|
|
||
Santa
Fe, NM – February 2021 / Newsmaker Alert / In today’s world, digital
marketing efficiency is not only mission-critical, it’s a business imperative.
While hospitality marketers typically look to improve conversion rates
from their digital campaigns on their websites and within the booking engine,
there are many opportunities to optimize digital marketing performance
within the voice channel.
In
fact, these two communication channels co-exist in ways that are very symbiotic.
In this article, we’ll explore this synergistic relationship and unbox
three key optimizations that will not only improve your digital marketing
engagements and clicks, but also improve the conversions from digital marketing
channels through your call center.
Measurement Matters
Our
first optimization involves implementing proper measurement standards via
source tracking. It’s important to understand how your marketing channels
are driving call volume and bookings. The easiest way to do that is through
provisioning and publishing exclusive phone numbers for each of these channels.
For digital channels, this would include social media, email, organic website
traffic and each of your paid media campaigns (display, PPC, etc.). By
measuring call volume and bookings from each channel, you’ll be able to
test offers, ad creative and calls-to-action to improve overall performance.
Say,
for example, you want to know what digital marketing channel drives the
most call volume. With proper source tracking in place, you might see that
your website drives the most call volume. At the same time, you might also
see that while call volume from your website is the highest, the booking
conversion rate from the phone number listed in your email campaigns actually
outpaces your website by a factor of 2:1. Now you have an opportunity to
contrast and compare both channels to try and drive-up call volume through
email and improve the conversion rate from website calls.
Mix Up Your Messaging
The
opportunities to compare and contrast channel messaging and overall performance
lead us to our second key optimization: Dynamic messaging.
|
With
the ability to measure call volume and bookings from individual digital
channels in place, your next step should be optimizing performance by improving
messaging. This includes testing offers and calls-to-action to find the
ones that perform best. Testing of offers and CTAs should work both ways
– at the marketing channel level as well as through your call center.
Using
our previous example, we know that your website drives more calls, but
your email channel converts at a higher rate. You now want to look at how
messaging, offers and CTAs can be better optimized between the two to improve
overall performance. Continuing with our example, you see that you are
listing the phone number on your website in the main footer as well as
on all of your offer pages and in several other high-traffic areas. You
also see that the phone number in your email is only referenced in the
footer. By adding a CTA and the phone number in the body copy of your emails,
you might see a sizeable increase in call volume from the emails you send.
Prioritize Audience
Growth
Our
third optimization centers on growing your retained audiences. A retained
audience – also referred to as an “owned audience” – is comprised of customers
and prospects who have opted-in to receive your marketing communications.
Growing this audience is important because it will decrease your reliance
on using paid media to drive inquiry and bookings.
Your
reservation specialists should be upselling packages and premium room upgrades.
They should also be pitching your guests to join your email list as well
as encouraging your guests to join your social media channels. With the
addition of one or two lines in your call center script, you could begin
to see an immediate increase in the number of subscribers to your email
database and social channels. Over time, your messaging reach will increase
as will bookings from your retained channels. This will give you greater
flexibility in how much you spend to acquire new guests in the future.
In
summary, digital marketing can be a highly valuable source of call volume
and bookings when you focus on accurate measurement, messaging optimization
and audience growth.
1.
By accurately measuring call source performance, you set the stage
for the ability to optimize a broader range of digital channels.
2.
Through dynamic messaging, you are able to test messaging and offers
to zero in on the ones that drive the most call volume and bookings.
3.
And by training your reservation specialists to invite your callers
to subscribe to your marketing channels (email and social), you will grow
your retained audience over time.
By leveraging
these three optimizations, your digital marketing performance will improve
with each and every call that comes into your call center.
|
About
Travel Outlook
In
addition to the unique use of world-class call center technology, Travel
Outlook is the only call center certified by Kennedy
Training Network, the hotel industry’s best source for sales training
and guest service excellence. Its luxury call team is tested by Forbes
and Kennedy each month. Travel Outlook’s clients include many of the world’s
finest hotels and resorts. LinkedIn
| Facebook
|
Scott
Meldrum
Founder,
Principal Strategist
|
About
Digitality
Scott
Meldrum is the founder of Digitality,
a digital hospitality consultancy. With more than 20 years of global marketing
experience, Scott helps hotels and resorts transform the way they engage
with travelers in the digital world.
|
Media
Contact:
Raul
Vega
LEVEL
5 Hospitality
www.LEVEL5hospitality.com
|
View
Previous Release: Capture
Direct Bookings 365/24/7 - The Real Advantage to Outsourcing Voice Reservations
(01/21/21) |