Hotel Marketing Blog
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Posted on Aug 15th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
Social media has transformed the face of customer service for good. Disgruntled consumers now have more options than ever when it comes to letting you -and everyone else - know their gripes with your service....
Posted on Jul 26th 2013 by Guest Blogger - Ashley Verrill
Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and booking channels such as Booking.com, Webjet and Wotif.com have been a boon for the hospitality industry, providing a proven conduit for filling up rooms that would have otherwise stayed empty.......
Posted on May 29th 2013 by Ashlee Hume
If you've been concerned about sending email campaigns for those Winter Specials to guests who have already booked, your worries are over. Introducing iLaunch's new 'database exclusion' functionality which allows you to import a database of particular con...
Posted on May 21st 2013 by Ashlee Hume
In today's society, email marketing continues to be the most popular digital marketing channel among businesses, so it is fair to say that when you do it, you want to be doing it right. So what is considered to be great email marketing? Images, content,...
Posted on Mar 14th 2013 by Ashlee Hume
When was the last time you heard someone say 'I really do love being marketed to'? Probably never. If you take a moment to think about the things you love...chances are your guests feel exactly the same. The idea behind this so called 'loveable marketing'...
Posted on Mar 14th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
Just a few days after Facebook unveiled Graph Search, its new Bing-powered product which uses 'Likes' to create a personalised social search experience, Bing announced that it willnow incorporate 5x more social content from Facebook into its own search re...
Posted on Mar 14th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
As we've discussed in recent blogs, Facebook has recently launched Graph Search, a move that suggests the world's favourite social network is at last getting serious about search.However, although it may look like Facebook is finally stepping up to challe...
Posted on Feb 28th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
Your website needs to grab visitors' attention, communicate your message and spark the viewer's interest...and all within the blink of an eye. This is the dreaded 'Blink Test' of online marketing, the 3-5 seconds it takes for a visitor to land on your web...
Posted on Feb 22nd 2013 by Ashlee Hume
Pick me, pick me! It's the endless task of trying to get subscribers to not only open your emails but also to take action. In the second half (July - December) of 2012, Unique Open Rates across the board were reported at 21.95% (Source: www.vision6.com.au...
Posted on Feb 19th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
Google has recently revamped the design of its Analytics interface, streamlining several features that were strewn across different tabs and making it a more coherent, easy to use product. Here is a run through of the most prominent changes....
Posted on Jan 30th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
Guest reviews are a hugely valuable way to improve your booking rate, with research showing that 61% of internet users seek out reviews before parting with their cash online, while as many as 63% say they are more likely to buy from a website that feature...
Posted on Jan 25th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
Facebook Graph Search, as we covered in a recent blog, is the latest development in social search. Unlike a traditional search engine such as Google, which traverses vast search archives to find relevant information on topics, Graph Search allows Facebook...
Posted on Jan 24th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
Facebook has recently unveiled Facebook Graph Search, a new feature which demonstrates that the social network is finally getting serious about search....
Posted on Jan 23rd 2013 by Bryan Marsh
There's no doubt about it, style is almost as important as substance when it comes to the success of your online marketing campaign. However, the cost of design software, as well as the time it takes to actually work out how to use it, can make it all too...
Posted on Jan 22nd 2013 by Bryan Marsh
There's no doubt about it, landing pages and lead capture forms are two of the most crucial lead generation tools at your disposal. Of course, there are a few things to bear in mind when it comes to creating and optimising your landing pages for the bes...
Posted on Jan 21st 2013 by Ashlee Hume
Sometime around the end of last year, rumour had it that email was somewhat dead. What? It can't be? Exactly! It is in fact still very much thriving, which means for us, that email marketing is still an extremely powerful tool to connect with guests and...
Posted on Jan 10th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
Until recently, good SEO has been all about implementing the same tried and test techniques to get your website noticed by the search engines. Moving forward, getting noticed will be less about keyword insertion and H1 tags, and more about capitalising on...
Posted on Jan 9th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
Now that Google is rolling out Hotel Finder on a worldwide scale, it's time to pay attention to your hotel's Google Hotel Finder page. Because the product's initial feed of data was collected from sites like Yelp.com, online travel agencies and GDS repr...
Posted on Jan 8th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
The following OTAs and GDSs can be used to get your hotel rooms and rates listed on Google Hotel Finder. As we find more GDS or OTAs connected to Hotel Finder we'll update the list....
Posted on Jan 8th 2013 by Bryan Marsh
New research shows that people are increasingly using mobile devices to access their emails. While this brings fresh challenges for marketers trying to capitalise on the platform, it also provides a wealth of new opportunities with the rise of m-commerce...
Posted on Dec 17th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Google's Hotel Finder product has recently become available on a global scale and the company is beginning to display Google Hotel results in regular search engine results pages....
Posted on Dec 17th 2012 by Ashlee Hume
So you've created a fantastic email campaign, you're offering unbeatable deals, showcasing your hotel or resort with stunning imagery and content and it's now on its way to everyone in your database....
Posted on Dec 13th 2012 by Ashlee Hume
I'm sure you've questioned how effective personalising an email subject line actually is. Does including something as simple as the recipient's name really work? Well, it is definitely one way to make your email stand out when someone is scanning their bu...
Posted on Nov 20th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Facebook has recently launched Sponsored Results; its own version of pay per click search ads. The new feature allows businesses to promote their brands by paying to display ads in search results alongside related Apps, Pages and Places. Advertisers who t...
Posted on Nov 20th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
If you're ever in doubt about the power of social media as a marketing tool for your resort, here's yet more proof. Marketing research company Lab24 recently conducted a survey which asked 1000 social network users to reflect on the way they interact with...
Posted on Nov 19th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
If you've noticed the click-through rates on your email marketing campaigns have take a nose dive recently, it's time to inject some creativity into the special promotions you're sending your guests. So what kind of deals can you send? Take a look at the...
Posted on Nov 7th 2012 by Lee Tester
What makes a special attractive and sell to your audience? That is the key question. Is it price? Is it the inclusion? Is it the way it is presented? The answer is simple, it is all of them. There is no use advertising or promoting a special on your websi...
Posted on Nov 5th 2012 by Lee Tester
Social Media is really a bit of a buzz at the moment. There are a number of clients who have asked eTourism to setup Facebook and Twitter accounts on their websites for them only to ask the question 'What Now?" Firstly be under no impression that you are...
Posted on Oct 17th 2012 by Lee Tester
We are continually looking at ways to communicate information in a better way to our clients so that they are fully informed on their bookings. This week, on our latest release, we have upgraded our eTourism Online Daily Booking Report to include some new...
Posted on Oct 16th 2012 by Allan Gaddi
Meta tags are html codes that contain your pages' metadata. They are meant to convey additional data for use by web browsers, search engines, and the like. They are the insider information, so to speak....
Posted on Oct 10th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
If you want to get more out of your blogging campaign, but don't have the time to produce more content, you'll be pleased to hear there are plenty of things you can do to take your hotel's blog to the next level, without spending hours slaving over the ke...
Posted on Oct 4th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
We've posted a number of times on the importance of using email segmentation to create highly targeted marketing campaigns for specific guests groups. Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of Guest Connect, a new module within the iLaunch Content...
Posted on Oct 3rd 2012 by Lee Tester
At eTourism we are constantly looking at ways to improve how we promote specials and grow your sales. In our latest upgrade, we have added in 'Flames' to promote your specials in the booking engine. This is something that we have been using in eTourism Ho...
Posted on Sep 27th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
We've already discussed the importance of using segmentation to categorise your contact database and create tailored email marketing campaigns that target specific guest groups. You might choose to segment your leads based on demographic information such...
Posted on Sep 25th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
As Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr continue to hog the spotlight, blogging has taken a backseat in the online marketing world. Despite this, blogs remain one of the best ways to improve your website's search ranking, create links, share content and open up t...
Posted on Sep 18th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
As you have probably heard by now, "to attract links you need great content." But defining what it is exactly that makes great content is not always so easy. Bad content, however, typically follows the same patterns, making it easy to spot and avoid....
Posted on Sep 18th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Nearly a year after its acquisition of restaurant review and ratings service Zagat Survey, Google has announced it is buying travel guidebook brand Frommer's....
Posted on Sep 10th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Including an image with your blog post is one of the best ways to catch the reader's eye, stir their interest and make them start reading. If you are holding back from brightening up your hotel's blog for fear of cost or copyright issues, you'll be plea...
Posted on Sep 7th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
A new study has shown that the photos hotels choose to use in their OTA booking paths have a considerable bearing on click through rates....
Posted on Sep 6th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
If you struggle to memorise that long string of random numbers that makes up your hotel's Google + business page, you'll be pleased to hear that Google is in the process of rolling out shorter, more professional custom URLs to thousands of its users....
Posted on Aug 24th 2012 by Lee Tester
Ever wondered how are bookings missed and not received? Well, email and the internet is unfortunately not 100% foolproof and emails do on occasions get put into spam/junk folders or are simply not received. In the modern day world, you would think that th...
Posted on Aug 24th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
As Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr continue to hog the spotlight, blogging has taken a backseat in the online marketing world. Despite this, blogs remain one of the best ways to improve your website's search ranking, create links, share content and open up t...
Posted on Jul 9th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Good marketing is all about creating an experience that makes your guests feel like your addressing their specific needs as individuals. When it comes to your email marketing campaign, the most effective way to do this is to personalise your message, and...
Posted on Jul 9th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Google dominates 87.6% of the search engine market share worldwide, so it goes it without saying that optimising your resort's website to rank highly in Google search results is essential. And where better to find out how to improve your ranking than from...
Posted on Jul 4th 2012 by Lee Tester
We often get asked a lot of questions about how you connect your channel manager to eTourism Online. eTourism Online works with the major & most popular channel managers in the marketplace including Siteminder, Resonline, HiSite, Ezychannel & Update 247....
Posted on Jul 4th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
How many emails do you receive each day? And how many of those do you actually open? When you're scanning your inbox each morning, chances are it's the email subject line that determines which emails you open and which you send straight to your trash can...
Posted on Jun 25th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
You're probably aware by now that blogging is absolutely essential to the success of your online marketing campaign. Without regular fresh content, Google will no longer crawl your site, your search engine ranking will plummet, your social media community...
Posted on Jun 21st 2012 by Lee Tester
Have you heard of the term 'Last Room Availability'?How does that benefit me? Well the simple answer is more online bookings. To achieve this you should have your property management system connected to your channel manager. The concept is that if you hav...
Posted on Jun 21st 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Email marketing campaigns are an effective and affordable way to attract return visitors to your resort's website. Campaign tags help you to analyze the success of each email you send so you can stay on top of your campaign and maximize your return on inv...
Posted on Jun 15th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Social media may have stolen the limelight in recent years, but email marketing is going nowhere. Although most marketers recognise the ongoing importance of email, certain email best practices, such as Segmentation, have been slow to catch on. Segmentin...
Posted on Jun 15th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Landing pages have become an essential component of every business's online marketing strategy, and your resort is no exception....
Posted on Jun 13th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Appearing in local search results is pretty essential to the success of your resort's internet marketing campaign. While there's been lots written about the importance of Google Place pages and local web content when it comes to boosting your local search...
Posted on Jun 12th 2012 by Fatima Hodzic
In plain English, SEO is generally a number of techniques or processes used to optimise a website and give it the best chance to be seen in search engines like Google or Bing....
Posted on Jun 8th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
From online vouchers to emailed discount codes, the benefits of using discounts in your online marketing campaign should not be overlooked. Here's a look at how you can use this tactic to drive traffic to your resort's website, as well as a few of the pot...
Posted on Jun 7th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Facebook is currently testing a new feature called 'Offers' for ecommerce businesses which will allow companies to display coupons prominently within ads, Sponsored Stories and user's news feeds. The development could mean big things for your resort's soc...
Posted on Jun 7th 2012 by Lee Tester
eTourism Online has a range of very powerful tools that can help you create, manage and sell your special promotions. To follow are just a few examples of what can be achieved with eTourism Online. Have you ever wanted to reward repeat guests with a d...
Posted on Jun 5th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
A referral is the natural result of excellent customer service and surpassed expectations. Since people don't give referrals unless they are deserved, a referral is not a foregone conclusion unless you start every decision you make about running your reso...
Posted on Jun 4th 2012 by Jodie Dunlop
In the iLaunch Content Management System, we try to make newsletter campaigns as powerful and painless as possible. iLaunch allows you to build your contact database in a number of ways and then provide you a comprehensive campaign builder for selecting,...
Posted on Jun 1st 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Established in January 2012, RoomKey.com is designed to give travellers the security of booking their trips directly through a hotel-owned website. The site is a collaborative venture by Hilton, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Choice Hotels, Wyndham, Marri...
Posted on May 31st 2012 by Bryan Marsh
What would you do on a whirlwind trip to Paris? London? Rome? Yahoo! has just released TimeTraveller, a new app to help you make the most out of your time in a new city, no matter how few hours you have to spare....
Posted on May 24th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
In an attempt to understand the travel planning behaviour of its customers, Orbitz have discovered a surprising fact: Mac users are 40% more likely to book a 4 or 5 star hotel than their PC using counterparts. The findings are being used along with a moun...
Posted on May 23rd 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Twitter just announced that it will be sending its users an email every week, presenting tweets and stories shared by their Twitter contacts over the last seven days. The new service will highlight who shared the feature stories and you'll be able to clic...
Posted on May 23rd 2012 by Lee Tester
After receiving a number of queries in regards to how or what eTourism does with your private data, including email lists, I thought I would write this blog post to let you all know what eTourism's policy is in regards to this.eTourism DOES NOT engage in...
Posted on May 21st 2012 by Jodie Dunlop
Blogging is a popular way for businesses to communicate updates such as upcoming events, special deals, and timely information with their clients. It's also a fantastic way to increase your visibility in search engines such as Google and Bing because the...
Posted on May 18th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
One of the criticisms leveled at Facebook's mobile apps in the past has been that the social network giant simply has too many features to cram into one mobile experience. Facebook began to address this issue with the launch of Facebook Messenger, and n...
Posted on May 17th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
As discussed in a recent post on our hotel marketing blog, Pinterest has caught the attention of marketers and is already beginning to make waves in the travel industry. It goes without saying that there are some huge potential benefits to having your res...
Posted on May 16th 2012 by Lee Tester
A common area that gets overlooked in eTourism Online is our room package descriptions. Too often we will see simply '3 Night Stay' which gives the potential customer no real information about what they are getting.When someone is looking to stay at a...
Posted on May 15th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Travel firms all over the world have had to keep pace with rapid changes within the industry over the past few years. Many of these new challenges are common to all markets but there are specific differences in individual market development levels and con...
Posted on May 15th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
New social media site Pinterest has been creating a buzz in the marketing world recently, and it looks as though the travel industry is beginning to jump onboard....
Posted on May 15th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Facebook has made it ok for brands to chat to their online fans as if they were old friends, but new research from the social media site itself has suggested that this conversational strategy falls short when it comes to true customer engagement....
Posted on May 14th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Writing recently in Google's AdSense blog, app expert Tuyen Nguyen weighed up the pros and cons of mobile sites and apps. Although many view apps as the natural step-up from mobile sites, there are some questions to consider when selecting the best platfo...
Posted on May 11th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
The arrival of mobile technology has changed the travel industry forever, allowing consumers to select flights, book tickets and even check-in just by tapping a few buttons on their Smart-phones....
Posted on Apr 12th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Pinterest is the latest social media network taking the world by storm, and if you haven't checked it out yet, well, you should....
Posted on Apr 12th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Google have recently revealed "Project Glass," augmented reality glasses which will allow wearers to access the web on a screen no bigger than a postage stamp attached to a pair of specs....
Posted on Apr 10th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
The results of a new survey suggest European hoteliers remain dubious of the value of discount websites such as Groupon and Living Social when it comes to driving room bookings....
Posted on Apr 4th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Recent research released by Google has demonstrated that even when a brand ranks highly in organic search, they can effectively double their number of clicks by investing in an accompanying advert....
Posted on Mar 26th 2012 by Lee Tester
Your Terms and Conditions are a major part of the booking process, however more often than not; they aren't given the time and attention needed to be useful. They are one of the key factors when handling a situation such as a cancellation, a change of min...
Posted on Mar 16th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
The resort booking distribution process seems to get more complicated every day, and with so many platforms to keep an eye on, it's more important than ever to understand which elements of your marketing campaign are working for you, and which aren't....
Posted on Mar 15th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
The introduction of private messaging for brands has made customer care on Facebook more personal, but as Christopher Heine at ClickZ recently discussed, there are both pros and cons to the new system....
Posted on Mar 14th 2012 by Lee Tester
TripAdvisor is one of the worlds largest independent guest review websites offering trusted advice from real travellers. Operating in 30 countries worldwide, TripAdvisor publicly displays over 60 million reviews and opinions on accommodation and more arou...
Posted on Mar 9th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Facebook has revolutionised digital marketing, allowing brands of all types and sizes to personally engage with their customers on an unprecedented level. The introduction of Facebook Premium looks set to give yet another boost to the social network's mar...
Posted on Mar 8th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Most Resorts understand that data collection is important to the success of their Internet marketing campaign, but getting to grips with the information you collect and using it in a timely and productive manner is not always straight forward....
Posted on Mar 7th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
The 'Like' has long been the standard measure of success in social media marketing, but a recent Compete study has urged travel companies to adopt a broader approach to determine the true value of their Facebook campaign....
Posted on Mar 7th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Search Engine Optimisation is rapidly evolving, and many digital marketers are struggling to keep up....
Posted on Mar 7th 2012 by Lee Tester
Of course, we would love if our guests never changed their minds, but the reality is they do! So how do we handle the amendments and cancellations in eTourism Online when this happens?First and foremost we need to know about it! This is particularly impor...
Posted on Mar 6th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Only Months after the launch of TripAdvisor's new hotel ratings system it has been pulled. The reason we believe is due to negative feedback from the hospitality industry with TripAdvisor admitting it has "some work to do"....
Posted on Mar 6th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Are you running out of tweet ideas? Josiah Mackenzie at ReviewPro has turned the spotlight on the accounts of some of the most successful Tweeters in the hospitality industry to put together a rundown of the ten most effective kind of tweets for hotels....
Posted on Mar 6th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Last Wednesday, Facebook launched a bunch of new features around Timeline for Pages, giving Page administrators the ability to upgrade to the Timeline redesign now or wait until forced in 30 days. There are a number of changes that will affect your hotel'...
Posted on Mar 1st 2012 by Bryan Marsh
When it comes to blogging, it's surprising how reluctant some hoteliers can be to get on board. Maybe you think your hotel doesn't really need a blog, or that maintaining a regular blog would just be too time-consuming....
Posted on Mar 1st 2012 by Lee Tester
We often get asked about our eTourism Online request feature and how this works so I thought it would be a good idea to write this blog post about it.Have you ever had a time when you only had a couple of rooms left and you wanted to put them online but c...
Posted on Feb 28th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
After years of speculation about when and how mobile would impact travel, the mobile platform is now influencing every stage of the travel life cycle. Mobile is truly a global phenomenon: Smartphone usage now exceeds 50% in the U.S. and Europe,...
Posted on Feb 15th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Google have recently introduced "Search Plus Your World," a new personalised search results page that incorporates social content from your Google Plus network with standard search results. The new layout displays results which have been recommended or gi...
Posted on Feb 14th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
The launch of Google Plus last year was a bit of a washout. While some people were impressed by the exclusive nature of the new invite-only social media platform, many more dismissed it as just another unsuccessful attempt by the Internet giant to jump on...
Posted on Feb 14th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
As Google begins to roll out its new personalised search results page, basic search and social media look set to overlap. Not everybody however, is happy about the increasingly personal direction in which search results are heading....
Posted on Feb 13th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Experts have cast a critical eye over a recently published Distribution Channel Analysis study produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association and STR. The 214 page report is the most extensive examination to date of the use of distribution channels...
Posted on Feb 10th 2012 by Ritesh Gupta
With TripAdvisor becoming less dominant/ reliable, brands are beginning to regain some lost influence and the correct management of both mobile and mapping technology will be key to increasing any brand's online reputation, says James Harrower, search mar...
Posted on Feb 10th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
Marketing experts have found that consumers using tablets are more likely to buy online than smartphone users....
Posted on Feb 9th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
A recent survey of online travellers has revealed that when it comes to using social networks as a marketing tool, travel companies are getting left behind....
Posted on Feb 6th 2012 by Bryan Marsh
TripAdvisor have announced the launch of an analytics tool to help hotels stay on top of their internet marketing game. The new Management Dashboard service provides a detailed breakdown of individual property's performance and reputation on TripAdvisor,...
Posted on Feb 1st 2012 by Dennis Schaal
If you want to reach mobile consumers who'll actually buy travel online, should your company put resources into iOS apps or is Android the better way to go?...