What is smart data marketing? As per HeBS Digital, it means the balanced usage of Customer Relationship Management data and intent data points. By collating the two, hotels can make the most out of past, present and future customer data and thereby use it to generate more bookings.
Smart data marketing can help hotels be the link between their digital marketing efforts and revenue management goals by identifying the relevant audience and drive direct bookings.
Many a times hotel target past guests with direct marketing mailers and waste time on guests who haven’t been in touch with them since their stay. Smart data marketing can help hotels identify new potential guests and close the deal with them. It also helps hotels target the guests in real time by reaching out to them moments after they have searched a particular property or even flights to a particular destination. The possibility of converting these guests from lookers to bookers is extremely high.
How can hotels can use smart data marketing to maximise their bookings?
1. Use existing customer data:
Hotels should initially analyse the existing data that is available with them. They need to identify the percentage of existing guests as compared to first timers, the demographics of their guest profiles and so on. This can help hotels target the right customer base for their property.
2. Target the right customers in real time –
with the right data, hotels can know where they need to target their model customers and create a look-alike target audience. Hotels can capture the guests during the micro moments when they are most likely to convert by sending personalised messages or offering special tariffs for the guests required dates.
3. Optimize targeting and creative in real time based on campaign conversions and who is actually booking-
with intent data targeting, hoteliers can use direct marketing campaigns and dynamic rate marketing to target the guests who are researching their destination plans. By flashing the hotels details across the various search options that a client uses with relevant data, a guest is more likely to choose that property over another. With smart data marketing, a hotel is repetitively reinforcing their brand to their future clients and creating a strong recall value
4. Use the collected data for all future campaigns –
Hotels shouldn’t be content with strong conversions on a one off basis, this is a continuous cycle. Hotels need to collate the tactics that work and didn’t work and use them for all future campaigns. Also remember demographics or focus audiences can change as per different months or seasons, thus smart data marketing is ideal since it takes all these factors into consideration.
This article is sourced from HospitalityNet.Org
