Inspire Marketingarticles -
inspire marketing
2019
April
Engaging guests with authentic experiences
AT CURATE — Integrating AI Into the Hospitality Industry
At Curate — Ryman’s Colin Reed: ‘Everything We Do Is What the Customer Wants Us to Do’
To Change the Way You Think, Change the Way You See
March
HSMAI Foundation Adopts New Vision, Launches Capital Campaign
Innovation Book Club: The Future Is Asian
February
Hoteliers face hurdles in personalized marketing
Social Responsibility: Is It Good Marketing?
From WOW! to WHOA! at CES
5 principles of effective mobile landing pages for travel marketers
Getting into the Minds of Consumers at the 2019 HSMAI Digital Marketing Conference
Personalization: The New Frontier
5 tips on marketing with mobile video
January
5 Things to Know About HSMAI Lifetime Honoree Harris Rosen
5 Things to Know About HSMAI Lifetime Honoree Steve Bartolin
An ‘Executive Perspective’ on Digital Marketing
2018
December
How to Create a Culture of Innovation
The Promise of AI
November
Solving Distribution — Part 1: Marketing
How I Got Here — Jeff Spaccio, Tambourine
What Stan Lee Knew About Managing Creative People
Why Google Ads is critical to your marketing strategy
October
How Google's Newly Expanded Trademark Policy Will Impact Hotels
September
The New TripAdvisor Goes Social, Gets Personal An Economic Forecast From HSMAI’s Curate
Curate Update: Now Including Distribution and Technology!
The Skills Required for Hospitality Sales, Marketing & Revenue Jobs
August
July
Executive Briefing: Interstate’s Andrew Jordan
Innovation Book Club: When
Most marketing departments are stuck in 2010
June
Curate Update: Building on April, Preparing for September
Innovation Book Club: See Think Solve
May
4 tips for building a website personalization strategyDigital marketing consultant Michael Shaw shared best practices for incorporating personalization into hotel websites to drive loyalty with guests at HSMAI's Digital Marketing Strategy Conference.
Use actual intelligence to expand revenue potential throughout the guest journey | By Michael BennettWe can't escape the topic of AI today. In a world of big data and personalization, it's shaping how we approach everything in the hospitality industry. But as powerful as artificial intelligence is, machine learning must be leveraged alongside hotel expertise and data management strategy to drive forward smarter, more accurate marketing results.
Incorporating Loyalty Programs Into a Digital Marketing StrategyBest practices for incorporating loyalty programs into your digital marketing strategy — excerpted from Hospitality Digital Marketing Essentials: A Field Guide for Navigating Today’s Digital Landscape, HSMAI’s new study guide for the CHDM certification.
Exploring niche markets in hospitality: Seizing untapped opportunities
Universal Orlando’s Mandy Penn on Immersive Experiences and Brand AmbassadorsHSMAI Marketing Advisory Board member Mandy Penn on emphasizes immersive experiences and multiplatform brand engagement.
April
Collecting Data ResponsiblyOn a recent call for HSMAI’s Marketing Advisory Board, we facilitated a conversation about how to collect data responsibly when consumer skepticism is at an all-time high. Here are key takeaways.
Revenue management and marketing: A powerhouse duo
To be a top performer in today’s competitive hospitality landscape, revenue management and marketing must play a leading role in your hotel strategy.
Marketing to European travelers? Take these steps on personal data
GDPR and the End of the Internet’s Grand Bargain
Responding to Online ReviewsHere are tips for managing your responses to online reviews — excerpted from Hospitality Digital Marketing Essentials: A Field Guide for Navigating Today’s Digital Landscape, HSMAI’s new study guide for the CHDM certification.
March
5 Best Practices for Mobile WebsitesHere are five best practices for your mobile website — excerpted from Hospitality Digital Marketing Essentials: A Field Guide for Navigating Today’s Digital Landscape, HSMAI’s new study guide for the CHDM certification.
A Capitol Idea: No longer just a bill, what effect will the new tax law have on your business?
February
What Do Hotels Needs to Know About Blockchain?On a recent conference call with HSMAI’s Digital Marketing Council, we asked members a handful of travel and hospitality trends for 2018 — including the blockchain, which generated a particularly interesting discussion.
CES 2018: Jolt to Thinking
Top 16 Alexa Skills for Marketers
January
Trendspotting at CESHSMAI Executive THINK at the 2018 Consumer Electronic Show (CES)
How hotel marketers can embrace AI todayAI represents to businesses today what the Internet represented in the late 1990’s: A green field of opportunity to reinvent how business works and how you’ll interact with customers in the coming years.
Attribute Based Selling, Being Stuck in a Bad Relationship and the Possibility of an AffairNot much has fundamentally changed in the world of hotel systems. We are still selling room categories at a set price, we are still posting charges to guest folios, and are still checking guests in and out of the hotel. In an age where our smartphones could run any PMS developed in the early 2000's, we need ever more powerful machinery to serve up the same essential functions. Yet hoteliers cannot walk away from it all, because their business depends on arcane, strung together systems that form the distribution web. It's like being stuck in a bad relationship; I want to invite you to have a risk free, non-committal affair with us, and this is my pick-up line to you!
The 2018 Outlook For Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Optimization Professionals
2017
December
Sales and marketing executives adapt to mobile trendsCreativity is required to get in line with consumers’ mobile booking behavior, sales and marketing executives said during a recent HSMAI roundtable.
HSMAI Exclusive: The “Right” Measurement of Hotels’ Digital Marketing Efforts
November
HSMAI Exclusive: 3 Reasons Hotel Marketers and Owners Must Care About ADA Conformance for Websites
5 Signs it’s Time for an Email Marketing Makeover
October
How Important Is It to Refresh Your Brand?The stay experience is pivotal to the success of a hotel. To ensure their hotel has a fresh appeal to travelers, hoteliers must consider branding right along with design and marketing.
September
How to Turn Your Hotel Guests Into Brand Ambassadors | By Kacey BradleyWhether you're running the world's most successful business or one that's just starting out, you're going to have one problem in common with other business owners: marketing. You need good marketing to attract people and make money, but you need to have money to have good marketing. It's a tough situation to be in, but there are some ways to get yourself out on top that are actually catching on in popularity with the general public.
August
July
June
Has Google Finally Proven That Online Ads Cause Offline Purchases?The online giant has not had a very clear picture of where consumers shop in the physical world and how much they spend — until now.
Simplifying digital marketing for hotels
Too many hotel marketers get caught up in the latest trends or buzz words like "big data" or "content marketing." It's time to get back to the basics and focus on what’s important - your guests. - See more at: http://hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/simplifying_digital_marketing_for_hotels#sthash.tcM9wwt5.dpuf
May
In Case You Missed It: 6 Must-Read Research Studies for Hotel MarketersHSMAI’s Marketing Advisory Board recently had an exclusive opportunity to talk to Dr. Chris K. Anderson, professor at Cornell University, about his recent research and how it can help marketers better deliver their brand promise through service delivery. It got the advisory board thinking about other recent research that is playing into their marketing and branding work. In case you missed them, the following 6 research studies are full of actionable information and insights.
Four Ways to Hold Your Ground in the Shifting Sands of MetaGoogle recently tested placing hotel booking ads at the top of search results, as opposed to under the right panel in the local knowledge card for the hotel. It got HSMAI’s Digital Marketing Council thinking about whether hotels’ marketing budgets in 2017 should be shifted in light of the potential elevation of the widget on search engine results pages…and about a lot of other Meta-related issues.
A Steal of a Deal. Really?HSMAI’s Digital Marketing Council recently discussed the Tnooz article that asks, “Are OTA commissions actually a steal of a deal?” The Council agreed that, while the article itself seriously oversimplifies the issues involved in hotel distribution today, as with most things, there’s a time and a place for OTAs (and other distribution partners). Their overarching advice is to use all partners carefully and strategically, or your “Deal” could easily turn into a “Steal.”
April
Branding Today: A Sum of PartsTiffany Braun, Regional Director of Sales & Marketing for Two Roads Hospitality, and member of HSMAI’s Marketing Advisory Board talked with Jeff Tomczek, Director of Branding for Two Roads Hospitality about the aspects of branding that have become increasingly important for hoteliers in today’s environment.
Zika, Forest Fires, & Travel Bans…Oh My!These are unpredictable times with plenty of unpredictable impacts on hotels and the hotel industry. HSMAI’s Marketing Advisory Board recently discussed what you can do before, during, and after disruptive events – whether it is disease, natural disaster, or political upheaval – that are beyond their control, and return to normal levels of business as soon as possible.
6 Essentials Every Hotel Marketer Needs to Know
HSMAI’s Digital Marketing Strategy Conference convened more than 300 hotel marketing executives to focus on maximizing the digital marketing tools hoteliers are using today – from SEO strategy and web presence, to mobile and social – and preparing for what the future will bring.
Guerilla marketing through Facebook advertising
The ability to advertise on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-1000-impression (CPM) model, with both costs well below that of display advertising or media buys, allow hoteliers to deliver high return-on-investments (ROIs).
March
The Newest Shiny Object for Hotel Marketers: Facebook City GuidesRecently catching the eye of HSMAI’s Digital Marketing Council is City Guides in the Facebook app which enables users to book some hotels and restaurants, and message or tap to call other hotels, restaurants, tours, and attractions. How should you be thinking about this new development? Consider these thoughts from HSMAI’s Digital Marketing Council
What creativity in marketing looks like today
The changes happening in consumer behavior, technology, and media are redefining the nature of creativity in marketing.
HSMAI conference: Trends, metasearch tips from Google, TripAdvisor
The direct booking trend: What is it really about?
As Lennert de Jong of citizenM writes, if we want to better understand the debate, we need to dig deeper into this heated subject and shine some light on it from different angles.
February
Finding the future: Mobility, metrics, and merging skillsetsThe average person and Big Data are inexorably and permanently intertwined. Big Data is us, because we are now Big Data. There’s no escaping it, writes LodgIQ’s Ravneet Bhandari. Each one of us is leaving an ever- growing digital footprint as technology and consumer behavior merge. We both consume information and produce it, highlighted by the new buzzword: prosumers. Oddly, while we’ve mashed up how we work, play and live, because of significant technology changes, in many instances hospitality professionals are still entertaining 1997, not 2017. It’s a strange dichotomy revealing an opportunity to rethink and reinvent how hoteliers connect with consumers.
Smart Data marketing in hospitality: The secret to maximizing direct bookings
Max Starkov and Margaret Mastrogiacomo of HeBS Digital outline the steps to a data-driven marketing strategy.
The next era of hotel distribution: Connecting supply and demand in the moments that matter
Because a hotel’s inventory is perishable, the core of the hospitality business, according to Google’s Javier Delgado Muerza, is to manage occupancy in such a way that revenue is optimized. To do this effectively, you’ve got to connect with travelers in a relevant way in every moment that matters, he says.
Experts believe lifestyle has room to grow despite boom
CEOs who work with lifestyle hotels note there is growing interest from investors, consumers and big branding companies, but hoteliers must commit to being truly authentic to thrive in the segment.
Marketing is a mindset
The role of marketing is to grow your company, reputation, customers, and profits, writes Suzie Thompson, VP Marketing at Red Carnation Hotels. She shares her thoughts on how marketing is evolving, particularly within the highly dynamic hotel environment. Her take: marketing has changed more in the last two years than in the last fifty.
January
CES 2017: Beyond the realm of possibilityWhat just keeps getting bigger, creates electronic envy on an unfathomable scale, and overwhelms your senses 5 seconds after you walk on the floor? The answer is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Insight from Dr. Lalia Rach on HSMAI's guided tour of CES 2017.
Behind the Scenes with Adele Gutman at Library Hotel Collection: Sparkling Sunshine Drives Marketing and RevenueFlorence Quinn, president of Quinn PR and a member of HSMAI’s Marketing Advisory Board, got Adele Gutman, VP Sales, Marketing and Revenue, Library Hotel Collection, to dish on how she produces the raving fans other brands would die for.
Six Must-Make Resolutions for Hotel Marketers in 2017Take a cue from HSMAI’s Marketing Advisory Board which has set some ambitious, yet achievable goals for themselves to make big impacts in 2017.
2016
December
Four Ways to Remove Barriers to Hotel Website AccessEven with the best of intentions, hoteliers face a number of challenges as they work to comply with website accessibility for guests, and potential guests, with special needs
November
October
September
How to Jumpstart Your Hotel's Direct Bookings through Social MediaIn hospitality marketing, the digital landscape is constantly evolving and the travel consumer journey to a direct booking is becoming more and more complex. To help you better navigate the digital landscape and shift share to the direct online channel, HeBS Digital's \"Jumpstart Direct Bookings\" Series shares industry best practices to boost direct bookings through the top revenue-generating marketing channels. From SEO to Multichannel Campaigns, you'll learn insider strategies and concrete action steps to start shifting share from the OTAs today.
August
July
5 Ways to Improve Your Hotel's Special Offers Right Now! | By Tara ScullyAs a hotelier, your goal is to sell rooms. You want people to book your special offers, and you want a lot of people to book. There are a lot of new techniques and fancy tools out there to help you do that, especially as data and personalisation become more important. However, sometimes the quickest way to get more direct bookings is a bit of old-fashioned marketing.
Midyear forecast: Will a slow start continue? | By Robert RauchAt Woodstock, Neil Young approached the microphone and said, \"This song starts out slow and fizzles out altogether.\" Well, this year started out slow but it will not fizzle out. Contrary to those who feel the party is over, 2016 will continue the trend line of 2015 albeit with a somewhat muted feel and a slow start. This summer will jump with average rate growth due to unprecedented leisure demand stimulated by low gasoline prices and that American mindset: \"It is my birthright to travel and visit my friends and family! \"
June
May
April
March
February
January
The Need for Standardization of Distribution Channel Metrics | By Cindy Braak and Kapila AnandThe Financial Management Committee (FMC) of the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) is focused on providing guidance on the financial and reporting impact of trending issues impacting the industry. As an example, the FMC has the responsibility to update the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry[1] (USALI) and is periodically evaluating other trends and evolving metrics to determine if the financial implications warrant further study and comment.
2015
December
November
October
What technologies are most important to marketers?While content marketing is still projected by those surveyed to be the most important marketing technology in the next 12 months, SEO, currently second-most-important to US B2B marketers at 71%, faces a decline to 41%, which will render it fourth in importance.
September
August
July
June
May
April
A day in the life of a reservationist | By Larry MogelonskyWith so much attention given to digital sales channels, we sometimes forget the power of a good salesperson specifically, a reservationist. In an attempt to elucidate more about this crucial position, I sought out Jodi Tower, a senior reservation sales agent for FRHI Hotels & Resorts, the Toronto-based hotel-management company that supervises the Fairmont, Raffles and Swissotel brands with more than 110 properties in 32 countries.
March
February
January
2014
December
Top 10 Hospitality Industry Trends in 2015 | By Robert RauchMillennials have become the fastest growing customer segment within the hospitality industry. Exploration, interaction and experience are the major focus of Millennials who are willing to pay more for a greater experience. Many of them are looking for an overall gourmet experience for a reasonable price and this has produced all new lobby designs in the hotel sector.
