1. The buyer persona review.
As we mentioned, one of the sectors most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic has been tourism. Not only have the limitations of mobility, meeting and seating capacity in establishments taken their toll, but also the recommendations not to travel to certain tourist areas discouraged many potential customers from choosing other destinations, or even not traveling at all.
Although, many hotel establishments and businesses have diligently invested part of their budget in implementing health measures to ensure the safety of travelers, and although, vaccination of the population is advancing day by day, we must keep in mind that our typical customer is not what it was.
The way in which people live, relate and, especially, buy has been affected. The interaction we have with brands has changed. It’s obvious that health, wellness and sustainability are becoming more important, more necessary. But the reality is that we don’t know the magnitude of the change in consumption and how this will evolve as greater travel security is ensured.
What is clear is that this has affected the way we do online marketing and that it is now even more important to allocate resources to understand the consumption habits and movements of consumers, as predictions will be more complicated. And while the tourist’s face-to-face experience is key, digital marketing is vital to attract them in the early stages of their purchase cycle.
Therefore, it is essential to carry out a thorough review of the buyer persona, of the typical customer profiles we used to work with to choose the most appropriate online marketing strategies at each stage of this cycle, without taking for granted that the same strategies that used to be used will be equally effective.
In this sense, adaptability is today one of the best virtues in the survival of hotel businesses, for which it will be vital to prepare to take on the changes that are to come in terms of consumption and marketing. And one more way to be prepared to adapt is through analysis and theinsights that certain tools can provide.
2. The proper use of tools.
On the one hand, the hotel CRM, which has been established in recent years as one of the key tools in the development of digital strategies, and will not cease to be so. This tool allows you to store key customer and contact data useful for carrying out strategies such as email marketing, sending the right email at a key moment, but its advantages are not only limited to sending emails.
Adequate CRM can be integrated with other relevant tools for the hotel such as the CMS of the website, the booking engine itself, or the PMS, storing fundamental data that lead to a better knowledge of the customer and their buying cycle to carry out marketing and sales strategies that boost bookings.
A CRM software allows a detailed segmentation of the different buyers with whom to communicate in the most efficient way. In addition, another interesting option of this tool is the possibility of performing up-selling and cross-selling practices, analyzing the service or product that the customer has contracted, as well as the characteristics of their profile.
On the other hand, but not without leaving behind the knowledge of the hotel’s buyer persona and their behaviors, we can count on Google tools such as Hotel Insights that can be an advantage when it comes to knowing consumer trends. And as we know, as a whole, Google tools should not be omitted.
With Google Hotel Insights, the search engine, after conducting a study with Patter that has revealed the difficulty of hotels to get information about their buyers, aims to help hotels to detect potential customers and know search trends related to their location and establishment.
In addition to these tools, we should not leave behind the one that helps us to carry out a loyalty strategy. And the fact is that many customers concentrated in sun and beach tourist areas can be subject to this. In this sense, a Loyalty software integrated to the CRM, consolidates as a key tool in the management not only of the status, level and rewards of the client, but also in the management of the necessary communications to consolidate this loyalty.
