Hospitality Marketing The Podcast Show 284

Hospitality Marketing The Podcast Show 284 Transcripts (English U.S.)

Announcer — Welcome to this week in Hospitality Marketing. The podcast show number 284 with your host, Loren Gray.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to hospitality marketing The podcast. I am your host, Lauren Gray, and this is episode number 284. 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 — Today’s new resource tool.

So our tools for review this week, of course, keep to the theme of our technique and our first tool. I’d like to talk about a relatively new one that I just started working with called Edit Mate, which is that edit mate dot com e d I t m a t dot com. Um, what this does well, it allows you to create a portal for your team and or guests to upload videos. Now there are some progress to this part. There’s some magic that can happen.

And there’s things that you might just do in lieu of the magic that happens. What I mean by this. Well, as we know from taking videos on, you know, as amateurs. Um, not everything is beautiful in cinema graphic as we see other videos, and that takes time and editing and quality and perspective and the eye of the photographer and everything else we talk about or the You see, I’ve often said that I can take all the equipment in the world and do as many views as I want, and I have to rely on post edit, and my wife could walk around with the phone and get the perfect shot.

So with that in mind, just because we’re giving a portal for these videos to be loaded up doesn’t mean that they represent what we want them to represent, or do it in a way that we would want done to represent our brand or product. Now, with that said, edit mate has a solution to this, which is they’ve created a vast network of video editors that allow you to basically load of the videos. Tell him how long you want the video to be what you wanted to portray and what the context of what that’s supposed to be.

And then they come back and quote you very discounted price, very discounted price. It’s it’s amazingly affordable. I was very surprised, Um, of what it would take to put this video together professionally and then have a kick back to you and it really come up Amazing. I mean, you’re like, Yeah, I wish I could do that. That’s one service profile of Edit Mate, which is great. Um, I don’t use it for that because I feel comfortable in the video editing space, and I feel comfortable doing it with my clients and also teach my clients how to do some basic editing.

So to keep costs down, I’m not using necessarily. They’re editing service. What I do use it for is you can create a customized portal that could go on your team’s mobile phones. You can offer it a zey link for your guests, should they would like to share with you. Very flip to esque. In that sense, um, it gives, of course, permissions to use the content that’s being provided up in all this stuff. So it handles the legalities of this. But what it does do is give you that portal to do.

They can load up videos and the videos going to a category of a project. Then you as the editor taken, look and go. Oh, that’s really cute. Let’s take this piece. Let’s do this. Let’s make this with it. Let’s posted this way. Whatever. So it gives me a platform in which I can aggregate thes videos. Look at what they are, what they’re intended for, what we can use them for. So that is edit mate dot com. Keeping in line with that is a platform that we have been using for a while for a slightly different reason.

But the context is relatively the same. You’ll see what I mean by this. And that is, and we’ve talked about this a tool actually before, and that’s called videopeel v i. D e o p e l dot com Now videopeel the twist or the push to it is allowing people guests to reciprocate reviews with you video wise that you then with permission from them is an inherent built of the tool allow you to share those as testimonials or advocacies on your website, on websites or on things that you’re posting socially as a means of communicating not your voice, but the voice of your guests as to their experiences with you in a positive way, or insights or tools or helpful things that they want to talk about it like, Hey, when you go here, make sure you have this burger because it’s the most amazing burger, Whatever it is.

The testimonial component off videopeel dot com is most alluring. Feature. We’ve integrated that into our Post Survey stays our House reviews on. It’s been very productive in context and content that we then can say, Hey, don’t take our word for it Take, there’s listen to what our guests are saying about us. You can see the value enhancement of having something like Videopeel. So that’s the second tool. Videopeel dot com. Keeping in vain with a little bit of like edit mate is the third tool. We we mentioned it also before, but now, in the context of comparisons to edit mate and that is called social HP, now social HP is unique because it’s also a bit of a team building platform and what I mean by this is it does similar to edit, mate, where you give a portal for your team, Not your gas, but your team, uh, to go over and post content.

Now, what’s the value of this? Well, we’ve tried angles with social media champions, people that have property that will be the ones that will go over and run around and took pictures of the Christmas tree when you build it, uh, warm lobby the interesting snow when it follows the beautiful sunset Brad Pitt walking in the front door. Whatever it is, we have these people, but they’re not always in the right place at the right time and catching everything. Obviously, if you can create a team spirit where your team realizes they can contribute to their own success of the hotel or the restaurant, your operation by seeing things that that’s a beautiful picture, let me take a picture of that.

You know, the centerpiece configuration your flowers in the lobby when it first gets delivered. Beautiful. Let’s take a picture of that, um, the beautiful sunset from the front door because that’s the great angle and click. There’s a picture of that, but you don’t want to give them access to your social media platforms like everybody else has access, because then you’re opening the door to potential whip sees. So because of that, you need a platform to allow people to push content up and, by the same token, be moderated, administered as to when it gets used and how it gets used for.

And that’s what social HP does much like that it may does, but a different context. A socialist, he goes farther in a different direction. Social HP also allows kind of, ah, um, competition, to be able to say, because if content is used by you, that was provided by them then as it gets posted, it keeps track of its engagement so you can have a leaderboard as to who is contributing the better content in your teams, and if so, they could be rewarded or acknowledged, or whatever have you can create an incentive value of We can make these awards of values or things that we want to go over and say thank you for for being the one that gave us the content that got the most engagements.

That’s one aspect of it. Another aspect of it is it. Also, Once it begins to understand what kind of country you’re looking for, you can create feed links that will reach out and look for content that you find valuable to potentially. Consider in your posting streams contextually, whether it’s the location, destination information genre of travel types that people are looking for. Interest categories, whatever. Maybe you confined feeds from those blog’s RSS is whatever it is websites that will bring into the system. So you, as an administrator, could take the content that’s being generated by your team natively, as well as other content that is relevant that you wanted to keep track of and build your content calendars out.

Four So you can have that progressive future context. Content posting. That is what you have to do with social. You have to have these things calendars, thes, editorial calendars, things step forwards, not does. Oh my gosh, it’s Thursday at five o’clock. What am I gonna post? Oh, it’s sunny and 70 to know you’ve already built a couple of weeks ahead of you. Social HP is great for that because it draws in the real value that I see because other platforms when we talked about them on the show before.

Other platforms will bring in other content that you can track, and you can use that and dig into and research it yourself and pull out what you want. But this one, also as the component, allowing your team toe also contribute to that content, and you can integrate that into it. And it also, as I mentioned before, gives you that leaderboard incentive for people that you could reward them for the content that they do provide how it was used based to Paris and everybody else’s. You could reward them for having gotten the best picture of the week kind of thing.

So the three tools today are edit mate dot com, videopeel dot com and social hp dot com.

Announcer — Now for this week’s hospitality technique of the Week.

Obviously is related to our tools. We’ve just talked about means of creating collaboration with not just our team but also our guests. So my technique this week is listen while they’re still talking and talk while they are still listening, we’re in a very unique time. People are spending more time researching. We’re still for people in the process and the throws what we’re going through with Koven aspiration looking at what they want to learn and know more about.

So when they do have the ability to travel again, whether because of financial burden and or restrictions health wise or what have you? Travel restrictions or not, people are making sure that they understand what they would like to do next. Kind of like a strategy coming out of the gate like, What am I gonna do when I finally get to travel? By golly, this is what I’m going to dio or if they are having to travel now and looking at what they’re having to travel for, to take those extra steps to know if whatever safety concerns they have are being met, what protocols are in place?

What guidance is there any way their it spending more time talking, listening, learning, looking. Because of that, you have the chance to engage your guests. More, engage your team more. They’re gonna take more time with you. That whole I don’t have time for this. Seven seconds of God I’m gone. It’s not that nobody wants a slow loading website that still has a detriment to your engagement with a guest. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the depth of research, the depth of reading, the depth of looking, the depth of viewing, the depth of listening.

And that depth of listening comes with what are you asking of them? One of the best ways I’ve ever told any of my clients to work with is if you don’t know what to do to sell to the people that you think you want to ask them, survey them. And we’ve had many conversations about surveys and survey platforms. This is a different kind of listening. When I talked about the tools like video, people were using it into our review process. Listen to what they’re saying. They like about you, listen to what they’re saying that they don’t like about you.

Listen to what they’re saying about why they like to staying with you, what they did when they stayed with you. Solicit that dialogue and incorporate that both into your content, which will always optimize your availability for those same, said people, they’re looking for those things but also re validate your authority on those things. Also listen to what your team is saying what they’re showing. There is so many things that are happening in your operation, that air not seeing the same way you do your development if you still have one at front desk, which I hope you dio, um, or your front desk staff or your housekeeping staff or your engineering staff or your food and beverage staff, whoever it may be sees your operation differently than anybody else.

And for that reason they see the beauty in some things that you don’t see. They see things that they think share worthy that you don’t see. They’re involved in events and activities in the hotel that you’re not. And because of that, if you expand their ability to add their voice to help them, help everyone sell your product, your hotel, your restaurant, that genuineness. That’s that. That that that humanization of your business to those that they’re seeing what you’re producing from them is profound. So also thistles your chance to talk to others by taking that content and presenting, presenting it in front of your guests.

You’re literally allowing the voice to not just be what you think it should be in your tone and your perspective and your highlights in your way, but rather in the consensus of who’s working with you doing the same things, but in different categories, in a different context. To make your business a success, everybody is, is valuable about what they’re doing. More so than even the general manager of the owners. Anyone else often said, When I was g m, I would have a meeting and I say, All right, so everybody in this room, who is the person that doesn’t have to show up for work today and housekeeping like, Oh, it’s like everybody but the GM because if I don’t have a housekeeper, I can’t clean the room.

If I don’t have a server, I can’t serve food if I don’t have a cook. I can’t cook the food, but I have a front desk. I can’t check in. Somebody don’t have an engineer. I can’t fix what’s broken. If I don’t have a sales person, I can’t sell. What I don’t have. The G M is the one that is as critical as they can be in the coordination of everyone is not the critical component to the daily operation everyone else’s and so too. Why should they have a voice that is equally, if not more so important, then the contrived perspective of a person that isn’t involved in every aspect of what makes a operation of success they are a part of.

But they’re not the person there, the catalyst, but not that good. But they’re not the function. So because of that, now is the time while people are still listening and having the time to listen. And while we still have the time to listen to what they’re saying because they’re willing to share with us what they feel is fantastic about us or things that we should work on or things that we should consider, we should be doing both. But first we should listen. Then we should talk toe what they’re listening to.

So that is our technique of the week. Listen, while they’re talking and talk while they’re still listening.

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

So news and show review. We had, as always, a fun and great show. We had a special guest host, Tajal Patel. Um, Taj is a C h M o S C h o. But more importantly, hotel owner and what makes her very unique and why it has been a true joy toe. Listen to her and talk with her once she’s exceptionally young, and that is not a detriment.

That’s just a statement of fact. It’s not a positive. It’s just a statement of fact. Um, as a hotel owner, she’s incredibly young, which is incredibly optimistic for our future of people like her are taking on to the reins of actual ownership. We talked to so many people that work for work under work with but not the one that actually sitting on top, worried about the financial note of the operation. Uh, that is a different perspective. That’s a perspective I have not had I’ve had is from a restaurant owner perspective, but not a hotel owner perspective.

The amount of debt differences pretty substantial, although my restaurant that seemed pretty substantial, too. So but anyway, uh, was because she’s a hotel owner because of her age and her gender. We talked a lot about this in comparison to how the industry perceives her, uh, the hurdles that she has to go to, how she responds to those hurdles. How did she enter a room with people. How does she dialogue with people that look at her and stereotypically look that she doesn’t fit the mold mentally? The stereotype okay off what they think a hotel owner is, And it’s a constant remolding for people to realize that they’re not calling a Mr Patel when they call the hotel owner.

And that’s one thing already off the top of the back. The second is when she’s in a room in her age is present that people don’t see her as the actual owner until they realize been told that she is. So that misconception is to perception of that and how that effects, how she does what she does and the way she does it. Um, it brings to light a lot of what we talked about as to how women in our industry, or so a critical and also are very much about, not fully distributed percentage wise within all the strata of our industry on bond.

Strongly So in ownership itself, Um, that is president, not just in our industry. So it’s not just just calling the kettle black for ourselves, but actually we are indicative of most other industries where women are not at all stratas of opportunity now with us. With Stephanie Smith from Toggle Marketing. Also a co host who was wonderful enough to have brought a halt to us. Adele Gutman from Aspire Reputation Marketing. We also had Dean Schmidt with the base camp, Madam Minister Marketing Tristen Hayward with three and six marketing Edwards Say knowledge with Flip to and Lily Markman with things up Enterprises in TCRM marketing Um, it was very enjoyable.

Open dialogue. It was a kind of a love fest in a way, because it was such a positive light as to the on MSM of what Hegel represented. Um, what it means to think that these barriers are slowly coming down. Uh, wish they were faster coming down, to be honest with you, but they’re coming down all the same and that there are people like her that air entering into the world at levels that they should have already been into. But unfortunately, haven’t been. But she is one of those people that will be, I think, a inspiration to a lot of others that will say, Wow, she did it that that means of course, obviously I could do it There’s a lot of our culture, regardless globally, where we’re from toe, identify with somebody that we empathize with from either looks or gender or perspective of time in life as a Jew or whatever it is.

We look to similarities of ourselves, to endear them to us as a role model, and she represents a lot of good for that. Both her age, her gender, her ambition in a positive way, her growth, her potential. What she’s doing are all positive influences for those that look and say, Well, that is something I wouldn’t be the first. I don’t have to be the first I’m following in footsteps that’s already been showing for me. The path has already begun and needs to turn into the road and then into a superhighway, mind you, but it’s still a path that’s in the direction that people can follow.

So we’re very happy to have had her onto the show. We spent the whole two hours going really back and forth about all the different, you know, limitations, abilities, issues and everything else associated with all of those components and was truly enjoy to speak with her. Uh, we’ve invited back to always come back to the show with us. And it was just a very wonderful positive show the whole time. So that was our our show. Now, the news item that I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss was one that Mr Robert Cole with his rock sheeted newsletter, which, by the way, is for each week, um, does a wonderful curated list If you want to subscribe to you, could go to bit Lee Beit el y four slash rock Cheetah all over Case no space and sign up for it’s phenomenally excellent, very timely and very informative.

The article I want to refer to that he brought up is his boop, which is the positive story of the week. And it is the 10 of the best virtual travel experiences reader tips. Now why I brought this up. It’s because we tend to think traditionally, in our communications I know I brought up tools like that it made and so forth that transition some of the dialogue from a text email, you know, fill out a review card force kind of thing. Excuse me, but there are so many other ways that we can talk with and share with our guests.

It doesn’t always one have to be a two way conversation. It could be a one way conversation exposure value. It could also be a response value. There’s lots of one way communications that are incredibly valuable. Um, but the 10 best virtual travel experiences I find very unique in the sense that yeah, I’ve talked about the Oculus quest to VR virtual reality goggles. Um, that, of course, requires money to buy, even though they are relatively affordable. Tour $99. And I expect them after CS this year. Considering Elektronik show, that’s some prices will come down even farther and technology will improve.

Even Mawr. It’s still one of those. Okay, Xbox five. Uh, whatever. You know, PlayStation five. Whatever, uh, this is in that genre that it’s it’s an investment, financial investment. All that aside as much as I love er destination product, this isn’t VR. This is Theobald iti to go to places that air singularly unique, hosted live by somebody walking you through it, that virtue that you can see what they’re talking about, and in turn, you could go over and dialogue with the person that is giving the tour.

There’s others on the tour with you, kind of like the person that walks from a little sign or flag above their head. And they’re walking around like stop. If you look up here, Michelangelo, blah, blah, blah, same mentality, only you’re not physically there. I know it’s better to be physically there. But now when you start adding our restrictions of travel, of course, international travel being, you know, almost shut down per se. And even if you did make it the quarantining and so forth, which you know it’s very prohibitive in that sense.

So this allows you to go to places that, sans all of that cost flights, hotels, coordination costs associated with the tour, getting their instant instant Ori travel experiences of uber’s and taxis or rentals or whatever. Scratch it. Pick a time that this is going on and you don’t even have to pay for the tour. You could just tip the tour operator and they’ll bring you to places like the Holiday Lights and Dyker Heights in Brooklyn. Okay, Or you could go on a safari in Africa, or you go to a jazz ensemble in New Orleans, or you could go to Barcelona.

You go to the northern lights in in Scandinavia. Um, you can go to Hong Kong down the market streets now? Yes, we’re talking about a different world right now. The densities of people and the actual everything about it is not necessarily the same. Some in ways are potentially better. Like, for instance, the dike hikes. Uh, Dyker Heights, You’re not dealing with the mob’s. You get to enjoy all of the amazing Christmas lights. And I say this in past tense, um, over the top Christmas lights without having to fight the crowds and figure out how to get there.

Where do you park and what subways and how to walk. And it’s cold and everything else. You get to walk around and just see everything. And yes, it’s not the same as being there with everything, but it’s a nice alternative. And I bring this up because there’s a lot of places that aren’t on platforms like this. This platform talking about in particular is the virtual virtual travel. Virtual troops stuck com or dot io, that’s what it is. And virtual tourist. Oh, sorry. Virtual tourist audio. And what makes it so neat is This is a way of communicating with your guests if you have the opportunity, not necessarily offer up a tour that people have to sign up for and follow you around.

But take your own tour that you record walk to the park. That’s amazing. Or the view that’s amazing or if it’s open. Obviously, there’s conditions to our environments and destinations that are just not the same or you’re not even available. But for what is this is a chance to highlight. This is a chance to show and show off your destination. Now, not everybody not in the hotel restaurants are in a great destination in the sense of being you’re there because you’re between point A and point C and you’re the point B. And there may not be that stuff around you, that is.

Oh, this is amazing. This is this super famous place. Doesn’t have to be, but you you live there and are there, and you know that there’s some beauty and this amazing things, and there’s a great local diner or there’s a great local restaurant or you’re the local restaurant. You’re the local diner, and there might be just some fun. Cool stuff. But even if there is just normal stuff, making people see and be aware of it is very powerful, so they feel less worrisome is toe what not is there versus what they now know?

Is there one of the reasons why brand hotels exist in the particular interest holiday in the Road Roadside Motel, now Howard Johnson’s back? And then on that day as well was consistency. Why McDonald’s was so successful is consistency. It wasn’t that it was the best hamburger. It wasn’t that it was the best hotel. But you knew what you were expecting when you drove down the road. And for those that have no idea of not having a map in front of you but a paper map app in the day, and there was a path on the road that you followed.

You didn’t know how far the next gas station was, unless triple I had told you how far the next gas station waas. So you often got gas, even if you didn’t need it. Just because you know there’s a question mark, you know that there’s reasons why there was signs on the road that says no gas for the next 60 miles. You know, with electronic maps these days you’re like, Done knew that like, yeah, but back in the day, you didn’t. So when you drove down the road and you saw Mom, Pa Kettle’s Hotel, Motel and Disco Emporium, you didn’t know what to expect.

But if you saw Howard Johnsons Air Holiday and you did, that consistency of brand is what may brand successful Well, that is all related to knowing and expecting what you’re going to get when you get there. The reason why Internet has been such an equalizer for independent hotels is that has given a voice to independent hotels to share what they are ahead of. Ah, arrival of a guest. So they now feel comfortable in booking with you because they know what they’re going to get. That’s very powerful.

Well, what we’re doing is the same context of this is if we can share by these kind of tours and exposure to our area, what’s there, then it makes it more palatable for a guest potential. Say, you know what, that’s beautiful Or that Zatz really nice. I think we’re gonna hit that on my way over here instead of taking that road. I’m gonna take this road. Or you know what? I’m gonna go there instead of here. That’s the real value of what these kind of tourists can create for us.

So that is the article. Obviously, the link is in our show notes, and that is the 10 of the best virtual travel experiences. Reader tips was put on the guardian dot com. By the way, Onda again. All these links and show notes are available in our podcast at hospital Digital marking dot com forward slash podcast And remember, you can find us on Google Play apple iTunes I heart radio soundcloud stitcher Spotify Pandora tuned in list goes on actually 39 platforms and counting. We’re even on Amazon’s Alexa Google assistant in Syria.

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Digital marketing dot com, forward slash podcasts. And don’t forget our live video talk show that you can join and participate in every Friday at 11 30 Eastern US time called This Week in Hospitality Marketing The Live show, and for that you simply go to hospitality. Digital marketing dot com forward slash live. In this case, look for the most recent show, which has showed number 284 that had Tajol battle with us as a guest co host, which was a lot of fun so that I thank you for the privilege of your time and look forward to talking to you next week.

Announcer — You have been listening to this week in Hospitality Marketing, the podcast show 284 brought to you by hospitality, digital marketing and in support of the HSMAI Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International. All right, reserved copyright 2021