Making Hospitality Marketing Customer-centric

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.
  

• 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. 

Data, Analysis key to Obama Campaign

When will Politics start using data analytics at an individual customer level. Apparently the Obama campaign did just that and made the political campaigning process that much more efficient. When will smart data usage for politics become a reality for the world's largest democracy,India.

Compared to Business marketers, perhaps political campaign strategists can find even more useful data, or more sophisticated analytics can make outreach even more effective. Imagine if they tapped into shopping behavior, economic status, and social network/Internet pattern use databases. Micro-targeting could allow a campaign to put resources where they would have the most impact. It could also provide individuals with an understanding of a candidate's position on issues of most interest. Some people might fear this level of knowledge is personally intrusive, but according to Steve Polilli: "I have to believe it would make candidates more responsive to the needs of the electorate. I also hope that it would alert the campaigns that some people such as me are completely turned off by negative messages".

The Obama campaign won more than only because of his motivational speeches. See how data was a key lever to this political campaign shown by Steve Polilli.

http://blogs.sas.com/sascom/index.php?/archives/391-Data,-analysis-key-to-Obama-campaign.html

Imagine a world where political organizations have the ability to use a precise mathematical fact-based science to create a one-to-one communication with voters based on in-depth personalized information culled from all available data. Check out more on this at:http://callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com/analysis/articles/21964-political-campaigns-discovering-predictive-analytics.htm

 

47% OF BANKS OUTSOURCE THEIR DIRECT MARKETING CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT

A new research report by data managers, CDMS, into total campaign management outsourcing amongst top UK Companies shows that a total of 42% UK Companies outsource their Direct Marketing Campaign Management. With companies realising the benefits of outsourcing marketing to experts their ROI calculations are rising from the piles.

http://www.prlog.org/10000463-47-of-banks-outsource-their-direct-marketing-campaign-management.html

Customer-facing analytics - building relevance to business

 

DM Direct has interesting article on how now it is important to take data, information & analytics from back-office to front-office if it has make business impact & drive ROI. At Cequity, we have been constantly talking to business leaders in different forums and also advising our clients that it is imperative to find methods to convert data into action in real-time. Else, given the huge data decay that happen over a period of time, one always tends to use data to analyze the past rather than influence the future or proactively manage the present. This is really where we believe enterprises must build competitive advantage with data analytics and data-driven marketing.

Take a look at  what the DM Direct article has to say about this:

We've all been through it. After a frustrating attempt to figure out a discrepancy in your phone bill online, you finally give up and call the company. After being transferred twice and speaking to three people who each had to validate your information and ask what the problem was the problem of customer-facing analytics takes on real meaning.

Improving Phone Interactions

Most people who call into customer service are already irritated. The best way to transform an unhappy customer into a happy one is to address his or her problems quickly, interact with the customer on a personal level, listen to (and document) their issues and provide information about what will happen next. A customer service representative armed with information can transform a bad situation into a memorable, positive experience.

For those instances when a customer calls into an organization for reasons other than a problem - for example to start a new service - customer-facing analytics provide the customer service representative the ability to capture information about a prospective client and tailor offerings to the individual's needs. For example, a phone company can sign up a family for the most cost-effective plan. Analytics provide the ability to cross-sell and upsell based on consumer patterns, versus promoting a cookie-cutter offering for all customers and making them feel that they're just another checkbook.

Personal Touch

In-person encounters with customers provide the opportunity to make a lasting impression. Any employee can be a company advocate in your campaign planning to create customer satisfaction, but one behind a computer screen can be a particularly valuable asset. In addition to providing good service, a customer service representative can ask better questions to serve a customer, provide insights into products that may interest the consumer and appear more knowledgeable.

As analytics improve, it's astonishing how good computers have become at "guessing" what you'd like. Netflix predicts what movies a viewer will enjoy based how the viewer has rated other movies in the past. Through the simple application of customer analytics, the Netflix Web site provides a valuable recommendation service. Customers expect this level of service, and it's becoming commonplace on successful businesses' Web sites.

Sales & marketing silo syndrome: a real problem

 

The CMO council recently released the findings of the Sales & Marketing Silo, emphasizing on how important it is for organization to have unified data sources for better customer management. Since data between sales & marketing need to be fused for increasing marketing ROI. At Cequity, we too see this gap existing in companies as a part of our client assignments. Enterprises need to effectively harness this data for increasing marketing ROI. Many companies have recently started to take steps in breaking this silo and ensuring there is better synergies between these two departments. Here are the survey findings:

• Less than 20% of respondents said that their sales and marketing organizations were "extremely collaborative", and most others felt that the two groups had "intermittent relations and interactions".
• Looking at the ways in which sales could add value to marketing messages and communications, survey participants felt that engaging strategically with customers to better understand their problems and needs was the most valuable contribution.
• Two of the most important roles that marketing can play in optimizing sales performance were cited as "fielding campaign services that generate and nurture leads and opportunities", and "providing customized value-selling content and presentation materials".
• Only 12% of sales and marketing professionals said that they have a well-integrated, real-time view of all customer interactions, and only 37% reported good visibility into prospects, sales pipeline, deal flow and conversion rates. At the same time, 20% indicated that marketing currently hands leads to sales but has no insight into conversion and sales closures.
• 13% said that most sales leads are never captured, qualified, or acted upon, while 11% reported that they have no on-premise or on-demand customer relationship system in place.
• Among those who have customer relationship applications, only 13% viewed the application as "highly valued and widely deployed", while 42% reported growing acceptance and adoption. And, while CRM systems tend to be mandated and adopted across the sales function, they tend to be more selectively embraced by marketing teams.
• Data analytics, reporting, and forecasting tend to be the biggest deficiencies in optimizing the functionality and usability of current customer relationship management solutions. The top three areas highlighted by nearly 50% of respondents were: the ability to easily create analytical reports; customization of the application; and forecasting capabilities.
• While 50% said they had "pretty good" or "extensive" visibility in to customer accounts and business activity, the remaining 50% said that they often had trouble finding customer account data, did not have enough information, or had no information at all.

Why are you still waiting to automate your marketing programs?

 

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.

Survey reveals telecom industry missing marketing opportunities

 

A recent survey by Valista reveals that mobile industry wants more streamlined campaign on-boarding and campaign management services. At Cequity, we do encourage telcos to start thinking CLCM (Customer Lifecycle Campaigns) which includes campaign planning for on-boarding of new acquisitions, defending the relationship in the first 90 days, reinforcing the relationship in the next 45 days and win-back programs if there is a churn amongst these customers. It needs to be a systematic and planned process of customer engagement. Take a look at what the survey revealed: 

"It can typically take months to introduce a new mobile campaign across all the carriers," Heeran said. "This clearly needs to change as many campaigns lose relevancy with each passing month and some campaigns are never considered because of the production time. Mobile service and content providers need to be able to react to the market quickly and provision new mobile campaigns in a more dynamic fashion."

 

According to the survey, the mobile industry could take better advantage of customer loyalty programs as a way to spur purchases of downloaded content.

 

"Surprisingly, none of the respondents said that they use any form of loyalty scheme as an incentive to increase content purchasing or encourage repeat buyers," Valista officials say. "Over 70 percent of those surveyed, however, use other promotions methods to entice customers to purchase more content, including discounts, free trials and product bundling."

Read more to find out how telecom companies can better leverage Loyalty Schemes and Campaign services.

Case Study: How Harbor Sweets uses customer data effectively

 

Harbor Sweets is a Massachusetts-based gourmet chocolate company that offers a variety of premium sweets. In 1973, the company emerged from humble beginnings when Ben Strohecker set out to create the "best piece of candy in the world." The result was Sweet Sloops, a sailboat shaped piece of almond butter crunch, covered in white chocolate dipped in dark chocolate and crushed pecans. Over the years, the company grew to feature additional candy lines and retail outlets across the U.S. Harbor Sweets also added a significant mail-order catalog division.

Their catalog program was successful in delivering sales during key holiday buying seasons, but the company also wanted to ensure that holiday mail campaign mailings- the main driver of catalog business - were maximizing sales. Harbor Sweets needed a solution that would efficiently turn existing customer data into actionable next steps for their campaign planning. Essentially, Harbor Sweets wanted to find out if removing a single mailing to "active customers" from the holiday mail schedule - which included mailings every month from September through December - would conserve marketing resources, while refraining from negatively impacting revenue or overall response rates.

Harbor Sweets conducted a suppression test, assessing how effective the holiday campaign mailing had been at driving sales. To measure the effectiveness of their campaign services Harbor Sweets mailed the catalog to everyone in December and ran a suppression test for September, October and November. The results were surprising. Harbor Sweets was actually hurting sales by mailing too many catalogs to customers during the holiday season. The results also found that the cadence for the catalogs could be reduced to three, while still achieving similar results.

Additionally, Harbor Sweets learned firsthand that it is imperative to be open to analyzing data and customer behavior in new ways. The more information available on existing customers, the more effective the software is in its results, whether it is predicting customer's next steps or customer attrition.

The results allowed Harbor Sweet to develop a long-term customer-centric marketing process for the future. Better target identification results in the revenue saved by removing one mailing is now applied to another mailing during non-peak times to provide customers with a more effectively targeted, timely catalog.

Take a look at this DM review article which talks about how we can leverage customer behavior information for better customer management