Half 1: [Group] Content material is King
Let’s say you go to your favourite on-line retailer to purchase one thing new. You anticipate to have a number of choices to select from and also you’re looking for the most suitable choice that matches precisely what you want, at the most effective value.
Now think about you’re offered with a number of product choices…some have loads of particulars, photographs and specs to make an knowledgeable buy resolution, whereas others have restricted particulars that may require you to spend extra time researching to confirm if it’s what you need.
Since you’ve a number of choices to select from, you don’t need to spend so much of time researching or validating buy choices—which one do you think about?
The identical idea applies to your lodge’s on-line presence for teams. How thorough are your property particulars in comparison with different motels in your market? Are you presenting your self in the most effective gentle for teams and planners to make a well-informed resolution, quick?
And, is your lodge showcasing its particulars in the best locations? It’s all about the place you possibly can appeal to group audiences which have a excessive degree of intent, in any other case you may be losing time, effort and cash.
Digital advertising is usually a tough and costly funding for hoteliers endeavoring to face out from their comp set. Ideally, you’ll desire a strategy to seize assembly planners’ consideration as they’re looking out and sourcing motels for his or her subsequent program.
On-line advertisements and paid placements in e-RFP methods are sometimes a crapshoot, usually leading to an inflow of RFPs for planners whose applications aren’t an excellent match on your lodge—losing your and the planner’s time within the course of.
So what does a hotelier do?
Partly 1 of this text collection, we dive into lodge advertising for these focusing on the revenue-generating group and occasion enterprise. The group journey business is evolving, and fortunately, so has the way in which we market to and e-book teams, conferences and occasions. Contemplate the following tips and finest practices to assist shine a brighter highlight in your lodge for group audiences.
Advertising to teams is evolving, right here’s how you can keep forward
A SHAMELESS BUT SINCERE PLUG
In case you haven’t heard, GroupSync is shortly turning into the main on-line lodge market for looking out, sourcing and reserving motels for teams. It’s designed to assist planners discover and e-book the most effective match motels for his or her applications, whereas lowering sourcing complexity for each the planner and hotelier.
To assist hoteliers get essentially the most out of GroupSync, there’s distinctive choices that permit motels to transcend the essential and customise their GroupSync presence by providing want dates and incentives to planners as they search motels. Hoteliers can even management their profile web page by including in depth, group-centric property particulars—akin to taxes and charges, buyout alternatives, facility guides, restaurant menus and extra.
Whereas we could also be biased in how nice GroupSync is, the very fact stays that it’s a game-changer for the way in which teams, conferences and occasions (massive and small) are booked. And we’re simply as stunned as you to see it take this lengthy to turn into a actuality—an answer to a decades-long business drawback.
The query is, how do hoteliers evolve as properly, and what steps can they take to not solely make extra gross sales, however accomplish that extra effectively?
HIGH-QUALITY, GROUP-CENTRIC CONTENT
The adage “content material is king” is simply as related to lodge advertising as it’s to different firms’ efforts to advertise their services and products. You’re promoting your self in a lodge market chock stuffed with competitors.
So how do you stand out? The important thing to efficient on-line lodge advertising is being the place your viewers spends their time, whereas placing your finest foot ahead with high-quality content material that presents your lodge as a really perfect possibility for teams.
Most motels present their fundamental data via Northstar Journey Group or their model’s property administration system. These databases then serve up the content material to leisure journey web sites and e-RFP distribution methods. The identical content material is seen by many various kinds of patrons, from assembly and occasion planners to people happening trip. The small print being marketed might not resonate with a gathering planner in the event that they’re household leisure-centric and vice versa. Particulars and relevancy issues—hoteliers will need to current the suitable content material to the suitable buyer, on the very best time.
If hoteliers have the chance to take management and customise their content material, they will present curated particulars to their supposed planner and group audiences. Whether or not your content material is below your direct management or managed via your lodge model’s property administration methods, creating a robust, related on-line presence is essential to maximizing your visibility and attractiveness on-line.
GROUPS AND PLANNERS NEED RELEVANT HOTEL DETAILS
By offering thorough details about your lodge, you’ll not solely enhance your alternatives to bid on enterprise, however you’ll additionally present a greater reserving expertise, for you and your buyer.
In case your lodge particulars are informative and available to a planner, you save time by lowering the quantity of back-and-forth communication. A planner could make an knowledgeable resolution, and you’ve got extra time to take care of the enterprise of the day.
TELL AN ACCURATE AND BETTER GROUP STORY
For example, GroupSync receives its lodge content material from Northstar Journey Group. Whereas the data supplied is sufficient to assist planners as they supply properties, many fundamental lodge profiles might not include the deeper, particular particulars or documentation that helps planners make selections simply and shortly. Whereas savvy hoteliers see GroupSync market as a chance to make an important impression and appeal to extra enterprise.
Listed here are methods to strengthen your profile with differentiating particulars that affect the decision-making course of.
- Make certain your property data is correct and updated, whether or not straight on GroupSync or via your model’s property administration system. GroupSync is built-in with these methods and updates lodge profiles on the platform day by day.
- Create an outline of your lodge that’s directed towards planners and teams.
- Add supplies into GroupSync that exhibit artistic methods a planner can host occasions at your amenities.
- Embrace gross sales brochures, facility guides, ground plans, restaurant and banquet menus and different supplies that illustrate what makes your property distinctive.
- Define your varied taxes and charges so a planner has a full image of doable prices.
- Show a whole checklist of your assembly areas together with their sq. footage.
Use any form of documentation to spark a planner’s curiosity in your property so long as it doesn’t embody a listing of competing motels, akin to a Conference & Guests Bureau information. Save promotional or time-sensitive data on your lodge profile’s Gives part in GroupSync.
ADD AND MANAGE GROUP-CENTRIC PROPERTY IMAGES
GroupSync affords the choice so as to add a vast variety of photos to reinforce your profile, which you’ll be able to reorder by precedence. These choices fluctuate in accordance with your lodge model’s property administration system.
Contemplate what a gathering planner wants and desires. Trace: It’s in all probability not the identical sleeping room shot from 10 angles nor a photograph of youngsters splashing within the lodge pool.
- Add photographs that seize consideration and illustrate how your lodge advantages teams, akin to an exterior shot, the lodge foyer, a pattern sleeping room, indoor and out of doors assembly house, your health space, the enterprise companies middle and a number of profitable group occasions.
- If doable, organize photographs within the order you’d need the planner to see your lodge.
- Tag every picture in accordance with content material—patrons can filter properties primarily based on these identifiers, akin to #meetingspace, #outdoorfunction, #recreationarea, #groupactivity, #teambuilding and different group-specific tags.
HIGHLIGHT YOUR HOTEL’S UPGRADES AND RENOVATIONS
In case your lodge has been round for some time, planners need to know the final time you refreshed the property. Inside GroupSync, you possibly can be aware current or upcoming renovations and upgrades.
- Listing the dates your lodge final renovated sleeping rooms or assembly house.
- Notice any deliberate renovations to entice patrons sourcing for future dates.
Describe upgrades the way in which you’d throughout a web site go to to exhibit the profit for a bunch, akin to “You should buy out the newly added bocce court docket for workforce constructing or after-hours occasions.”
MORE BUSINESS FOR LESS
Resorts of all sizes are having to do extra with much less. However smaller motels are particularly burdened by the huge amount of RFPs for easier conferences. The extra data you make out there, the much less back-and-forth between you and the planner.
You’ll be able to’t inform a buyer usually sufficient how nice your lodge is and what you need to provide.
An enhanced GroupSync lodge profile not solely offers upfront data for planners looking out and sourcing properties but additionally permits you to embody it once more in your response to their RFPs.
For more information on GroupSync, choices to ehance your property’s profile, or to see what your present GroupSync profile appears like, join with us right here.
About Groups360
Groups360 was created with a singular purpose — to reinvent assembly planning by injecting innovation, transparency, and ease into the decades-old drawback of reserving teams. The Firm’s built-in expertise answer, GroupSync™, permits suppliers to distribute stock, have interaction with planners, and optimize group income. GroupSync additionally equips planners to look and store motels worldwide and to e-book rooms and house straight, on-line or via a simplified RFP course of. GroupSync is the primary distribution channel to supply on-line reserving for group lodge roomsandmeeting house at scale.
Groups360 has workplaces in Nashville, London and Singapore. Study extra at groups360.com.
