Tips For Monitoring and Evaluating Hotel Marketing Plans & Activities
Effective monitoring and evaluation of hotel marketingA system of interrelated activities formulated to plan; price; promote and make available the servic... plans and activities is crucial for the growth and success of any hospitality business. Here are some tips to help you monitor and evaluate your hotel marketing plans and activities:
- SetSet: Allowing an item to go from a soft or liquid state to a firmer more solid state. clear goals and objectives: Before implementing any marketing plan, it is important to set clear goals and objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). This will help you to measure the success of your marketing activities against the set objectives.
- Use analytics tools: Use analytics tools such as Google Analytics to track website traffic, engagement, and conversion rates. This will help you to identify which marketing channels are generating the most leads and conversions.
- Monitor online reviews: Monitor online reviews on sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Google My Business to gauge customer satisfaction and identify areas for improvement. Responding to reviews, both positive and negative, shows that your hotel values feedback and cares about guest experiences.
- Conduct surveys: Surveys can provide valuable insights into customer preferences and satisfaction levels. Consider using surveys to gather feedback on your hotel’s services, amenities, and marketing campaigns.
- Analyze competitor activity: Keep an eye on competitor marketing activities and adjust your own strategies accordingly. This can help you to stay ahead of the competition and identify opportunities for improvement.
To measure the success of a marketing plan done by the sales and marketing teams, all marketing efforts need to be carefully measured. This will help to identify if such marketing efforts were successful and cost-effective, and also the data can be used for future marketing activities.
All marketing activities or plans need to be evaluated regularly so that any corrective actions can be taken from time to time throughout the marketing cycle.
Key Monitoring Methods Used for Assessing the Hotel Marketing Plans:
- Market Segment Report: All reservations generated via particular market segments need to be tagged correctly to the reservation. For example, bookings generated by corporates, leisure, relocation, etc. are tagged to each reservation to identify which market segment the bookings were generated.
- Source Segment Report: All reservations generated via particular booking source segments need to be tagged correctly to the reservation. For example, bookings generated by email, phone, website, etc. are tagged to each reservation to identify from which source segment the bookings were generated.
- Log and Compare Restaurants Covers: For F&B outlets after a marketing activity, the sales or marketing team should compare the number of covers sold daily before and after the marketing activity. If the increase in profit or revenue is less than what you have been spending for the marketing activity then you need to re-evaluate the marketing strategy.
- Use of PROMO codes: Using unique promotional codes for each marketing activity can help the team track the number of conversations happening directly with the result of such a marketing campaign.
- Use of special telephone numbers: Using a special contact number for certain marketing initiatives can help the marketing team track calls or inquiries generated via marketing activities.
- Use of VoucherVoucher is a document supporting a business transaction. codes: Using vouchers for each marketing activity can help the team track the number of conversations happening directly with the result of a marketing campaign.
- Tracking online advertisement: If you are using Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Linkedin Ads, Twitter Promoted Tweet, email database marketing, etc. then you should also effectively track them using Google Analytics or other similar analytics tools. This will help you to set Goals, Campaign codes, Campaign Medium, etc. for effective visit tracking and also helps you to track your Return on InvestmentInvestment is the money loaned to a company either by way of a debt (liability) or equity (stock). (ROIReturn on Investment (ROI) is A measure of a company's profitability; expressed in percentage as net...) for such online promotions.
- Attach a Source Profile: For tracking room or hotel bookings it is ideal to create a special rate code or a package rate for each marketing activity. These special rates are then attached to the profile type source. All bookings generated via marketing activities can be either automatically mapped to these special rates and source profiles; either manually by the reservation team or automatically mapped with new-age property management solutions. Later the marketing team or top management can pull out productivity and forecast reports based on source profiles or rate codes.
- Keep track of sales team productivity: The Director of sales should pull out productivity and forecast reports by market segment, by the sales manager, by booking source code, by source profile, repeat business percentage, etc. to regularly track and monitor the productivity and performance of sales and marketing team members.
- Track Goals by sales persons: On every quarter the director of sales should evaluate the performance of each sales team member. For example, if a sales manager was assigned to 1000 sales contacts or leads then he should at least contact 70% of these leads by the end of that quarter.
By following these tips, you can effectively monitor and evaluate your hotel marketing plans and activities, and make data-driven decisions that will drive growth and success for your business.
