Hospitality Marketing The Podcast 272

Hospitality Marketing the Podcast Show 272 Transcripts (English U.S.)

Announcer — Welcome to this week in Hospitality Marketing. The podcast show number 272 with your host, Loren Gray.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to hospitality marketing The podcast. I am your host, Loren Gray. And this is Episode two number 272. So each week we spend around 20 to 30 minutes sharing the most interesting tools, news and techniques being used in marketing for the hospitality industry. We also do a quick recap of our weekly live video show this week in Hospitality Marketing, which also airs every Friday at 11:30 a.m. Eastern US time. So with that, let’s get started..

Announcer — Now today’s new resource tool.

So our tools for review this week and I say tools is in plural are fun ones. Given the fact that we’re getting bad news all the time and what have you in our in our daily feeds? I thought we’d kind of lean towards something a little more creative, enjoyable and fun, and something that we need to be thoughtful of coming into the season for what we are on new and creative ways of doing things and these two tools. I’ve recently gotten an acquired for the uniqueness, and I’ve started using them and they are highly engaging and lots of fun.

And a different medium are means, I should say, not necessarily medium different means of communicating your message. The first is called text video. Txt video dot com. This was kind of fun. I don’t know if you’ve seen it creep into conversations or in APS and shows and so forth. While there’s certainly been in TV shows, um, it’s been around for a while where it shows a text conversation on a face of a phone. Also, they will show a text conversation in a transparency, while somebody apparently is looking on their phone or whatever to show what it is that they’re looking at.

Well, this is a fun and creative way of communicating, Um, your message without it being so advertorial or so typical and traditional, I should say What it does allow you to do is to create a fictional conversation between maybe the person that’s in the video or just simply having the screen of the phone, which is what the APP does both off, uh, in which you can show a dialogue back and forth so if you were engaging somebody say, Man, you should go to this restaurant or man.

You want to grab a burger? Yeah, that’s great. And then say, Well, I want to go toe such and such, and then maybe show an image of it or what have you? And this platform is very fun because it allows you to literally create both sides of the dialogue through its interface and then use it in your ad. Now the current settings of it is that it only lasts about 60 seconds. And, of course, we can’t get your message across in 60 seconds. It’s a little message. I’ve had that problem already, so abbreviating it down.

But having that dialogue, people have a slightly voyeuristic and I’m watching someone else’s dialogue. It’s kind of fun. You can obviously think, uh, create customization to it. You can put the person that you are talking to on it. You put gifts on it, you can put memes on it. You can put videos on it, you can put text on you, put links on it on it all shows up on this fictitious phone screen that you use in your your ad, so It’s a lot of fun. Like said, You can also take it instead of having it on the face of the phone.

You can actually put it in as a transparency over video and have maybe somebody that is looking at a phone, and this is what they were potentially would have been looking at or you can have. It is a split screen. You have one personal once adversity, others if they’re talking to each other and the text goes between the two virtually over the front of it. But it’s a fun way of creating a dialogue message in a way that other ads aren’t. And that is text video. Txt video dot com The other one is really very creative on a neat platform, very similar to power tunes We featured power tunes on this show before is a tool for both for animation as well that they have two aspects, and this is called Wave dot video, now waived on video.

There’s a lot to this to unpack. First off, they have a partnership with a platform called Animatronic, which is allows you to create nice motion cartoons basically animations, which is kind of fun to have a massive library on existing backgrounds and templates and motions and peoples and objects and things that you could just constantly pick them and just drag and drop in, say, started here. End it there and it makes the motion to make the little thing run across the screen or pop up in the screen or fly through the screen or whatever it is great, great animation.

That’s the animal trump phone. The waved on video is fun because it gives you a massive amounts of templates to use for every platform size to spec. I don’t know about you, but one of the time consuming things that I have is Oh, I have to make ads for Facebook. Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn All of them have dimensional sizes. What added on my putting in Facebook? Well, this one’s gonna be in carousel versus this one’s gonna be on the news feed versus this one’s gonna be header image.

Each one has specs size differences and you have to know what those are on. Of course, obviously with images. If you created one for one size, you gotta move on the other side. Now everything is out of place and nothing is correct and you gotta remove and resize Everything is very time consuming. This platform is a lot of fun, like some of the platforms we featured also. But this one also does the same thing where it literally will change the shape of what you’re using to fit the size that you’re putting it on.

So once you build it for one of you say, Oh, yeah, I gotta put that on Instagram now, boom. You choose the instagram size, which is a temple selection like, Oh, I want this one size now and it re sizes reshapes but keeps the aspect ratio for everything correct. So everything stays in its proper place. It re sizes all images so that they stay in their proper format size. Very, very handy to create very diverse adds multiple platforms with same messaging. So you have some continuity to this if that’s what you need.

And of course, you can stylized them individually if you need that uniqueness. Because obviously messaging and instagram is way different than messaging in the news feed. With Facebook, you have less dialogue mawr imagery on and on and on. This does all of that plus also comes with great calendar, which allows you to go over and and and it will show you what’s going on that day. I know we’ve We’ve talked about this in platforms like Promo Republic or Social Be, which allow you to see content for that day images and so forth that already stylized and template ID you can grab it, customize it to what you need.

Put your logos or put your messaging on it, your links on it, whatever and use it. Well, this does it for video, which makes it very enjoyable to be able to work with because it gives you another medium toe work with the library selections. Templates are awesome. It allows you also put in, um, thumbnails for your emails that will be auto played for videos. If that’s what you’d like, it allows it to put it in bed into the window to websites as well. Uh, it allows it to host.

It is, Well, um, it does a lot of very cool stuff, and there’s a great deal with that on observer right now that allows you to go over and get it for a very remarkable price. Even their business function, which is more, even more robust and more of a diverse. And they said it also comes with animatronic as a part of the offer, which makes it especially handy and nice on DSO. Definitely well worth the the Look at wave dot video. So are two tools today is text video, txt video dot com and wave dot video.

And that is our tools for the week

Announcer — Now for this week’s hospitality technique.

So our technique obviously is tied door tools and our techniques technique. This week is getting creative with your content getting beyond the factual. Now I say this in contradiction to a slight degree, something that I’ve been advocating and soap boxing and waving my hand. And what have you as to our messaging? Turning from sales and conversion and self promotion is rates and dates and products, and this is who we are. And this is what we have to answering what our guests need.

Now, our first stages, we I said there was four components to this. The first was the safety factor a little bit following Maslow’s hierarchy. Let’s first establish what we’re doing for safety. I’ve talked to great lengths about creating a video that demonstrates and shows what we’re doing for safety to show the new protocols when people enter into our hotels or into our restaurant saying this is what we have to do based on our municipality, Miss Body or branding whatever we have plexiglass screens. This is our hand sanitizer.

This is key, less entry. Whatever the protocols are, this is how we handle breakfast is now rather than the buffet. We have boxes and you come down. You pick us up. Whatever it is that was the first one. The second, then was to talk about what was eminent around the hotel or restaurant, other places to dine, what those restrictions are, where they delivery and pickup. Only where there’s internal seating was there are certain limitations hours. What were their menu selections that was reduced? Menu. All that information is that people, when they did come with you, and for whatever reason, they had to be with you, whether it was because they had to or because they chose to allowing them to understand the full scope of was eminently available around you in proximity.

The third level was then to begin to share what was able to be done while they were with you. So if they were staying with you for either one of those reasons we know Dr Market and what have you is also allowing them to understand, say, for instance, the museum partially open but required reservations only, or that this event area was open. But it was only during certain hours of operation sharing that information as well. And then the fourth, of course, was beginning to solicit people as to a reason to come to and stay with you because of the things that were available immediately around you.

Maybe there’s an apple orchard that had a special event or there was one country traveling or or there was other things to find and discover within the market. Uh, that were fun to do, So you give them the incentive to come with you. But if you notice the whole theme of all four of those things were about providing answers to questions and information for usage. So I was a very big and still huge advocate off sharing information of answers, information that our guests need to make purchase decisions.

It’s not about our rates and dates that’s information. Be sure it as well. But it’s more about providing as broad of a spectrum of content as we can, so that people haven’t informed means to make a decision. Our conversation today is a little bit of an expansion. Beyond that, ours is why not begin to create some sort of positivity or uniqueness to our message. Creativity. Toe are content to solicit the idea that it would be enjoyable. We’ve dealt with factual. We’ve dealt with functional. We’ve dealt with mandatory.

We’ve dealt with compliance. We’ve dealt with all these hard edged things. What about being creative and fun? A little bit like to the tools we talked about earlier, with text, video and wave video or text video dot com and play video is being creative with it. Animation. It’s whimsical. I just did one with waved off video that was highlighting Pyla Wean. Just fun, spooky stuff dropping down spiders and people turning into vampires and speaking people running across the stage going, Hey, where are you staying? Stay with us for Halloween, you know, fun, little things that aren’t about what’s amendment only available.

What are we all you know, what are protocols are so forth. But just the solicitation of if there is a need why you’re looking to be in our area Let’s make something of ah, a fun thing to tell you about the same to a text video dialoguing back and forth of like, wow, you know, if you’re craving a burger, we’ve got the greatest burger place in our area. And if you’re traveling through it is well worth getting off the road for. Or if you’re in staying with us, which we hope you do, it’s well worth going, Thio.

Or if you’re in the area for another reason is well worth coming Thio. But making it fun, making it enjoyable, visually engaging by doing this little text back and forth. Hey, you want a burger? Yeah, I want a burger. What do you wanna go? I don’t know What? Supergirl place. It makes it a fun dialogue. We’re going. Wow, I hadn’t thought that that sounds like a pretty cool place. Where is that? Of course the links and information of their for them to find. So me being creative with your content is especially with the times that we’re in with the election up riding and and, of course, with covert on the resurgence.

And so for all the things and news that you just want to shut it off if you if you don’t want to deal with it that day, this is a fun way of soliciting. Hey, if you’re safe, if you need to travel, if you want to travel, if there’s a purpose for the trial, with the holidays coming up and all these other things that we talked about, where you want to visit family. But you don’t want to necessarily stay with them this time because you don’t want that density of people for a long period of time.

It’s okay to sit down with dinner, maybe outside, but we’re all not going to stay in the house with Grandma this year. I want to say the hotel just down the road and or I’m going to do shopping and we’ve already been told that it’s better to shop in a store that has it in stock in the store. So you buy it online, but come by and pick it up well. Not everybody lives by those stores, so maybe those in the rural areas or areas that don’t have the stores in their market traveled to a market that has those stores as they ordered.

The items stay at your hotel and they go out shopping, grab all their stuff and bring it back. And then they go home afterwards and you’ve turned into a facilitator of that opportunity for them. Well, those are all fun things. Those were all exciting things to talk about, like do your shopping with us and maybe even so, listen, reach out to some stores in your market and say, What can you offer me that I can offer my guests? If I share this information with them, I can talk to my own audience on your behalf that says they stay with us.

They can come to your storm because they stayed with us. They get this, especially the moment pop places, the little places, especially the custom and creative places that you know, custom jewelry, that they only have one of those necklaces on display because that’s the only one that they’ve made like that. It’s a one of a kind. Well, having them solicit that type of stuff and saying if somebody stays in your hotel and come shop with us. Let’s show them what we have in the store. They can purchase it and then come by the store and pick it up.

It saves them. Shipping costs maybe saves you. Is Aziz purchaser shipping costs because they may have to pass that on to you. And secondly, with what we already know is gonna be a overwhelming demand for delivery services. And we already been told to expect delays this circumnavigates and say, Come to the store and pick it up. Will you like it? And we’ll take it off the shelf will put in the box. You come by if you have already paid us online. If they don’t have, that means you can pass.

When we get here, we’ll bring it up to your car. Or you can walk in with a mask on and pick it up and leave without having Thio engage with all these other people that might be in the store. So lots of creative content ways of doing stuff as we go into the holiday season. This is like no other holiday season, as we talked about in our previous podcast and live show that this is unique so getting creative with your content and just going beyond the factual information is what we have to transition to and for the holiday season.

And that, my friends, is the technique of the week.

Announcer – Now, this week’s hospitality news that you should know

So New news and show review We had some one point again. It’s size of numbers of co host don’t always matter as it is. The quality of the content with us this week was Adele Gutman from Aspire Reputation Marketing, Stuart Butler with Fuel Travel, Tim, Peter with Tim, Peter and Associates and everything Angela Flip to. It was fun to have Tim back. We haven’t had time for a few weeks.

He’s been busy as we like to joke with him in the Illuminati of the hospitality arm. Hey was off doing business stuff, and he wasn’t able to join us on so few Fridays. Now he was back for a while, which was great. Um, we got back into a what we thought was going to be a tour de force where, uh, Stewart was going to contend with Tim. Tim often said that content is King, and Stewart was going to say that from his recent podcast that they contest that content is King.

Well, it didn’t turn out to the bitter blows that we thought it was we thought would be a fun back and forth Bantam. But it turns out that Stewart was only trying to redefine a little bit of what he was saying and saying that content is king as equal, raining to queen when it comes to to all the to the ability to communicate and deal with and work with and data and everything else. That content has its value not as a leader but as a co leader.

Uh, that content is critically important, but it isn’t the de facto Onley source. So it was. It was an agreed upon agree not to disagree, but actually agreed to agree. It was a fun reaffirmation as to the value of content, three usages of content and how important content is now and more so now than ever. Just as we brought up with our our technique of the weekend tools, we also talked about creating great team building Culture thing was like a little bit by Adele, shared by everyone as Thio the importance of creating a positive culture positive environment.

Um, especially now, with the diminished staffing you may be having through the reduction of business. This is a chance to rebuild your building blocks because you have fewer people to influence. Obviously, the people you’ve kept where your core drivers, your key leaders, the ones that you find to be the most important of all so they probably already have bought into the culture that you had so refining it, even Mawr to being positive and affirmation all and and driven to be better than they have been will be easier to convince them so that as you begin to grow from the current business level to larger business level as time goes on, hopefully as you bring back people and or hire other people, they’re being introduced into a positive, forward thinking culture that has been amplified by being very much about success and positivity and guest centric and all the things that you always wanted, that maybe before when you had larger teams and larger staff and variety of distractions going on, you may not have had the opportunity to truly focus on well now given circumstances.

This is an excellent time to make that focus. So we had a great conversation about it and the logistics associated with it. This wasn’t hypothetical pie in the sky cotton candy stuff. This was really this is how you do it. And we had a great discussion about that. So anyway, uh, news I’m not I wanted to bring up was an excellent article from a very dear friend of mine, Max Zarkov. Um, Max, we started halves which turned into next guest. He is agin professor at N Y. U uh, great article of how to keep your direct guests and steer travel Booking motivations away from the O. T. A s.

Unfortunately, hey, took a bad article, Made it good. Hey, took a reference by Expedia Group, which was poorly sampled, self serving. But it made some strong points that he wanted to emphasize. And that was there’s going to be too many people in our industry, hotel marketers and hoteliers in general. They’re going to go back and offer up inventory of the O. T. A s because they themselves can’t do their own marketing and or don’t see it being able to be done for them. And they’re just gonna go back and offer inventory.

O t is much like they didn’t know one much. They did one for SARS. MERS zika h one n one. All that stuff. Okay, um, they panic too easy. And this is the time to keep and capture your own voice and market segment. Um, not to just surrender toe o t A s now o t s are battling ah, different front. And that is during this period of downturn and they were entered into this downturn with less funding and some confusion and a lot of ambiguity ist their leaderships.

Um, they’re going to come out of it, you know, you know, in some positive aspects, because they are gonna have people that are, like I said are are going to just hand them inventory and not doing their own marketing. What have you But they’re fighting, Uh, the £2000 million gorilla, which is Google. Google has created a massive dominance in market, and they are in the shadow of it now. They have lost a lot of their voice on that very same platform. Google has taken a lot of the O. T s voice and become, um or of the oh ta than it was prior to all of this.

So the O. T. Is gonna be fighting, getting our attentions hoteliers to service stuff. But also, they’re gonna be fighting Google. Um, some of the numbers that Max referred to in the study were interesting. He said motivations include OK, so he says, um, recent targeted by Expedia Group claimed travelers are 50% more likely to book a hotel via an O. T. A than before the pandemic because based on best nightly rate best room, uh, ableto to compare properties in one location, Other motivations include earning reward points, one stop shopping, direct promotions, buying a bundled offer such as flights, hotels.

What have you in a single transaction? Now again, sample size is too small, definitely self serving. But it did bring a lot of these points together that we are missing the boat on a lot of that stuff. We don’t do a good job on our own doing those things for ourselves, let alone the hoteliers and the marketers. They’re going to just say I don’t I’m just gonna give it to the OT and let them do it for us. So obviously we need to focus on those things, and we need to expand our ability to do them for us.

I know it’s self serving, because that’s what I do for hotels. But even if you don’t use me, making sure you do it for yourself is more so important than at any other time. So taking the opportunity to redefine your marketing re converge or to converge if you haven’t your revenue management strategies with your marketing strategies with your sales strategy, with your operational goals of fulfillment with your county methodologies and your HR training and team building focus are all key elements of the things that go together.

So that is our news and show review. So remember, you can find us on Google Play Apple iTunes I Heart Radio Soundcloud stitcher Spotify, Pandora Tune in podcast. The list goes on 39 counting to be exact or even on Amazon. Alexa, Google assistant and Syria just asked to play the hospitality marketing podcast and no matter which one you may use. If you like the show, please rate us and leave us a comment that will help others find our content, and it gives us great feedback as to what you like to listen to hear more about, and that we’re open to all suggestions as well and critiques.

Also, this is your first time hearing us. You can subscribe, of course, to our showing any of those 39 platforms as well. For an archive of all previous podcast, you can go to hospitality digital marketing dot com forward slash podcasts That’s within S. And don’t forget our live video talk show that you can join and participate in every Friday 11 30 Eastern US time called This Week in Hospitality Marketing, The live show Simply go to hospitality. Digital marketing dot com forward slash live. There you can see Episode 262 172 which we just finished a well, the one I just mentioned.

And, of course, that the podcast platform same thing. Show number 272. So again, as always, thank you for the privilege of your time and we look forward to talking to you next week.

Announcer — You have been listening to this week in Hospitality Marketing, the Podcast show 272 brought to you by Hospitality Digital Marketing in support of the HSMAI, the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association. International rights reserved copyright 2020