Posted by S Swaminathan on Sun, May 30, 2010
Most often hospitality industry talk a lot about customer service at the property as a key differentiator to customer experience & satisfaction.
I believe this is not the case and most often, it starts with even before the customer visits the hotel or the restaurant of choice. Also, there are many a times, the post usage experience is forgotten and very rarely have I ever seen any credible data-led customer marketing intiatives in this phase.
It was interesting to see Intercontinental Hotels do very interesting customer marketing work in this area. Here are some interesting facts:
- Intercontinental Hotel Group’s (IHG’s) uses of data-driven marketing to improve communications with existing customers and prospects is an interesting case study for many hotel groups across the world.
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Lincoln Barrett, vice president for guest marketing and alliances, shared that, for IHG, building a customer-centric marketing strategy is based on 3 Key pillars:
- Invest in technology
- Expand into new frontiers
- Build a centralized customer organization
She was talking at the UNICA Marketing Innovation Summit in Orlando.
- She talked about the need for real-time data mart that would allow IHG to match the data it was gathering through proprietary and third-party sources to existing customer information.
- According to her this step also made it possible to gain immediate access to data for analysis or campaign building purposes – a significant upgrade to IHG's previous functionality, which updated records in batches and only made data available some 30 days after a customer incident (like a hotel stay).
- She talked about some interesting trends in hospitality Marketing - Right Time marketing, Channel Synergy, Glocal Communication, Non-member marketing etc.
Posted by S Swaminathan on Sat, Dec 06, 2008
Companies spend millions and millions of dollars running marketing programs to both acquire and retain customers. But, we do believe that in an increasingly multi-channel environment, companies will be able to realize multi-fold returns on their spends, only if they automate the marketing process. Erick Slack writes:
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block for companies debating whether to purchase a marketing automation platform is the fear it will be a high investment getting wasted. But if you're a business leader, you should really be concerned with how a marketing automation platform can increase sales. Whether you want to capture more leads, qualify the strength of leads or determine the value of leads after a marketing campaign, marketing automation platform can help, which inevitably results in higher sales numbers.
Integrated Marketing
Marketing-automation solutions integrate marketing and lead-management programs to improve their effectiveness. Criteria for determining the strength of leads can be combined with tools for permission-based emails, direct mail, customer surveys and market-research solutions to ensure that you're targeting the right customers.
Improved Sales Opportunities
Marketing automation also helps ensure that sales and marketing departments are in harmony about how to achieve the desired increase in sales. The software can provide tools, research prospective leads and conduct personalized marketing campaign services. According to strategist and business adviser Jill Konrath, "The only way to capture the attention of corporate decision makers is to create a very personalized message based on in-depth research of their firm."
Analyze Effectiveness
Marketing-automation software additionally helps you determine if your last marketing campaign was a boom or a bust. Whether campaign planning is done for short-term results or is part of a long-term strategy, you'll have access to real-time information about all of your company's marketing and lead-management efforts. Analytical tools give you the ability to track campaign success or failure, and can help companies create metrics and protocols for crafting consistently effective marketing campaigns. This results in more leads, which naturally boost sales.
Given these benefits, many companies have realized the value of having an automation platform for their marketing campaign planning and have proceeded to take action to show quick wins and expand, once a business case is built with the right ROI metrics.