Can Social Networks Really Generate Leads?
June 23, 2010 at 11:59 pm | Posted in Hotel Sales Training Issues, In the News, Social Media, Uncategorized | 1 CommentTags: hotel revenue management, hotel sales, hotel training, social media, social networks
In an article in eMarketing.com (June 15, 2010) a recent study indicated that social networks generated weak lead generation in visits to the company’s website. The visitors to the web site generated by social media were visiting one page, had a short attention span and seldom got to the ‘contact us’ page.
One of the most interesting things to come out of this research are the pages that social media referral visitors looked at.
Notice how high the percentages for visitation to the blog page. The same was shown with Twitter and it is unfortunate that the research did not more extensively include LinkedIn, which is the B2B site of preference.
Several months ago the same online publication published a study indicated that companies were obtaining customers in the B2B space but they came primarily from LinkedIn. The pages most likely to generate these leads that were converted to customers was the blog.
Why? At it’s best, the blog is informational and not just product promotion as most of the web site is (See Seth Godin’s book ‘All Marketers are Liars.) Most web sites are filled with adjectives that customers don’t really believe any more but a well done blog gives visitors information about issues and/or the company without hyperbole.
What can we deduce from this. First of all, a vistor may return to a site many times before they become a lead through the contact us page — there are no stats because the customer only appears as a social media lead the first time they visit — after that they are ‘repeat’ visitors. Secondly and probably more importantly, the blog is one of the most useful tools in the marketers aresenal and it is often missued or neglected — it’s value not perceived to be as strong as other lead generation sources.
Let’s hope that these two graphs give the company blog it’s due and prominence in communicating with ptotential customers.
PS If you were waiting to receive leads flowing out of social media, think again. For the most part leads still need to be developed and social media is an invaluable prospecting and relationship building tool.
Are Hotel Rooms in Danger of Becoming a Commodity?
June 15, 2010 at 3:05 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 CommentsTags: hotel blog, hotel industry, hotel revenue management, hotel sales
Does anyone remember when the legacy airlines, Delta, United, Continental, etc, began engaging in price wars? These were driven by mulitple bancruptcies, follwed by a recession and dictated by their own yield management systems. They then began dumping distressed seat inventories on the OTAs, both opaque and transparent.
Today there are virutally no points of differntiation bewteen them except routes and schedules and the cookies on Delta that no one is willing to pay extra for. In other words, airline seats on these carriers have basicly become a commodity, undifferentiated by fares or amenities whre they follow each to the bottom.
Interestingly enough, it is the discount airlines that now are clearly differentiated. Southwest with its no checked baggage fees and cattle call seating priroities, Frontier with its three tiered fare structure and don’t forget those cute tail animals as well as several others.
On the other end of the spectrum the luxury airlines, mostly overseas airlines like Singapore Air, Quantas, etc are differntiated by the level of service and amenities offered, albeit at a price.
Sound familiar? Could this be the reason that the luxury, independent and economy sectors are leading the hotel industry out of the recession? (STR, June 10, 2010)
Is it becuase these sements are differentiated by rates and amenities for the luxury and economy sectors, and by price pretty much for all three.
It is the mid market hotels, with or without Food and Beverage, that are still struggling. Most of these have pretty much the same amenities, Frequent Guest programs (most travelers belong to many) and are only differentiated by rates that become a diluted differentiator when so much inventory is ‘dumped’ on the OTAs.
It is the ‘race to the bottom’ that has exposed this threat but it isn’t too late!
Learn the lesson of the airlines and don’t follow the market in a race to the bottom. Now is the time to maximize the opportunities in the increasing demand that we are seeing!
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