Buenos Aires is paradise for design aficionados. Travelers are spoiled by the quality and personality of small hotels opened over the past decade.

If you were opening a new hotel in this market, how would you position it?

That’s the question I’ve been examining with Martin Rosberg, Managing Director and co-founder of Fierro Hotel – a new hotel opening in Buenos Aires this September. Fierro is an Insider’s Circle partner: a very design-focused hotel with all the best amenities. iPads in the lobby and suites. Double-glazed windows to ensure a silent, relaxing environment. The sort of place where you would love to spend a week or two.

But we both know having the best product is just the first step. We need to help travelers visualize the guest experience through our communications. So as we prepare for opening, Martin and I have been thinking:

“How can we communicate the Fierro Hotel difference, and separate the property from all the other boutique design hotels in Buenos Aires?”

It may help to have a little background.

The building will include the Hernán Gipponi Restaurante. From HotelChatter…

Chef Gipponi, by the way, is a local lad done good, having spent time in Michelin-starred kitchens in Spain before returning home to Argentina. We hear that the restaurant promises to become a local hotspot, but be warned that this does not mean it will be classic meat-haven parilla.

We’d happily eat steak day after day in BA, but if you’re a vegetarian or simply need something other than beef in your diet, you will be pleased to know that Gipponi will be serving up dishes such as Foamy Yogurt with caramelised pumpkin seedsm and Grilled Scallops with bok choy, pineapple and ginger juice, and pine nuts.

Additionally, the hotel’s wine cellar is run by Martin’s brother, Andres Rosberg – president of the Argentine Sommelier Association.

So here we have this beautiful design hotel, paired with some of the best food and wine in the city. Now, the brand position is obvious.

Fierro Hotel is the place to stay for the gourmand visiting Buenos Aires

Or, “The best lifestyle hotel for foodies.” If you’re a bon vivant, you need to be here.

We’re still finalizing the wording, but the difference is clear: If you’re serious about experiencing some of the best food and wine that Buenos Aires has to offer, Fierro Hotel is the logical place to stay. Not only do you have these great options on-site, but you have some world-class experts to recommend other establishments in the city.

The positioning lesson for you

Examine your story to find what position your brand can occupy exclusively in the market. Fierro Hotel has this strong emphasis on food and wine, but you will have something else. Whatever that is, define that…and then repeat it over and over in your communications.

Want to work together on branding for your hotel? That’s just one of the areas we cover in my Insider’s Circle program. See details on the special end-of-season offer available now.

We’re nearing the end of the summer season here in the Northern Hemisphere, and for some of our hotels & resorts, that means the end of busy season is approaching.

What are the most important steps for you to take at this time? Or really, after any time you have a busy stretch?

Survey your customers

Try asking The Ultimate Question; it’s so powerful: “Would you recommend us to your friends?”

Forget the 25-question survey; you can gather additional information elsewhere. If a guest will refer their friends to you, you know you’ve succeeded in delivering an excellent experience.

In conversations, try to find out why they stayed at your property. Why did they choose you over your competitors? Identify common elements, and see how you could build future communications around these issues.

Collect public feedback

Gather people’s thoughts from review sites, feedback forms, and elsewhere. Multimedia content is best. Then publish the most accurate and compelling feedback everywhere online.

The goal here is to communicate your value and your difference through the words of others. Let them tell your story.

Gather guest-published content

Search photo and video sharing sites like Flickr and Youtube. Try a few blog searches. Look for material people have published without your knowledge.

Then highlight the best pieces of content.

This is Guestsourcing. Promoting the stories that others are telling about you, and connecting your past guests with potential future ones.

Take another look at your website analytics

Compare them over the same period last year. What trends do you notice?

With my hotels, I’m noticing increased mobile and video use. But every situation is different. You need to look at your numbers and see what’s changing.

Big, industry-wide changes matter less than how your guests’ digital usage changes. You need to watch what they’re doing before you can provide new, channel-specific content.

Identify your most profitable customers

This should really be something done on an ongoing basis. But now is a good time to confirm what type of guests and reservations brought you the most profits.

Then, you can work to maximize these types of bookings in the future.

Remember, the #1 function of marketing is not attracting new customers, but retaining your existing profitable ones.

Send something nice to your best guests

It doesn’t have to be expensive, just a gesture of your appreciation.

Some managers send out a letter with a discount. Inns by the Sea sends a monogrammed bathrobe. There’s a million possibilities – decide what works best for your situation.

Brainstorm with your concierge

“What were the most common questions you were asked by guests?”

Identify the top 10, 20, or 50…and then create a series of blog posts or articles answering these. (This is the proactive concierge approach to marketing that works so well online.)

Develop a system for staying in touch

Avoid having your guests forget about you by planning a way to provide followup communication.

Maybe this is an email newsletter, maybe it’s a Facebook page. The channel isn’t as important as the concept. Provide some way to stay in the minds of your core customer base.

Continue to provide interesting, valuable content – and they’ll remember you for next time.

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Important: To help you implement this, we’re running a two-week special promotion on our Insider’s Circle. See all the stuff I’m giving away in our Back to School Sale.

New York all-star concierge Nashid Braswell shares 12 tips for providing unforgettable service. The full transcript and audio interview are available to Insider’s Circle members.

1. “We’re very hands-on with our clients.”
At Luxe Concierge, our goal is to offer personalized guidance, privileged access, and exceptional accommodations that go beyond the ordinary in meeting the unique needs and tastes of our world-class clientele. We meet with our clients and get an understanding of what the needs are, and walk them, guide them — basically in a hand-holding process — making sure all of their needs are met.

2. “Everyone wants to feel that their dollar is being quantified.”
Our goal is to provide an experience, opposed to just buying something, sending it in, putting it in a pretty bow. People want to feel appreciated, and people want to feel needed and they wanna feel that they’re getting the most bang for their buck.

I’ve come to appreciate the insight of Fabrice Burtin in comments on this blog, on Twitter, and through articles written on his own website.

In this telephone interview, we discussed many topics around brand innovation in hospitality, including –

• Why it’s valuable to hire staff from outside the hospitality business, and why bringing in people from the luxury goods business can be especially good.
• How and why the Opposite House in Beijing recruits staff from clubs (I’ve never heard this before!).
• Important factors for designing an experience based on guest feedback.
• First impressions may be important, but many hotels focus on these. Instead, think through how to leave a great last impression, and guests will remember you positively. (Fabrice has some great suggestions here).
• Creating a good last impression is always about the gesture (and it doesn’t have to be expensive)
• Some outdated hotel traditions you may want to challenge.
• Is “hotel check-in 2.0” applicable for all hotel segments… or will it only work for luxury hotels?
• An action step for you after listening to this interview.

Listen to the call here:

[Insider's Circle members: login to download the MP3]

Thanks, Fabrice for joining us!

Dan Sherman is Director of Marketing Communications at Ski.com

Ski.com is North America’s largest provider of mountain vacations
My day-to-day changes every day
I wear a lot of hats: the two largest are public relations and social media
The link between social media and PR is managing messages and keeping the dialog going
You skip the middleman and go direct to your target audience
Unlike PR, with social media you can somewhat control your message
When you’re pitching media, you just hope they write about what you want
Facebook and Twitter are two different vehicles for two different purposes
I do more offers on Twitter than Facebook
Facebook is more engaging in my opinion – it lets you have more of a dialog with more people in one place
Twitter is better for lead generation, driving traffic to a website
If I do a sales message, I don’t get a lot of action
But if it’s just relevant information, like a photo of new snow, people like to engage with that
When people comment on anything on Facebook, all their friends see that
Through this method, we got a $70,000 booking from someone who had never heard of us before
I generally do all the Facebook updates myself – and I manage multiple pages
The last thing I want to do is post too much, and have people hide us in their newsfeed
Our business is seasonal, so I want to be tapping people on the shoulder, but not too much
Facebook Connect may become a thing of the past
I have very high expectations for putting Facebook functionality on our own website, allowing their friends to see they’re engaging with Ski.com
We just implemented ‘like’ buttons on all of our resort pages
When people click that, on their friends’ newsfeed they’ll see John Doe likes Ski.com
Advice from strangers on TripAdvisor is great, but people really trust their own circle of friends
Recommendations from friends are more likely to encourage a buying decision
People have always been influenced by what other people like, but Facebook makes this much more visible

See Dan this October at EyeforTravel’s Travel Distribution Summit North America 2010.

There’s a scene in Minority Report – the 2002 Spielberg-directed movie – where Tom Cruise sees ads popping up that anticipate his needs.

Jason Aaronson explains in a 2002 ClickZ article:

For those who haven’t seen the movie, the relevant part for this article is the depiction of electronic billboards and displays. Using a retinal scanner, the billboards (such as those on the walls of a subway) call out the name of the passerby. One ad, for American Express, shows the passerby’s name on an American Express card, with the “Member Since” field dynamically updated to reflect that person’s membership. A Guinness ad speaks to Tom Cruise’s character as he walks by, saying, “Hey, John, you look like you could use a Guinness!” The most interesting example, however, is when Cruise’s character walks into a Gap store. The ad welcomes him back and asks if he enjoyed the shirts he had bought previously.

To produce the movie, Spielberg assembled a “think tank” of MIT futurists to imagine what the world would look like in 2054.

Anyone participating in online advertising over the past few years know this isn’t complete fiction – or that farfetched. Our ability to track and tailor advertising has increased dramatically.

For once, the future may be closer than we think.

Personalization and Customization will define upcoming web technology

In his forward-thinking (and practical) book, Marketing in the Moment, Michael Tasner shares that customization is playing an increasing role in personalizing our online experience.

“We are starting to expect our name to appear at the top of websites, and advanced shopping and checkout options that suit our buying habits. As the Web becomes more and more intelligent, personalization will become the norm.”

Facebook, Pandora lead the rise of recommendation engines

Katie referred me to this article from Time that provides a good overview of the science behind recommendations.

The trouble with recommendation engines is that they’re really hard to build. They look simple on the outside — if you liked X, you’ll love Y! — but they’re actually doing something fiendishly complex. They’re processing astounding quantities of data and doing so with seriously high-level math. That’s because they’re attempting to second-guess a mysterious, perverse and profoundly human form of behavior: the personal response to a work of art. They’re trying to reverse-engineer the soul.

We used to learn about new works of art from friends and critics and video-store clerks — from people, in other words. Now we learn about them from software. There’s a new class of tastemakers, and they’re not human.

Personalization and Customization are two separate things

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen describes them as follows:

1. Customization is under direct user control: the user explicitly selects between certain options
2. Personalization is driven by the computer which serves up individualized pages based on needs

Nielsen calls personalization over-rated. But since his article was written in 1998, I would suggest technology has evolved to a point where this is untrue.

It almost makes advertising unfair…

Or at least until your competitors catch up.

Nick and I were one of the early adopters of remarketing technology for Google’s Display (banner) Network. The return on investment we got – and are getting – is extraordinary.

Maybe that has to do with the first-mover advantage, or maybe it’s just a rock-solid advertising tactic. The more targeting options you have, the more relevance you can deliver.

Privacy concerns

High levels of customization and personalization are enabled by collecting large amounts of data and recording someone’s browsing history. This is a major concern for some, while others don’t give it a second thought.

Wherever you stand on this, privacy will become a key issue to address as these technologies develop.

…

This is more big-picture, this-is-how-tech-is-evolving stuff than something you can go out and implement today. But I’m certain these trends will play an increasing role as months go by.

I’ll be keeping a very close watch for how we can be using this to our advantage.

Martin Dishman is founder of The One Hotel collection, recently rated the world’s #1 most exclusive hotel by Forbes. (Another good story from Forbes)

In this 65-minute interview, we cover:

What inspired The One Hotel

[1:28] Why he went overseas and left the corporate scene.

[9:50] September 11, 2001 was a wake-up call. “Don’t wait until tomorrow to do what you want to do.”

[1:48] How a Thailand vacation inspired him to open The One Hotel: “Why am I not doing what I know I can do? I wanted to work for myself.”

[2:21] Why Cambodia? For starters, “Cambodia is really a unique place; people are so warm and friendly. There are a lot of misconceptions; Cambodia is on a growth trajectory.”

[5:05] How did Martin think of The One Hotel idea? “We could do two rooms, one on top of the other, but they’d be small, ordinary hotel rooms. The light bulb comes on; one room. Why can’t it be a one room hotel? I’m a hotelier; I can do this.”

[33:50] The importance of developing a unique concept: “If I hadn’t opened the One Hotel, if I’d had a three or four room hotel, I would have gotten 90% less press. But it wasn’t by design; [First] I found a place, then turned it into a one room hotel. 70% of the people we can’t get into the One Hotel can stay in Hotel B.”

Exceeding guest expectations, and “throwing the cookie cutter out the window”

[7:00] “In large hotels, there are things that are cost-prohibitive. The idea was to basically make it perfect… as perfect as you can. Everything fits together well, everything’s designed well, the finishes are fantastic.”

[13:38] On delivering exceptional guest experiences: “At the beginning, I met every guest at the airport; usually, I see them sometime after they arrive. I tell them, ‘my job is to get you here, then I turn it over to the staff.’ Cambodians, as I said, are so warm and friendly and sincere. It’s a great place to be a hospitality manager.”

[44:13] How does The One sound-proof their rooms? “We’re right in the middle of this walking street. People stop and think, ‘Oh the rooms are gonna be noisy!’ Well, I would be a really bad hotelier if I opened a hotel and had noisy rooms…”

How to define your niche

[21:52] Martin tells us about his target market: “Our guests are active; they’re engaged, engaging people. Because we don’t have a pool, we don’t get the kind of people that just lay by the pool all day. That’s not what they come to Cambodia for.”

[23:10] How does he find out what guests want? “I’m always trying out hotels, seeing what I like, what I don’t like, I like unique hotels. I think being unique is just about the best way to do it; give them something that they can’t experience anywhere else, something personalized that they’re not going to get at a chain hotel, and we really get to know the guests. We’ll go out with you and do things just for fun. It’s that kind of engagement with your customers that I think they really appreciate.”

Martin’s most essential amenities

[26:22] His #1 pet-peeve: hotels that charge for internet service. “It’s the whole ‘nickle and diming effect’ of hotels like that. And if you want to check out at 4, well that’s gonna cost you more money. At the One Hotel, if the room’s available, you can check out at 7 o’clock. There’s revenue I could be making, but to me it’s giving the guests value.”

[43:28] Another pet-peeve: “Nothing’s worse than a non-functioning hotel room.”

[28:54] Does it make for a better guest experience if you charge a little bit more for a room and give away more free amenities? “Every major hotel has a rack rate, but they never actually charge the rack rate. I don’t do that. I said, this is what my room is worth, this is what guests will find a good value.”

[30:00] The One’s amenities include airport transportation, breakfast, a fruit plate in the room when you arrive, and “more”. Martin describes how a few surprising touches and personal mementos can make a big difference in your guests’ experience.

How to successfully manage your team and collaborate with creative professionals

[14:40] “If you don’t like your job, find another line of work.”

[41:35] Martin’s team-member criteria: “I look for people who I respect for their abilities. John McDermott is a fantastic photographer. I know what I need from the hotel side, and he knows how to achieve it. John and I have got it down to a science. Also, I want to enjoy working with these people, right?”

[12:10] He’s a people person: “I’m the one that answers all of the emails and does all of the correspondence. I enjoy doing it, but I know I need to teach the staff, as well. But … I don’t want to let it go. It’s my baby. I can’t remember how many people I’ve interviewed; I’m a real people person; you have to be when you’re in this business.”

[39:40] “I’m so in tune with what we’re doing that I can manage it from a distance.” What’s his “secret weapon”?

[48:51] On setting standards and addressing problems; how does he communicate his vision and values to staff? “I care about them, so when there’s a problem that’s interfering with teamwork, or the customer service we provide, I’ve gotta solve that problem.”

[52:00] The One’s staff succession plan: “We usually take people that don’t have experience, and teach them in one position, they improve themselves, and move up to another position.”

[45:34] How to balance vision and creative freedom when working with creative professionals.

Martin’s marketing insights

[54:26] How and why the One’s opening generated good word-of-mouth: “Our only marketing budget is doing the website.”

[57:15] The One’s unique online strategy: “We don’t want to be on the big mainstream sites, listed with a bunch of other hotels in this location. We’re a niche property; we’re looking for a niche guest. We’re not a mass-market place, so I don’t wanna be on a mass-market website.”

[10:35] On being named “the most exclusive hotel in the world” by Forbes: “I was watching it when I was back home for Christmas with my mom and nephew…”

[58:09] How to tell if travel companies don’t understand your concept: “One of the local travel companies made a booking request for The One Hotel, and it came through with a request for an upgrade to a deluxe room. If they can’t sell us properly, we’re going to get guests that don’t want to be here.”

[58:52] Martin likes London-based site i-escape.com and Tablet Hotels but, “80%-90% of our bookings are direct.”

[1:01:00] When asked whether he encourages guests to write about his hotel online, Martin answers, “I think it’s a personal decision; it has to come from them. Those are going to be the genuine reviews, right?”

Here’s the conversation:

[Prefer to listen on the go? Download the mp3 recording]

Pat Bruce is a marketing analyst with over 25 years in the hotel industry. He’s sick of seeing ad agencies “bamboozle” their clients into buying expensive, ineffective marketing.

In this 82-minute interview, we cover:

• [0:25] Pat’s work in the industry
• [6:28] How this problem started
• [10:30] One agency’s policy of “churn and burn”
• [11:10] What causes agencies to behave like this?
• [16:30] The value of having an unbiased 3rd party advisors as you make decisions
• [17:10] The conflict of interest many consultants have
• [27:20] The numbers you need to be watching
• [35:50] Importance of qualifying your keywords
• [41:20] Optimizing one topic per webpage
• [41:40] How a website drove traffic by mentioning a comment by Michelle Obama
• [47:25] How to avoid unintentionally encouraging complaints on Twitter
• [58:00] Why you need to hire an educator (not a consultant)
• [1:02:00] Pricing the contract

Here’s the conversation:

[Prefer audio? Download the mp3 recording]

Get more insights from Pat on his blog….

This week, I spoke with the charming and insightful Isabelle Lozano, owner of Paris’ Apostrophe Hotel. Below is an excerpt from our conversation, and her seven secrets to boutique hotel success.

#1 – Treat your hotel like a pastry

Josiah: Can you tell me about the Apostrophe Hotel and your current role there?

Isabella: It’s a boutique hotel with 16 rooms. Each room is themed differently and has a unique decoration. This concept hotel — we prefer to say “Poem hotel” — is based on two major ideas: comfort and escape. Comfort is having something equal or better than what you can get at home. I’ve been working a long time in the hotel business, and I’ve seen hotels in Paris, at least, changing quite a lot. There was a time when you had a mini bar in your room; it was like Christmas-time! But now, when you go to your room, you really need something else…

Josiah: How did you decide on the amenities you offer?

Isabella: Of course I’ve been listening to customers in other hotels that we’ve run but we also just did it quite simply; what would I like to have in my room? Of course, a comfortable bed (these are not so common in Parisian hotels), to be able to watch a DVD or hear a CD, internet connectivity like at home, good showers and jacuzzi baths — that’s the part that is a bit more than what you can have at home. I believe the best way to personalize is to think about, “what would I do?”

Josiah: I think when you’re designing for yourself – instead of spending alot of time doing market research – the result is something alot more personal.

Isabella: Yes, and people feel that it’s “home made”. You know? It’s like a pastry. If you go to an industrial bakery, or if you ask your grandma to do it, the taste will be different. In our branch, I think it is exactly the same.

#2 Offer guests a unique experience, every time.

Josiah: You and your father wanted to create a hotel that was unique, and the way you did that was to create very different themes for each room.

Isabella: Yes, I think in Paris, we’re the only hotel that has a unique decoration in each of our 16 rooms. There are some new hotels that are very nice, but they usually have 4 or 5 types of rooms. Each one very different, but only 4 or 5. It pleases us, I must say, and it’s good for business. We have alot of people coming back, because they know that their next room experience will be different from the last. We’ve also created some packages that amplify the spirit of our hotel. We try a lot of different things and listen to our clients to see what matches. We call these packages “nuits de rêves” (dreaming nights).

Josiah: It seems like creating 16 different themes would take a lot of work and thought…

Isabella: Yes it did! (laughs)

Josiah: How did you come up with 16 unique room themes?

Isabella: Since we rebuilt the old building, we had to deal with the technical parts first. Then, in each room, we chose different materials, photos, tissues… The space may be the same, but the way we changed each design gives a totally different impression. For instance, in some rooms, we did something special on the ceiling. In the library room, we have a book on the ceiling. In the music room: sheet music.

Josiah: Did you and your father come up with each of the different designs, or were there other people involved?

Isabella: Obviously, the fact that we work with family is a great support. I would never have done this alone. We also had to work with an architect and a young designer, Sabrina Alouf, who’s Belgian. So yes, we had help. That’s good. We couldn’t have made it without them… (laughter)

Josiah: What feedback have you received? Do guests like the different room styles?

Isabella: The French people are absolutely keen on the hotel. They really love it and are very enthusiastic about it which is funny because French people aren’t always enthusiastic types of people, you know? It’s fun to see that. We’ve also get very good reports from Italians, Belgians and the English. Some Americans are reluctant because the bathrooms are an open part of the room, so they’re a bit shy about that.

#3 – Create online content for individuals. Stay flexible, and respond to customer feedback.

Josiah: Do you encourage your guests to talk about their experience online?

Isabella: We use our website blog sometimes, and, of course, you can’t avoid TripAdvisor; it’s really the number one website there for this sort of thing. We send our guests emails at the end of their stay, asking if they would be nice enough to leave us a review on TripAdvisor. We’re also working with Tablet hotels, because it also encourages comments.

Josiah: Do you find a lot of people follow through with your request and leave a review?

Isabella: There may be like 10% of French people doing this, because they really don’t like having to subscribe to all these things. Americans are much more helpful; I would say it’s like 80% of the Americans do it.

Josiah: Really? Those numbers seem high. I talk with hotels who get, maybe, 1%-2% of guests leaving a review, because like you say, it’s a little bit of a hassle if they don’t have an account…

Isabella: Well, if it’s someone we already know, like a businessman who’s staying with us a second time, we won’t bother them. I’m talking about tourism, mostly.

Josiah: Ah, okay. Interesting you’d make that distinction. I’d like to talk about your website for a moment, because it seems more like an online magazine instead of just a brochure. You’re posting alot of interesting content. How did you come up with the idea for your hotel website?

Isabella: There are more or less 3 big companies that are doing websites for hotels in Paris, and I feel like they all look the same. If you’re claiming to be unique, you can’t have a website that looks like the others. We worked with a company named Hoosta, and talking with them, we decided to do a kind of magazine. Keeping in mind that we normally have customers that know and have been to Paris, we’d like to offer them more of an agenda for Paris, not just say where the Eiffel tower is.

Josiah: Who would you say is your typical guest, who wants to know more about events in Paris? What’s the target audience for your website?

Isabella: We noticed that there’s a slight difference between the English part of the website and the French part. The French part has more articles and talks more about things that are less-known than in the English part. We’ve realized that the French customers were really reading alot of our posts. After arriving at the hotel, after their booking, they would say, “I’m going to go see this exhibition that I saw on the website.” The English part follows the same idea, but talks more about the hotel itself, because that’s what English clients want to learn about, we’ve realized.

Josiah: So you do more than just translate content: you’re creating unique content for each type of  visitor

Isabella: Yes, at first we were just translating, but we asked customers what they thought, and we found out that our English and French customers wanted different things. English and Americans were saying, “That’s too much information; we just want to learn more about the hotel.” I’m not working only for my own pleasure; my main aim is to please customers, so I keep asking them what they think. We did the same thing with our breakfast; we started with something very simple, and then we made changes according to what customers wanted.

#4 – Stay organized and cohesive by linking events and seasons to your web content.

Josiah: Who publishes new articles, new content to your website?

Isabella: I got help with the technical aspects of the website, but usually write the posts myself, or an employee will say, “Oh, I’ve noticed something about Paris; we should do a post.” It’s all a work of the hotel.

Josiah: And because your website it based out of WordPress, it’s very easy to update. You don’t need a web-master or a technical person…

Isabella: We have a web-master for other things, but not for the blog. It is a very big job, writing two articles a week. With the research, collecting images… I spend a good hour or two per post, but we prefer not to pay someone for that.

Josiah: I know it can take me 3… 5… 8 hours to write a post. Do you have a process that makes writing easier and faster?

Isabella: Well, each month we have a theme. For instance, February is the romantic month and March is the sporty month; we keep these themes in mind when creating two articles for each week, focusing either on the neighborhood or on the hotel and our themes. This makes the research much easier, because you know what you’re searching for, and you can link the month’s theme to promotions for the hotel; for instance, for July/August, we have a “picnic package”, and the main post for July will be about picnic spaces in Paris. That way it is very cohesive.

#5 – Attract readers with rich media and quality content; reward loyal customers with insider deals.

Josiah: I notice you have a lot of nice photos and videos, alot of rich media on the site. Do you take those photographs? How do you find them?

Isabella: Some are taken by us, and some… we find on the internet. The internet is magic (laughs). As for the videos, Hoosta shoots them for us. At the beginning, I wanted to make long articles, but that was silly. I don’t think people read as much on the internet; it’s not a newspaper. Usually, I write 5-10 lines, and spend more time finding a really good photo.

Josiah: What tactics have you found are the best for generating website traffic?

Isabella: We have people that come from other websites, and we’ve created a “fidelity club” (loyalty program), and give members the best available rate, the best parking, champagne at a restaurant we’re working with… guests work directly with us because they know they will get a bit more. That’s the main thing, and then, of course, we have alot of articles on different things in Paris, which helps people find our website more easily.

#6 – Keep your focus. “I’m not here to talk about Sarcozy politics.”

Josiah: I think once you adopt the mindset of a publisher and start putting alot of interesting content out there, it’s easier for people to find you through Google. You’re probably getting alot of organic, natural, free traffic from those searches.

Isabella: Yes, we just have to keep in mind that the posts we make should be related to the hotel business. I’m not here to talk about Sarcozy politics. That’s not my… you see what I mean. I’m going to talk about the fact that in Paris, for instance, there’s a very big exhibition on Monet that is starting in September. I’m creating a hotel package for that, and writing for people who are coming to Paris to see this exhibition and find a hotel. I’m not talking about everything and nothing at the same time.

Josiah: You mentioned that Facebook is working well for you, but Twitter isn’t working as well. Do you know why?

Isabella: I think because I did not understand how Twitter works, at first. So we’re working on that with Hoosta. When we’re doing something special, we’ll send a quick Twitter message. I’m starting to understand a bit more, but it’s not my generation, Facebook and Twitter.

Josiah: I think some design hotels, like yourself, do a little bit better on Facebook because you have the opportunity to share rich media.

Isabella: That’s quite true. I’ve also become aware that TripAdvisor is going to become involved with Facebook.

Josiah: Yes, TripAdvisor is including Facebook networks on their review pages, so that people can ask their friends for advice when they’re visiting a city. I think it’s going to be very interesting to watch how that works out.

Isabella: Yes; it’s all in the same spirit…

#7 – Collaborate with passionate staff, but remember; “Nobody knows more about your hotel and your clients [than you]!”

Josiah: You told me that one of the biggest misconceptions small hotels have is that they can’t manage marketing themselves. I notice that social media works best when the communication is coming from the hotel. It’s hard to do that from a distance. How do you get your hotel team members involved in the publishing that you do?

Isabella: Well… I’m hiring young people! (laughs) It’s quite important that they’re familiar with those kinds of communications. Then… they have to really like the hotel. The people that work here have a lot of heart. They want to work with something special, not just any hotel. Though, speaking truthfully, I’m personally the most involved with posting. The team gives me ideas, and I decide which ones fit with the hotel. If there are too many different voices, you can feel that something is wrong, so it has to be one voice, I think. Maybe I’m wrong.

Josiah: No; I think one voice but with many ideas is good. It’s important that guests really understand the culture and vision behind the hotel, and because you’re the owner and have set everything up, I think you understand what you’re trying to accomplish online, so it helps for you to be that one voice.

Isabella: Yes, and I ask the team to read the website very frequently; they have to be perfectly aware of what is told to customers by the hotel. I think most of hoteliers in small hotels think they cannot manage marketing themselves. Of course you cannot do everything, but you should make decisions and give general direction. Nobody knows more about your hotel and your clients!

Josiah: Excellent. So closing off, I hear that you’re interested in starting a shop with your own products. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Isabella: It’s not made yet, but I’d like to make a selection of products so people can take home a little souvenir from Paris; we wouldn’t do the typical souvenir, of course. I have no intention of buying small lights and flowers, but I’m thinking of finding a few objects that fit with the hotel, and we could sell at the hotel and on the website. I think it’s an interesting project, and with only 16 rooms, it’s a way to make more of a production. It’s not easy, but I’ll manage, I’m sure.

Best of luck, Isabella; thank you!

The inside story from a real person who loves what they do

The inside story

Something we don’t already know. The scoop. Behind-the-scenes stuff.

From a real person

Not a department. A personality. Preferably, a friendly one. Someone we can identify with.

Who loves what they do

They’re so excited about it, you couldn’t pay them to NOT write about it.

That’s it. That’s the “secret.” Now, go do this…

[Photo credit: Jurvetson; Inspired by Eric Karjaluoto]