Content Marketing

More about what you say online and how you should say it!  Content marketing is taking marketing to a new level.  Consumers are spending less time watching TV commercials, reading sign boards or magazine articles.

Marketing today is about relationships and engaging consumers online about things that interest them or appeal to them.  Reviews, even though 20% are fraudulent, can attract interest and help close a buyer's decision.

 



Thank you to our friends at MarketingCharts.com, here is a perspective on the lack of understanding behind today's B2B marketing.  These are companies that offer products and services to other companies, hopefully to help them deliver better services and products or to help attract buyers.  Clearly, there is a problem about how the companies in this survey apply, measure and perceive content marketing.

Content marketing has been described many ways, but a simple explanation of this valuable marketing technique is as follows ....

Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

The key to this definitions in this description are, "relevant and valuable content".  The days of just pushing the quality or value of what you are selling are gone!  Today with mobile content, online content, audio content and email and more, marketing its about knowing your objective and how to focus your text, pics and videos on that while you target the right prospects. 

As you push your content into the various digital marketing channels, you will know quickly if you are reaching your prospects and is your content resonating with them.  Measure results as you add or change content and shift your dialogue and what are the demographics and psychographics of those who respond.  Build your customer profiles and create content that fits your online market.    

Not what you say, but How you say it

For effective hotel and restaurant online marketing, you need to consider how you present your message, even more than what you say.  This is because the majority of website visitors find you as a result of a search and search ranking results are what capture the searcher.  Chances are the shopper does not know your brand name, unless of course, you are a franchise and then you have the issue of competing with the same brand in your local market.

Most search terms today are in a phrase or a question of 5 to 7 words.  Shopper keywords focus primarily on location, price, product/service and personal interests.  The greatest challenge to achieving the best search rankings and a productive presence is "change".  The objective of a search engine is to present the websites and blogs on page one that are have the most activity both on the site and in online social activities.  So how the content on your website changes and the frequency of change, plus the volume of social presence and engagement are key to reaching new consumers.

How do you achieve the volume and presence you need to win business online?  The answer is to commit the time and/or the cost to have the right people develop and apply optimized content, post photos, post videos and engage with customers and potential customers on an active scheduled basis. 

You need to be consistent, timely, current, brief and present real value in each message or response!  But, with all of this in your messages, you have to be social, sensitive and convincing.  Its all about how you say it.  How many times have you sent an email that was misunderstood? Same situation when conveying your business message or responses. 

So if you want to be found, you need to connect the dots and make some noise.

Successful Online Marketing is all About Connecting the Dots

We have worked with large and small hotels, franchise brand hotels and independent hotels for fifteen years.  What does our work include?  Well, our goal is to generate new business and more online sales for our clients.

As online and mobile sales continue their growth and soon the dominance of sales for hotels, we are growing with it.  From a detailed analysis of your businesses location, guest profiles, seasonality, local attractions and competitive advantages we develop your online and mobile marketing strategy and the services that are needed to make it succeed.

The dots for effective marketing are a combination of web and mobile presence, consumer access, online reputation, social push and pull engagement, website content and closure/sales.  Our methods paint a clear picture of the strategy that is needed, the implementation of the process and of course the return on your investment.

As the number of effective options increase so does the risk of success or failure.  This can only be determined with detailed ongoing analysis over a pre-determined timeline.  We provide ongoing analysis and we can pull the plug as needed and redirect your investment to new opportunities and methods.

From someone who knew about connecting the dots, Steve Jobs once put it this way .....

The Newest Hotel Marketing Channel

It only makes sense that TripAdvisor with their million of followers and customer service reviews is now moving to a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) advertising platform.  They are not taking the unpopular Online Travel Agent (OTA) route, but rather the Facebook and Google CPC path.  There are still ads on their pages to take consumers to the OTA booking engines, but this opens the door for an average hotel or a luxury property to coordinate their budgets for Google CPC, Facebook CPC, Twitter CPC and now TripConnect CPC and allocate expenses where they are getting the best Return on Invrestments.

Their new advertising platform is branded TripConnect!

HERE ARE SOME DETAILS ABOUT TRIPADVISOR > THANKS TO WIKIPEDIA ...

TripAdvisor Media Group operates seventeen travel brands including TripAdvisor, Airfarewatchdog, BookingBuddy, Cruise Critic, Family Vacation Critic, FlipKey, Holiday Lettings, Holiday Watchdog, Independent Traveler, OneTime, SeatGuru, SmarterTravel, Tingo, SniqueAway, Travel Library, TravelPod, VirtualTourist and Kuxun.cn. TripAdvisor operates websites internationally, including in the U.S., the U.K., France, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, India, Japan, Portugal, Brazil, Sweden, The Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Turkey, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Russia, Greece, Indonesia, and in China under the brand daodao.com and kuxun.cn.

TripAdvisor is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts.^[1] According to its website,^[3] TripAdvisor claims to be the most popular and largest travel community in the world, with more than 32 million members and over 100 million reviews and opinions of hotels, restaurants, attractions and other travel-related businesses. 

If you need some professional assistance managing the Web Marketing Channels?
Give us a ring at 01 678-769-4334

Hospitality Marketing Priorities

Customer satisfaction has always been a priority for the hospitality and dining industries.  As the impact on your business by social media engagement Tweets, Likes and G+ along with TripAdvisor and Yelp reviews continues to grow, the demand for time and social expertise is even more important.  How you promote your business effectively is no longer just a question which directory listings or how much is your ad budget.

How you optimize your review responses, tag photos, generate social dialogue and how fast you respond will affect your business.  Marketing methods are evolving and this is demanding a different set of rules and clearly a different set of marketing skills.  These skills go beyond the usual copy writing, trend analysis or advertising techniques.  Your marketing must take a Community Manager approach and build your own brand networks, followers and online fans.

More than half of all travel and hospitality sales are directly affected by your search rankings and your online reputation and social chatter is a dominant factor in forming the right reputation. Having a good ranking or star rating is a good start, but in the months ahead online shoppers and generation Y buyers will demand more information and easy access to online comments from past guests.

We recommend you set a clear marketing path with the right priorities.  Whether your hotel or restaurant is a small independent or a large franchise service, you need daily direct communications with potential guests online.  To allocate the right amount of time you need to know your marketing priorities and you need to measure your progress in a variety of ways.  A true measure is not just the number of Likes or tweets, nor is it the volume of room sales from a deeply discounted OTA website.

You marketing priorities are: (1) a current website whether you are an independent or brand service or not (2) consistent page one search rankings for relevant terms other than your name (3) a current and active social presence on Facebook, Titter, Google Plus, Pinterest and Wikipedia (4) a compatible mobile website not just your Internet site (5) A way to capture your guest's email address and opt-in for specials.  Let us know if we can help?  Consider integrating a package booking element for your website.  Add air reservations, car rental, limo services, dining reservations or other services to deliver a total solution for the online shoppers and enable a secondary revenue source.

Search Optimization Remains the Leading Online Marketing Investment

Here are the results of two recent surveys that show how SEO and PPC still dominate the marketing communities and the best solutions for reach your target markets.

Know your online shopper psychographics and demographics and you will find the right match with their online shopping methods.  Social media is dominated by females and Twitter is the choice for the younger set while Facebook is more personal with in a person's network or family connections.

In the end successful marketing is a result of giving up the time to monitor and engage with those who express an interest in your business through your online information.  You information should be more social than commercial and ask questions to better understand how you can meet expectations.

HAPPY SURFING AND OPTIMIZATION WILL CONTINUE TO BE YOUR BIGGEST WAVE!

Travel Social Media Marketing

When it comes to social media, what are some of the most prevalent topics people tend to discuss?  I can assure you their travel experiences, travel plans and travel dreams are at the top of the list.  Whether it is an experience on a business trip or on a vacation trip people around the world enjoy telling their stories, commenting on travel services and reaching out to friends and associates to hear about their travels.

The rapidly evolving world of online social media has opened the door for us all to exchange our travel stories, recommend travel services and accommodations and to reach travel service suppliers in a more personal way.  Hopefully, a way that will help the service providers maintain or improve their services and the value for the customers.

The ease with which we can now take a picture or even a video on our mobile phone has proliferated the use of social media regarding travel.  Much like the evolution of phones, internet and television over the past years, social media is bringing service suppliers and their customers together in a more personal way prior to the purchase and after the purchase of the service.

Here is an trend report to show how businesses are and will apply social media as part of their marketing strategy.

Currently, the social media channels with the greatest influence on the travel and hospitality businesses are YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Blogs.  LinkedIn is valuable for personal and professional networking, but not for expressing your opinion or sharing travel experiences.  It is important for all travel services to have a clear marketing strategy and an internal policy for how to engage your customers both when recommending social networking to customers and online in a public social network. 

Your online reputation and networking success is all about your responses to customer comments, engaging with customers or potential customers and sharing interesting or helpful information.  Always in a professional manner!

Social Media fore Business

I know we can see surveys, reports and expert blogs everyday talking about social media and its various aspects that affect different types of businesses.  Unless you are a social media user, these expert opinions seem a little extreme.  Extreme because your business Facebook page or Google Plus page, up for a couple months, has not produced mega sales.

The fact is that social media has simply expanded personal networking, a form of word of mouth advertising that has always existed.  Provide a great service or product and people will talk and the same applies for bad services and products.  The average age of online social users continues to escalate, so it is more than high school and college students engaging online.  Business executives, entrepreneurs and investors follow social media as an information source and to reach people with common interests.  Other social follower groups are shoppers, parents, sellers and buyers, all reaching out to see other people's opinions.

From a business marketing perspective, the goal is to reach past, current and future customers and convince them to join your networks and to speak out about your product or service.  How you reach out in the social media world will vary based on your product or services.  This is not new!  How you sell a car is quite different from how you sell a hotel room.  The common factor is public engagement with the buyers.  This not so much "in your face" advertising.  The difference is that it has to be perceived as more of a one-on-one engagement or conversation with your social follower.

The benefits of a successful social media initiative can be huge and very profitable.  But, as with all business success there is a cost element.  You get what you pay for!  Successful social marketing requires four steps:

1/ Strategic Plan:  Identify which social media websites, online or mobile you will start with and which will be added as you progress.  Keep in mind there is a difference in who is social online and who is social on mobile.
2/ Implementation Plan: Set your goals and create a schedule calendar for what and when you will post and advertise.  Monitor follower growth and demographics closely to help target your posts and engagement efforts.
3/ Implementation:  Commit the time, resources and cost to gain the best possible returns.  This requires a Community Manager that knows all aspects of your business, has finite writing skills and know how the social networks work and interconnect with search engine ranking results.
4/ Measurement Reports: Give it time to grow!  Facebook, like Rome, was not built in a day.  It took at least a week.  Review the various reports that are available with each social media channel and monitor for trends then take advantage of the trending. Track traffic to your website and responses to print promotions that were only accessible on your social networks.  A good example is to calculate the Facebook ratio of Talking About to the total number of Likes.  This ratio will give you an idea of how many active Likes and Facebook followers you have compared to one timers.

Social Media is for business and we've only seen the tip of the iceberg or is it network!

Does Your business Need a Google Plus Business Presence?

Here is a great news article to help markets to realize the value of a managed Google Plus Business Page ... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-fiorella/google-popularity_b_2561643.html

The operational challenge is in the quality and appeal of your content, potential for re-distribution and your update frequency.  It is important to try and generate a response or engagement with the viewer and to post no less than bi-weekly.  An effective page can help your search engine ranking position and attract business prospects.

New Facebook Graph Search

Finally Facebook has come forward with its search engine to challenge Google, but in a totally different search graph.  With Facebook Graph Search, the objects we search for aren’t Web pages but instead virtual representations of real world objects: people, places and things. The connections are primarily Facebook Likes. Did such-and-such a person like a particular photo? A particular doctor? A particular restaurant? Those likes are the ties that bind the information in Facebook together.

The pending question is how to integrate or attract people who do not express Likes or share Likes regarding services, places, things and so much more.  For the travel industry, Facebook Graph Search is a combination of TripAdvisor and Facebook.  But the TripAdvisor portion is less validated and limited to a person's likes and relevance to the subject.

Only time will tell ...