silos. With the integration of rate and inventory management across channels, more integration between sales, distribution and marketing and tracking tools that can cross channels this should certainly become more transparent,” Torchio said.

Focusing on travel shoppers

Recently, a study recommended that hotel marketers must move away from a singular focus on campaigns and more towards travel shoppers. And they should begin to move from a focus on individual channels to an integrated marketing approach. Repeat exposures across multiple channels reinforce your brand’s message and increase the likelihood of reservations activity.

Design Hotels’ Neff says repeat exposure has always been an important element in order to generate a conversion or reservation.

“What’s most important is understanding which channels are most likely to convince the user to make a booking, and at which stage of the shopping process,” said Neff.

Citing a recent example, IHG’s Hill said the group recently completed the biggest re-launch in the history of the hospitality industry with a £650million investment across more than 3,300 Holiday Inn hotels worldwide.

“This was something we wanted to shout about and something that’s relevant to anyone coming into a Holiday Inn hotel whether to stay overnight, or for a meeting, wedding or just a coffee,” shared Hill.

Numerous teams within IHG worked together to integrate the messaging across all touch-points, offline and online.

“Other messages might not be relevant for all channels though. For example, when we run promotions for members of our Priority Club Rewards loyalty programme we concentrate communications through the channels that can most effectively reach this audience, such as email or the Priority Club website,” explained Hill.

HSMAI and Vizergy’ s report, Engaging Online Travel Shoppers through Integrated Marketing, released last month, highlighted that the key to executing integrated marketing well is to identify the right channels frequented by your target customers and ensure consistent messaging and branding throughout the purchase decision process.

Also, the report mentioned: The Internet enables a buffet, where consumers get to pick and choose what fits their needs at a given time. Using the different channels in combination with one another often compounds their effectiveness, with each building on one another and producing a greater result than might be expected. For marketers, this is akin to adding 1+1 and getting 3 as a result. And when it comes to focusing on the right success measures, it has to be noted that consumers need different prompts at various touch points. Marketers often choose to measure the outcome of individual activities without measuring the impact to overall results. Keep in mind at all times that you may not be able to measure each component of your integrated activities, but you should be able to measure its outcomes. Some channels lend themselves more readily to measurement while others continue to challenge marketers.

Priortising as a travel marketer

Which is the best way to prioritise resources be it for SEO, SEM, PR, brand marketing, social media, CRM etc?

The recommendation, according to Paolo Torchio, VP, E-marketing & Revenue Consulting, Sabre Hospitality Solutions, remains to look at these as ways to reach consumers and have them take action in context of a strategic plan that clearly outlines what you are trying to achieve – going back to the marketing funnel: are you looking to acquire new customers through brand awareness, are you trying to engage with a consumer and push them to making a selection and convert or are you trying to build loyalty and advocacy.

“So it’s not so much about prioritising SEO over SEM but looking at which channel will give you the most effective desired result. This will of course also vary in terms of order or priority based on where you are with your brand evolution – are you building awareness for a new hotel opening or reflag or trying to promote a package to fill a need period. Each requires a different mix of these techniques,” Torchio told EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta.

Torchio says from a trackability standpoint obviously online channels are so much easier to show ROAS (Return On Advertising Spending) as well as turn on and off based on the real time results.

“But it is not just about tracking, as consumers spend more % of their “disposable” time with electronic media advertising spend should be proportional to that time spent. For example, if consumers are spending less time watching TV and more on social media or online video, should we not be channeling the proportionate amount of time to marketing in these channels?”

He further added, “There will still be a % of time spent with print and other online channels, and this may become skewed towards certain consumer demographics. If these consumers are in your target group a % of marketing budget should continue to be spent here, as always the call to action can move them online making the channel trackable.”