Hotel Sales Blog

FaceBook as a Sales Tool

In a recent Power Selling seminar for a hotel management company, I had a participant who had totally incorporated her FaceBook page into her sales process. She blew me away!

It goes something like this. First of all, she built a robust ‘Friends’ network of clients. Secondly, one day she and her GM were brainstorming on how to get business for the upcoming slow season. They thought of an idea to promote the winter season on FaceBook to scrapbookers.

After they began their campaign, a strange thing happened. Other client ‘friends’ responded saying that while they were not scrapbookers, they did have business during the winter and could they have the same deal?

Sabrina responded yes they could and when would be a good time to come and see them? Then a tour operator posted tour series dates on the wall and asked her to repsond if she could accomodate them.

Sabrina then began posting her sales call schedule and asking her ‘freinds’ if she could come and see them. She soon had her appointment schedule filled with new prospects and existing clients that wanted to see her when she was in their area.

This is a perfect example of how a social network can be integrated into the sales process. Considerations for success:
1. Don’t invite your competitors to be Freinds or Fans on your page.
2. Push out promotions but also things of interest about yourself, your hotel and your area — it shouldn’t always be about pushing business.
3. Use your page as a service to your clients — give them opportunities to be part of your business such as asking if you can come see them during sales calls in their area.

BTW, she never booked one scrapbooking group but the other clients that saw the post and booked other groups more than made up the difference.

Congrats Sabrina Bowman on a job extremely well done!

STR Predicts that Demand will Grow by 4% i n 2010

“Contrary to previous thinking, STR now believes demand growth will be stronger in 2010 than in 2011. The company said demand will grow 4.1 percent in 2010 and 2.9 percent in 2011. When STR crunches March 2010 data in the middle of April, it is expected that it will emerge as the fourth consecutive month to show demand growth.” (AHLA, 4/07/10)

This is the best news in 18 months but does it mean that Rvenue Managers will use this opportunity to begin moving the needle on rates? It’s time to put the floor under discounts and rates.

Don’t be bullied into locking in rates for 2011 and beyond — we may not be at 2007 rates but it has to start somewhere. Let rate increases, gradual increases, start here and now before the summer season!

Outrageous! Do Something a Little Outrageous Today!

It’s spring — time to shake off the post recession gloom!

You and 100 other hotels are contacting the same meeting planner for the same piece of business! What can you do to put a mile on the face of the planner and set youself apart from the other 100 hotels?

Idea #1: Get a video cam, Flip or another one. Gather the team incuding the GM in the lobby of the hotel and talk to the planner — have the GM offer a personal guarantee that if they book their meeting at your hotel, it will perfect! (Be prepared to deliver!) Send the link to the video to the planner!

Idea #2: Start a scavenger hunt on your FaceBook or i-Meet page. They have to identify one element in each of your photos. For example, if you have photo of a banquet room they have to identify the name of the flower on the banquet table in photo #4 or from the team profiles, from what university did the DOS graduate? The winners get a special offer — post the winners on the page!

There’s more but stay tuned for other ideas!

Oh yeah, do something outrageous for your family. For example, next Sunday make green eggs and ham for breakfast. If your kids don’t already have the book, buy it for them and put it on the table.

Step out of your comfort zone — it will make you feel better and put a smile on the faces of the recipients! We all like to be around people that make us smile!

Be outrageous!

Social Network Overload — Managing Social Networks in 1 hour a Day

Social networks are integral to the sales and revenue management process. Sometimes we do a good job of it and then, when we get crazy busy, that activity tapers off if not drops off the radar. Mea culpa!

There are great tools out there like HootSuite that allow you to post across all networks and monitor activity although limited and does not address that ‘personal’ engagement with your network of contacts.

Let’s talk about blogs — these require some thought and creativity and some days/weeks you just run dry. The ideas don’t flow and the time just isn’t there.

There is a great blog from Karen J that won’t help you with the blog but could relieve some of the anxiety about staying on top of social networks engagement.

Karen has a system for managing social engagement on one hour a day and takes into account the whole week so you can touch all of the important issues in the process.

Here is the link to her blog and the PDF but remember you still have to make time for that one hour a day!

http://imconnections.com/The%20Visibility%20Factor.pdf

72% of Meeting Planners Say Social Networks Important

During a recent webinar sponsored by i-Meet, 72% of meeting planners responding in a poll indicated that the hotel profiles on social networks were important in venue selection.

This is powerful stuff! While metrics on page views are inadequate in telling this story, there is obviously an influence at work here.

The hotel’s page/profile is really the online storefront — how robust the page is in taking advanatage of the functionality of the various social network sites is key to attracting customers into your store.

Check out the competitors pages and evaluate them in relation to your hotel’s page. What do they do well that you can incorporate and what omissions do they make that you can take advantage of to make your hotel’s page more robust.

Think of the hotel page as the store front in this analogy.

Think of a brick and mortar store front –
Some people walk by and never look over.
Others walk by and glance over.
Others look in the window but don’t come in.
Some people come in but are ‘just looking’.
Others engage you in finding exactly what they want – at that point you are one on one with a potential customer.

Join me in Colorado Springs for a day long Power Prospecting & Selling seminar being held at the Embassy Suites and sponsored by the Colorado Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau. We will discuss how to use social networks as sales tools. Click below for more info or copy and paste into your browser.

http://www.carolverret.net/viral/jan1810.php