Making email marketing affordable for small to medium-sized hotels, SLAP Systems has developed software and provides the start-up services that brings this new technology within reach of all hotels - from large international properties to small apartment hotels.
"In our decade in the hospitality industry, we have seen hotels miss out on new technologies too many times, developments that could have greatly benefited a lot of properties." Soenke Weiss, Managing Director of SLAP Systems says.
"Email Marketing is particularly well suited to hotels, as they traditionally have limited advertising budgets, a cost-cutting focus and a demographic target market, which fits the characteristics of the typical email and internet user. However, a property implementing a conservative e-marketing strategy was so far looking at an annual expense of up to $25,000".
"We have cut this expensive middle layer, blending the e-marketing process into existing hotel procedures. Our software is specifically engineered to handle the complicated management tasks such as database maintenance. The entire process is now handled by existing hotel staff, producing an e-mailing from start to finish - which is shortening the sales cycle and response times and more importantly, produces no ongoing costs. Email Marketing has shown great results to-date, with our first client, the Legends Hotel on the Gold Coast, recording a 108% increase in web site visitation after only 3 months."
"By deploying our software and introducing the recommended processes, we have been able to keep the total cost of implementing email marketing to less than the cost for a block ad in the weekend edition of a newspaper!" adds Soenke Weiss.
The edirect software can import contacts from a variety of sources, most importantly from popular Property Management Systems, such as Fidelio and Lanmark ranging to Microsoft Access and others. Maintenance tasks such as de-duping, email syntax checks and data-integrity examinations are automatically taking place in the background.
Edirect is capable of efficiently sending mailings to thousands of recipients through a dial-up connection, avoiding an extensive upgrade to existing hardware and Internet connections.
"Management of the entire process with a database of thousands of contacts and a weekly strategy will not take more than a few hours a week.", says Soenke Weiss.
Containing the entire process in-house literally reduces the ongoing cost to nil. As the software ships with a variety of professionally designed, re-usable and eye-catching email templates, even the costly design process is limited.
"Any hotel taking this serious and being smart about it can generate a return on their marketing investment (ROMI) they wouldn't dream of achieving in any other distribution channels."
An obvious obstacle to any aspiring e-marketer is the lack of email addresses on property and possibly how scattered they are and how inaccurate they might be.
Yet according to Soenke Weiss " …part of the installation process is the cleansing of any data the client already possesses. We then also look at opportunities of growing the client's database. We have shown great results in hotels, where, within 3 months of collecting addresses, the property has collected 4-digit figures from within the hotel alone."
The software conforms with requirements of the Privacy Amendment Act coming into force on 21 December 2001.
About SLAP Systems.
SLAP Systems Pty Ltd is a provider of software solutions and consulting services to the Australian Hospitality Industry.
Founded in January 2000, SLAP Systems is built on its director's combined experience of 23 Years in hospitality management, combining industry relevance and technical expertise in their software and services.
SLAP Systems' clients include Legends Hotel Gold Coast, Novotel Twin Waters Resort, Mercure Hotel Lawson Sydney and Pacific Resorts Australasia.
SLAP Systems is headquartered in Sydney, Australia and can be contacted on:
Web www.slapsystems.com
Email info@slapsystems.com
Phone 1300 55 7527 within Australia
+61 2 9410 3890 from outside Australia
Soenke Weiss
