Developing an Effective Hotel Mobile Marketing Strategy for Your Hotel

Posted on August 2, 2010 in Mobile Marketing

• Mobile Websites
• Mobile Search Engine Optimization
• Mobile Pay Per Click Advertising
• SMS Marketing and CRM Development
• Location-Based Travel Apps

Mobile Websites

Mobile Search Engine Optimization

Mobile SEO for hotels and the travel sector is a very exciting playing field, as Google has been serving up some very interesting web results. Why don’t you try searching for “hotels in San Francisco” on your laptop, and then any mobile-enabled phone. The search results are very different! This can translate into a lot of SEO traffic for mobile-optimized websites versus the so-called “mobile-friendly” websites.

The basic principles and best practices for mobile search engine optimization for hotels are very similar to traditional SEO practices. However, some differences do come into play. Search suggestions are heavily used on phones, and the searches are shorter (15 characters on average). In addition, the majority of searches are location-based; therefore, optimizing your local listing in search engines is a must. Finally, one third of calls generated from mobile web have a local intent, so a phone number on your mobile site is also a must.

Mobile Pay Per Click Advertising

Mobile pay per click advertising for hotels is evolving fast and can generate excellent ROI. Those already engaged in pay per click advertising for their hotels must select the option in AdWords to show their PPC ads on iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers. Here are some pointers for setting up successful mobile PPC:

• Set your campaign targeting by country, region or city, or use custom targeting.
• It’s always a good idea to separate your desktop and mobile campaigns to better optimize keywords, ad copy, and landing pages for mobile.
• Advanced options for advertisers gives you the option to target specific mobile devices and carriers, both in the US and Canada. Make sure you select all the devices you where you want your ads to show up.
• Adding a phone number to your ad text increases CTR by 5-30%, so don’t be afraid to use a phone numbers in your mobile ads. Remember that mobile web calls are 31% more likely to result in a booking than calls from other sources.

SMS Marketing and CRM Development

SMS marketing is one of the fastest-growing segments in mobile marketing for hotels. SMS campaigns have the best “open rates” on the planet – unlike emails that sit in people’s inbox or junk folder, SMS messages get opened right away. The most important factor to consider for SMS marketing us that it MUST be permission-based. NO exceptions! Nothing is more annoying than to get a text message from someone you don’t know. SMS is much more private than emails, and there are much stricter laws in place to curtail spam.

The key to success for a hotel using SMS marketing is to develop Mobile Guest CRM. This means that cell phone numbers must be collected at the hotel at various points of sale: front desk at check-in, in hotel bars and restaurants, etc. SMS advertising for hotels is great for driving incremental revenue. This is an exciting platform that hotels can start using right away.

Location-Based Travel Apps

Don’t Let Your IT Department Hold Your Website Hostage

Posted on May 28, 2010 in , Search Marketing

As an internet marketing consultant, I have had a lot of experience working with the world’s IT departments. Having a good IT department is so important – these guys will keep your company running from day to day. Respect what they know and how they can help you. But, also recognize that bringing the IT department into your website marketing decisions is a really bad idea. This is one of the biggest mistakes made by Fortune 500 companies and small businesses alike. It happens when decision-makers don’t understand the difference between IT skills and marketing/internet expertise.

Here are some ways that misusing your IT department can negatively impact your business.

Wannabe Marketers

The worst decision a business can make is to involve the IT department in making marketing decisions. IT folks get into a very powerful position in a business, especially if they have worked there for a long time. It’s awful to see these guys leverage their position to hurt a business’s SEO and PPC goals. The worst scenario is when the IT department pretends to know SEO and PPC, and influences decisions that affect the business’s overall marketing and sales strategies. That’s when we know that a client is not going to win online.

Paranoid Hosting Practices

I always strongly recommend that websites be hosted off corporate networks. Keeping websites in the dark where the Google rankings sun does not shine can kill a business. Furthermore, multilingual websites should be hosted locally (in the target market) for SEO benefits. I have seen so many paranoid IT folks who will not let their websites be hosted in the right location in the name of “security.” I always point the IT department toward the best hosting solutions under the sun (and moon). They refuse to move things because, for them, control and security have become synonyms. The funny thing is that their “secure” hosting is often easier to hack into than taking candy from a kid.

Clunky CMS Syndrome

I did a post on why many websites don’t need a CMS, which was very well received. However, when a CMS is needed, it’s important to keep it simple. Instead, I’ve seen IT folks  either create their own Frankenstein CMS or run a 3- to 4-year-old version of an open-source CMS system. I am stunned to see how many IT guys never bother to update anything, while someone non- IT like myself has to shake them into action. Example: One genius was running a 4-year-old version of a CMS that did not have provisions to put a unique meta tags on each page of their website! Guess what: 500 pages with the EXACTLY the same title tag and meta description/keywords on every page… you could smell Google success from a mile away (NOT).

Priorities

It’s a rare day when IT guys are not playing superhero and saving your company from a complete tech meltdown disaster. On the other hand, internet marketing revolves around consistent and sometimes urgent updates to content, title and meta tags, 301 redirects, sitemaps, etc. Scenario: Your IT guy is working on the following right now: updating system-wide VPN security; troubleshooting email problems, Blackberry and iPhone hiccups; setting up workstations for 15 new employees; plus, the CEO’s laptop caught fire during the morning meeting. What does this mean for your list of internet marketing tasks? In our world, it means that it will take our client 5 months to implement something we could have had done in 7 days all because Mr. IT was too busy, and too paranoid to have some “outsider” access the servers. Sadly, “better late then never” does not apply to internet marketing!

Remember, your IT folks are responsible for three main things: support, security and standards compliance. They are not internet marketing people, which is actually a good thing. Please don’t mess up your web presence and marketing strategy by putting them in charge of something they are not supposed to be doing.

Here is how you take charge.

Fix the IT disaster in your organization in three easy steps.

1. Set Your Website Free.
   Release your website from clutches of IT. There are some stellar hosting options that offer better security than the Department of Defense! Stop buying the “security threat” BS. It’s 2010, and nobody is 100% secure. A reliable hosting environment that affords access to your search marketing team will give you the best of both worlds: security and effective online marketing.
2. Marketing Owns The Website
   Marketing department should take over your website and online marketing initiatives. IT department is not be be bothered to implement changes. If your marketing department does not want to take responsibility  you can either fire them or hire  someone who can offer you basic website IT services to back up your marketing department.
3. Set Goals and Prosper.
   Set goals, control and monitor analytics, and start making some moves on the search engines. Grow rankings and conversions NOW, without letting the IT guys stand in your way.

Developing a Successful Multilingual Website

Posted on March 2, 2010 in Website Design & Usability

Multilingual websites are a hot topic for businesses that are competing in the global marketplace. Sadly, a lot of business owners and managers are misled into thinking that multilingual marketing is merely a translation of their current website/marketing message into a new language. This is a very costly mistake.

Here are some points for you consider in order to prevent your multilingual website from going down the international disaster alley.

Analytics Before Action

Selecting a new language based on a gut feeling is always a bad idea. It is crucial to analyze the data from your website and specifically look at your international visitors: break it down by languages, countries, cities and bounce rates. These should be good indicators of what international audiences are interested in your product or service.

Test the Waters

Launching a  product or service in a new country is very exciting. But before you jump into an international market, there are ways of testing your messaging. Using a few multilingual landing pages in conjunction with a pay per click campaign is a good way to test the waters. It’s best to conduct a small test and be wrong quickly, rather than bet the house on costly translation and marketing that might not work out for your business in the long term.

Kill the Translation Software

Using word-for-word translators, automatic translators or translation software simply kills your multilingual campaign. Not only that, it will also damage your brand image. Your content might even end up on a blunder list like this one.

In fact, if your multilingual messaging, content and tone are not being provided by a native speaker of the language, you will never win. It’s simply impossible to translate content without keeping in mind the context in which it is going to be delivered. Native speakers are the backbone of a well-executed multilingual marketing campaign. You need to make sure that someone who “sorta” knows the language is not delivering your multilingual services.

Look Beyond Content

Translating just the content on your website (worst case, just translating one page on your website) does not welcome international users. Look at the broader picture. Translate the navigation, as well as all functionalities and features multilingual users will want to use. Make them feel at home on your site.

Understand the Culture

Many businesses just do a full translation of their English website and call it a day. The true winners in the multilingual game always do research to understand cultural considerations for their target audience. Developing an online experience (images, colors, lingo, etc.) that is culturally relevant to your target audience is going to deliver the best return on your website investment.

Provide Easy Access

All the effort put into multilingual marketing can be lost if the target users cannot access the website you made for them. Always provide prominent access by having either a text link (in the native language) or a flag in the top right corner of your website.

Implement a Dedicated URL Strategy

Once the top languages have been hand picked, native translation has been done, and your foreign language websites are ready to go live, you’ll have to make some choices about domain selection and URL structure.

Example: You translated www.snoopy.com into German. You can go with one of the following options:

Create a subdirectory: www.snoopy.com/german

Create a subdomain: german.snoopy.com

Buy a New Top-Level Domain: www.snoopy.de

Any of the above will work. If search engine optimization is a top priority for you, then having a country-specific Top Level Domain is the way to go. If you pick any of the other options, just remember to be consistent. Consistency in URL structure goes a long way.

Bring Your Checkbook

If you are embarking on a multilingual campaign, please be aware that a substantial investment is required. Anyone hawking you “cheap multilingual services” is a fraud. There is no cheap way to do this right. The only way for people to bring the costs down is to use word translators, which are the cancer of the multilingual marketing business.

Don’t Wait

Expanding your business into multilingual markets is a great idea. We live in a globalized economy, where it’s very safe to assume that non-English speakers are willing and able to buy products and services in the international marketplace. Following the points above will help you do things the right way and spend your investment wisely.

Hotels Need to Get Realistic About Their PPC Investment Strategy & ROI Expectations

Posted on February 2, 2010 in Hospitality & Travel, Search Marketing

Hotels and pay per click (PPC) marketing is a topic I know very well. I have dealt with some very interesting scenarios over the past several years, and have seen the industry go through many ups and downs. Here is a recap of the hotel/PPC story so far, as well some tips on the best way for hotels to stay actively involved with PPC marketing.

History

The early adopter hotels who started doing PPC for themselves in the early part of the decade probably saw some of the best ROI in the industry. The majority of hotels back then were not interested in the whole Google/Yahoo PPC “fad.” As a result, those who showed up harvested the clicks and guests at an amazing pace. It was not unusual for hotels to be booking 49 to 59 of revenue per 1 dollar spent on PPC! It was the golden age of PPC marketing for hotels.

Fast forward now to the end of the decade: competition is stiff, OTAs (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz) spend huge amounts of cash on PPC, Yahoo has slacked off, free rankings are hard to come by, and booking engines for hotels have not kept up with the times. But it’s not all bad news – hotels doing PPC the right way are still doing great.

PPC has also evolved from a revenue gimmick into a brand-building and testing tool which, used properly, can really help you drive online revenue. Hotels that get into PPC as a fad never stay on. It’s got to be a long-term strategy. Even if ROI numbers aren’t all that golden brown, PPC is something that hotels just have to do. Especially now that Google has emerged as the leader in travel search and is making it hard for hotels to rank for free (organically) for a vast array of broad keyword terms.

OTAs rode the PPC wave all the way to the bank and currently run some of the best PPC campaigns out there. Hotel brands have tried to catch up, but they just don’t get it. And this is where we are right now. Strong OTA presence, Clueless Hotel Brands, and Independents duking it out for precious Google clicks.

The Mis-selling of Pay Per Click Marketing

Pay per click traditionally has been sold (and is still sold today) the wrong way by hotel internet marketing agencies. The ROI promises were way too short-sighted; overinflated ROI predictions never work. Hotels were taught to invest in PPC only if they were seeing a “10:1 to 500:1″ return per dollar invested. This propagated the “only invest in PPC if there is a spectacular ROI” culture. With the downturn in ROI and increase in competition over the years, hotels have started to look too hard at their PPC  ad spend. Campaigns were slashed and burned at an amazing rate. PPC has become the most frequent first victim of a marketing budget cutback. I have seen hotels pull the plug on so many successful PPC campaigns… Oh, the horror!

In my past life as a sales director for some of those hotel internet marketing agencies, I always resisted the temptation to blurt out “25:1, 1000:1 ROI!” to prospective clients. I knew the campaign ROI (2002-2005 era) was going to be nothing short of spectacular for hotels. There was very little competition  in major markets, but I resisted selling PPC as the magic pill. I sold it as a great investment in your hotel marketing program. I sold it as a great tool for testing your website and building your hotel brand online. I continue to stick to my approach.

Hotel PPC Tracking Blues

Tracking PPC for the hospitality and travel sector has always been a problem. Several factors make it very hard to determine the true ROI of a hotel PPC campaign.

First and foremost, the booking engine technology offered to hotels is primitive and not geared towards PPC tracking. Hotel booking engines have made it notoriously hard for hotels to be able to accurately track conversions from PPC.

The way people use web browsers has also changed over the years.Web browsers are getting privacy conscious. Stealth modes are now offered by all of the leading web browsers, like Firefox, IE8, etc.

Finally, people researching online might discover the hotel via PPC but end up booking their reservations on the phone. Or they may book online several weeks after clicking the PPC ad, making it hard to connect the two events.

Reality Check for Hotel Managers

Hotel managers need to start looking beyond the instant and trackable ROI that they can measure right away. A PPC campaign in today’s extremely competitive environment takes over 3 months to fully mature and generate traction on the search engine results pages. There is no instant, “magical” solution to getting a solid campaign in place for your hotels.

PPC is not just an add-on thing to do anymore. It is not just a source of incremental revenue or the magical solution to increasing revenue. It’s not expendable. PPC is crucial, as Google is making it harder for your hotel to rank organically (free) for broad keywords. Also, if you are not bidding on your hotel brand name, OTAs like Expedia and Bookings.com are going to do it and happily take away brand name traffic/reservations from your hotel website.

Simple steps for survival in the hotel PPC landscape:

1. If you don’t do any PPC, start today and at least cover the basics (your name, location keywords).

2. Stop losing your mind trying to figure out the 100% exact ROI. PPC is delivering hotel revenue in ways that cannot always be accurately measured.

3. Focus on how you can use PPC to improve your website’s performance. Implemented the right way, a campaign will tell you what is good/bad about your website. Use PPC to find out when you are right; learn and correct quickly when you are wrong. Rinse, lather, repeat for online marketing success.

4. Demand better tracking technology from your booking engine providers (brand and independent). They are selling you advertising, not innovations! Then think hard before pulling the plug on your PPC campaign because you didn’t see “ROI” in bookings.

5. Work with the right people. You will know who they are. (hint: it’s not an agency with hundreds of clients or the one with the sales guy shouting “We deliver 1000:1 ROI.”

In this competitive landscape, things are changing quickly. Hotels are already late to the party. It’s time to start getting proactive and realistic about search engine marketing. Stop getting blindsided by advertising and hype. Use PPC as a billboard and as a testing tool for your marketing initiatives. Use the power of PPC to help your hotel run a solid online marketing program!

Ending the Myth of Online Anonymity, Once and for All

Posted on January 19, 2010 in Search Engine News

In the past few years, a tremendous amount of conversation has taken place about how safe our private information is on the Internet. I have always believed – and shared with everyone I meet – that everything we do online is findable, searchable, liable and forever.

In early December 2009, Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave an interview to CNBC. The moment I saw the interview, I was  relieved to finally hear it come from the big horse’s mouth.

The myth of being anonymous on the Internet is dead. We need to stop assuming that our actions online exist in a virtual world where we can remain safe and anonymous.

Governments from across the world, in countries like US, China, India and Brazil, have asked for and even subpoenaed information from the search engines to track citizens doing everything from espionage, terror, murder, etc. And guess what? Search engines comply.

In fact, the internet has made it way too easy for people to get into trouble. Here are the top 3 culprits:

Email

This is by far the biggest way people slip and get hurt. It’s not just the average daily user that gets hit by bad decisions and lack of privacy. Politicians, Presidents and CEOs from Fortune 500 companies have fallen victim to the contents of their email accounts. Email accounts are easily “hackable.” Sensitive information should never be shared with email. Ever.

Precaution: Never use email to send out anything sensitive or controversial. Examples:

• What you think of as a joke might be very, very offensive to someone else.
• Emails + Office Romance = Guaranteed to end badly.
• Emails have been produced as evidence in SO many trials for all kinds of crimes, including embezzlement, infidelity, violent crimes, etc.
• The insecurity of your information becomes especially relevant when you opt to use Hotmail, Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, etc. Remember, they own all your information and it’s free for a very good reason. Anyone who has noticed that advertising has become especially relevant to them (yes, based on the content of your emails) knows what I am talking about. Also, the recent China – Gmail hacking fiasco shows that determined hackers can break into anything, anytime.

Search Engines

Everything you ever search for can and will be used against you… this almost sounds like a Miranda style warning. Unfortunately, nobody tells you this until it’s too late and you have gone too deep down the rabbit hole. All search engines keep some data on their users. According to a CNET Study, these are the main facts for each search engines.

• Ask.com
  Ask.com is the most protective of user privacy but sadly has a very small market share. Ask.com was the only engine in the CNET study that said it would not record what users type into its search engine. Ask.com also said it did not engage in behavioral targeting, which refers to the practice of offering advertisements based on previous searches.
• Google
  The 900-lb gorilla of search engines avoids behavioral targeting. After 18 months they perform a partial anonymization of users’ Internet Protocol addresses. Google also has shortened the lifespan of its cookies from expiring in 2038 to expiring two years from the last visit.
• MSN
  Microsoft is better on the anonymization front. Users’ internet addresses and cookie values are “permanently and irreversibly” disassociated from the search terms after 18 months. But Microsoft does engage in behavioral targeting,

Search terms have been used to convict dissidents in China, wireless hackers, and murderers. The legal can of worms that your search engine history can unload upon you keeps getting bigger everyday.

Precaution: When you use search engines, configure your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.) to not permit them to place cookies on your computer. For advanced users: Route all your connections through a proxy server, such as Anonymizer, Tor or Black Box Search.

Social Media

I am in a perpetual state of shock about how much people reveal about their lives on Facebook! Social Media networks are a crucial stop for a large percentage of employers researching potential hires. All those “I hate my job, hate Tennessee, hate the parents and the whole world” status updates and Tweets are going to come with a heavy price. And you can bank on the fact that those risqué photos you took and posted on Facebook are eventually going to be viewed by more than just your “friends.”

Precaution: Be social without being too risky. Choose your friends wisely, and keep a tight hold on your privacy setting on channels like Facebook. A simple “think before you post” philosophy will go a long way for you. And remember what Grandma taught you back in the days of print media: “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want published on the front page of the newspaper.” Because when you post descriptions of your behavior on the internet, that’s pretty much what you’re doing.

In the end, we are all responsible for our actions. Once you post things online, the proverbial arrow has been shot and nothing short of a miracle or sheer luck will help you get it back.

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