Welcome to my Hotel Marketing Blog. I am Josiah Mackenzie and I write about how hotels can use the internet to increase direct bookings. You may want to start with the biggest hits page, enroll in the 5-day e-course, or get weekly email updates.

Hotel Marketing Ideas Guide Giveaway

by Josiah Mackenzie on February 8, 2010

HMI-stackToday we just finished an extensive revision of our core product: the Savvy Hotelier’s Guide to Hotel Marketing Ideas. Since you have supported me so much through the development of this project, I wanted a way to give back to you, my readers.

So each day this week I’ll give away one free copy of the guide to a new lucky winner.

I think you’ll really like this, since it now includes:

  • Over 1,000 tested hotel marketing concepts
  • Checklists for action steps you can take right now
  • Interviews with hotel marketing industry leaders
  • Case studies from hotels that tried these ideas

Entering this contest takes 5 seconds. Simply retweet the following:

1001 Hotel Marketing Ideas:  http://ow.ly/14UOS (from @HMarketingHelp)

Five winners will be randomly selected in the next 48 hours from the people that retweet this. Good luck!

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Book Summary: Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk

by Josiah Mackenzie on February 5, 2010

gary-vaynerchukGary Vaynerchuk is often used as a social media success story. Through his video blog show – Wine Library TV – he built his local, family business into a national leader.

As he says in the book, “I write about things after I do them.” I like that. I enjoy learning from people who have tested their ideas in the marketplace.

Here’s some of the most relevant thoughts I took away from reading Crush It! -

Choose your platform carefully

Use something that makes you shine, shows your passion, and connects well with your audience. (The three big platforms: video, audio, and writing)

Use instinct over analytics

Gary recommends avoiding the temptation to keep looking at the numbers when trying to build your community – especially at first.

[I agree with the need to avoid obsessing over follower count. I disagree with abandoning all analytics - in my experience testing website performance is crucial for improving ROI]

[continue reading…]

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Fairmont uses Twitter to create special package

by Josiah Mackenzie on February 2, 2010

sleighride

Many hotels use Twitter to communicate with their fans, but Fairmont is taking it a step further.

The Fairmont Chateau Whistler (@fairmontwhistlr) asked their Twitter followers for input in building a winter travel package. A poll was created where people could vote for the top activities they wanted included.

The result? A “Twinter Travel Package” that includes a fondue dinner and horse-drawn sleigh ride for two.

I want to see more of this. There’s a lot more we could do to involve our customers in creating new products.

After all, who better to ask than the people that will buy it?

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Don’t Celebrate The Launch

by Josiah Mackenzie on February 1, 2010

celebrateBob Regnerus is a smart man. I’ve watched him increase the profitability of many websites, so I know his recommendations come from real world testing. His recent blog post, Don’t Celebrate The Launch, included a very important message:

We all love to celebrate a job being finished, but in online marketing, and in ALL marketing for that matter, the launch is NOT the time to celebrate.  Sure, go ahead, high-five each other for nailing the deadline, putting out good-looking work, or figuring out that complex issue, but do not get drunk in this celebration because you’ve only completed about 7% of the task.

If you really want to celebrate, save that for when the sales roll in.  I could care less about how a web site looks, reads, or acts until I start to see what it does in terms of sales.

Bob works primarily outside the hospitality industry, but the concepts apply just as well to us working with hotels.

I’ve watched organizations spend hundreds of thousands on a website…and then think their job is done.

It’s not.

The launch of a new website or campaign is just the beginning.

The real value will come from the testing you need to do in the weeks and months that follow.

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Oyster keeps ‘em honest

January 28, 2010

I’m a big believer in honest marketing. Tell things like they are.

Honesty sets expectations appropriately
Honesty prevents guest disappointment
Honesty avoids negative word of mouth

That’s why I love Oyster’s Photo Fakeouts feature:

Use media that portrays what it’s really like to stay with you. If something needs fixing, fix it.
But never use half-truths.

Read the full article →

New PR: Stories that Work (Tom McCallum interview, Part 2)

January 27, 2010

Josiah’s note: In the second part of my conversation with Tom McCallum, we discuss what’s changed in PR and media relations.

PR is now a major element of your toolkit. This is true at all levels – even for a small bed & breakfast. Hotels don’t need to hire a PR agency, they can create [...]

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Consistency

January 25, 2010

It’s essential for:

Succeeding in marketing
Building fans (the power of predictability)
Laying the foundation for a profitable business

This is easy to see when you analyze the habits of the super-successful.

Joe Girard consistently hand-wrote personal letters to each of his customers. He became the world’s greatest salesperson (according to Guinness).
Richard Branson consistently carries a notebook everywhere, and writes [...]

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8 social media stats we can actually use

January 22, 2010

I was doing some research on social media use for a project, and found the vast majority of statistics quite useless. For example, what can you do with the fact that 55 million status updates are posted daily to Facebook – or that every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube?
These stats, however, [...]

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Re-think Your Metrics: Travel Booking Isn’t Linear (Tom McCallum interview, Part 1)

January 19, 2010

Josiah’s note: The following comes from a conversation I recently had with Tom McCallum. In this article, Tom discusses the travel booking process, and how it takes place today.
As John Wanamaker famously said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
I blogged on this a while [...]

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Why You? Why Now?

January 18, 2010

This question from Seth Godin really had me thinking today, and I’d like to riff on it for a moment.
Not enough people clearly understand their organization’s value proposition.
Why you? Why should I pick your hotel over the others?

Are you the coolest?
The most luxurious?
The newest?
The most fun?
The closest to area attractions?
The most secluded?
The best service?
Heck, are [...]

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