Hotel Marketing – Stuck in the Year 2000
For more than 20 years, I have been working with digital media. In 2000, I started with marketing databases and CRM. Over the years, I have gained a pretty good overview of the activities within the hospitality industry, in particular when it comes to guest communication. Surprisingly, not much has changed in the past years. It seems to me that 99.9% of all hotels got stuck in the year 2000.
The world is moving faster and faster
This would not be problematic, if the world around us did not change. But this is not the case – it is moving faster and faster. Technology develops at almost exponential speed and along with it communication.
I do not want to talk about all the new channels, which are being used in marketing nowadays. I want to talk about e-mail marketing. E-mail is still the most important communication channel, even if some black-and-white thinkers believe that it will disappear. As a communication channel e-mail is 50 times more efficient than Facebook and Twitter combined. But when you look at the newsletters sent out by hotels from all segments, from 1 star to 5 stars, individually owned or multinational chain, you can see that not much or nothing has changed in the past 16 years except for the design.
Marketing for guests from North Korea
Most hotels still follow the scattershot approach, i.e. all recipients get the same offer at the same time. This would be okay in North Korea or any other totalitarian country, in which individuality is not very popular and firmly controlled. In our western world, however, individuality and freedom of individuals are fundamental. The hospitality industry still fails to offer the necessary personalization, which Online Travel Agents (OTAs) have been providing already for many years! The lack of personalized guest communication is one of the reasons why the industry is under such pressure.
The basis is missing – centralized data management
Only a few hotel companies use centralized data management, which has become standard for OTAs or online retailers. Thus, the industry is still far away from personalized automated communication. If at all, the approach is to work with target groups, missing out that each recipient is an individual and wants to be treated as such. Consequently, standardized newsletters should no longer be sent out. Each client should receive a personalized newsletter with content that is relevant and of interest.
The hospitality industry needs to open up to the topics of Big Data and centralized data management. Otherwise, they will lose the game. It will only be possible to bridge the gap to the OTAs, if the available data is collected and cleansed, i.e. the data is analyzed and used intelligently.
These are the seven most important data sources in a hotel:
- PMS
- EMS (E-mail Management System)
- Website
- Survey-Management
- WiFi
- POS (Spa, F&B etc.)
- Table Booking System
Not only can intelligent use of data bridge the gap to the OTAs, it also opens up a knowledge pool, which is significantly bigger and more valuable than that of the OTAs.
The available data helps to tailor the hotel's service offering to the guest's preferences and needs and also enables communication of relevant information at the right time via the right channel. Big Data does not mean anonymity and uniformity; it enables unprecedented individuality. This is what managers need to understand following the principle, "Either move with the times or be removed over time".
About dailypoint™ – Software made by Toedt, Dr. Selk & Coll. GmbH
dailypoint™ is the leading Data Management and CRM platform for demanding individual hotels and hotel groups. dailypoint™ collects data from all relevant sources such as PMS, POS, website, newsletter, or WiFi and automatically creates a central and consolidated guest profile. In 350 steps, the data is processed and enriched by means of artificial intelligence (AI) to create a guest profile like never before.
The cloud-based SAAS solution consists of 16 modules and is complemented by the dailypoint™ Marketplace with almost 200 solution partners. dailypoint™ not only offers measurable marketing, but also covers the entire customer journey and thus supports all departments within a hotel. The integrated Privacy Dashboard is also the central element for the technical implementation of the GDPR.
dailypoint™ is headquartered in Munich, Germany, and is sold and supported worldwide directly or through its distribution partners D-EDGE and XNProtel. For more information, please click www.dailypoint.com
Michael Toedt
Managing Partner, CEO
dailypoint™