Lodging Interactive Rolls Out eNewsletter Service for Hotels

To complement its comprehensive set of integrated marketing and social media management services, Lodging Interactive is offering a turnkey email newsletter (“eNewsletter”) service for hotels. Lodging Interactive’s eNewsletter service is a fully managed program that includes professional copywriting, creative design, email list management, distribution and analytics reporting. 

According to recent polls, more than half of North American hotels (58 percent) are projecting marketing budget increases by at least 10 percent in 2013, and a StrongMail survey cites more than 56 percent of marketers planning to grow their email marketing budgets.

“Email marketing continues to be under utilized in our industry as hoteliers continue to juggle online marketing activities, mobile and social engagement.  Hoteliers simply don’t have the resources and copywriting skills to produce a consistent and professional monthly email newsletter,” said DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive’s Founder and President.  “As a result many hoteliers are opting to use generic email templates, which often look amateurish and often are ineffective.”

Using its team of skilled bloggers and copywriters, Lodging Interactive creates a dynamic monthly eNewsletter on behalf of the hotel that isn't a sales pitch. Rather, it contains content and offers that past, present and prospective guests will find informative and inviting, helping to build loyalty and revenues. The monthly eNewsletter may contain a welcome letter from the General Manager, news about happenings or points of interest in the local market, and a section that contains property offers for the month.

"Like all Internet marketing programs we offer at Lodging Interactive, this service is backed by data analytics that hoteliers can use to determine the effectiveness of their eNewsletter program," Vallauri said. "Hotel marketing managers can view analytical data related to their campaigns, from the number of eNewsletters sent and opened to the number of click-throughs on embedded links, the number of people who shared the eNewsletter with someone else, and where it was shared on the social channels, such as Facebook or Twitter.”

Lodging Interactive's eNewsletter service delivers a consistent message from the hotel to its email list. The hotel's email database is uploaded into Lodging Interactive's servers and managed on the hotel's behalf. This is the easiest and most professional way to enlist a professionally managed eMail marketing campaign that mirrors the hotel's website and brand imaging. Plus, it's being produced, distributed and managed by a team of more than 50 highly skilled online content experts who are vested in the hospitality industry.

Lodging Interactive’s Top 5 Budget Items for 2013

As the dreaded budget season draws near, hoteliers need to place a more strategic focus on digital marketing for 2013, especially when it comes to their social, local and mobile marketing efforts. Lodging Interactive and its subsidiary CoMMingle have identified five digital marketing must-haves to add to the budget in order to remain competitive in 2013, especially today's price-conscious mid-size and independent properties.

Lodging Interactive is an award-winning, interactive and social media marketing agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry. CoMMingle by Lodging Interactive is an outsourced social media marketing agency that develops customized solutions for hospitality entities. Together, the companies have identified the following top five ways for hoteliers to interact with their guests and prospects and better grow and manage their use of online marketing and social media channels for 2013 and beyond:

1. Keep Your Hotel’s Website "Fresh":  Just because a hotel updates or makes corrections to its webpage doesn't automatically make it "fresh." Hotels need to continually add new photos to make the website more visually appealing. New content also needs to continually be added, such as press releases and blogs that also can be linked to the various social media channels to ensure more chatter and visibility. Finally, there needs to be accountability to ensure that the web page is meeting goals and reaching its attended audience.

All these things can be accomplished easily and affordably in 2013 via Lodging Interactive's Hotel Website Solutions program. By adopting Hotel Website Solutions, hoteliers can refresh their web site every two years, at no additional cost. Included in the package is:

• RFPLink group lead capture and reporting
• Online analytical reporting
• Homepage call-to-action tile images
• Website Hosting and Server Management
• Robust Content Management, and
• Guest Review System at no additional cost.

2. Take Control Of Your Hotel’s Guest Reviews: It's a known fact that hotels are dependent on reviews and that travelers will seek online reviews just prior to making their online reservations. Knowing if a review is legitimate is confusing for travelers, but knowing how to best manage guest reviews is even more perplexing for managers. Lodging Interactive has designed a way to simplify the guest review process. The company's Guest Review System offers a turn-key system that enables a hotel's proprietary website with the ability for travelers to post reviews and score their hotel experiences based on service attributes. Hotel managers receive real-time alerts advising when pending guest reviews pop up, eliminating delays in addressing concerns and turning potential problems into new opportunities.

In addition, Lodging Interactive's Guest Review System keeps guests on the hotel's website and turns lookers into bookers at higher hotel rates when compared to the OTA’s. Hotels risk losing website visitors if those potential bookers are forced to leave the website in search of guest reviews on third party websites such as Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia or Hotels.com that sell rooms purchased from hotels on a net rate model. Once gone, they may never come back.

All that is required for a hotel to get up-and-running is a snippet of code inserted on the hotel's Website. Once initiated, managers can immediately begin collecting real-time reviews on their own websites and respond to customer concerns in real time. This empowers hoteliers to interact personally with their most valued direct customers. When guests take the time to post their experiences, their time, effort and patronage should be recognized and rewarded with an immediate reply. The Guest Review System alerts management in real time when reviews are posted. This ensures that there are no delays in communication, and the appropriate staff can immediately fix any pending problems before the customer leaves the property.

3. Mobile Marketing: Industry analysts predict that the mobile web will be more far reaching than desktop Internet use by 2015. Therefore there's no time like the present to jump on the mobile bandwagon and start reaching mobile savvy travelers via the channels and devices they depend on daily. With a mobile website, hotels can offer mobile users a dynamic and streamlined user experience regardless of mobile device.

Lodging Interactive provides FREE Mobile Website Development to all new customers contracting full agency services. Any hotel company partnering with Lodging Interactive for website design and development, search engine marketing, social media marketing, and online reputation management will receive a complimentary mobile webiste. Mobile pages can detail the property, including description of rooms, amenities, premise, packages, restaurants, spas, recreation facilities, loyalty programs and online reservations. Additional features may include mapping and directions, click-to-call functionality, photo gallery, embedded video capability, convention and/or meeting listings, social media links, guest reviews and more. Mobile website management and hosting also is provided by Lodging Interactive.

4. Social Media Monitoring & Management: Today hoteliers are getting comfortable with social media giants Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and You Tube. But new sites are emerging, such as Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and Wikipedia to name just a few that are making an equally big online marketing impact. It's critical that hotels are covered across all social media channels in order to be effective. The problem is finding the internal resources to manage social networks and establishing effective social media marketing campaigns. CoMMingle will assist hotels in engaging online with social media strategic planning, growing and managing social media channels, word-of-mouth marketing and experiential marketing, reputation and consumer sentiment monitoring, and social search engine optimization.

Hotels that can't afford to have an internal, full-time social media watch dog can now cost-effectively budget the services of Lodging Interactive and CoMMingle in 2013 to become the eyes and ears of the hotel, monitoring conversations and posting replies if desired. CoMMingle will work with hotels to initially establish, then manage on an ongoing basis, the following social networks & engagement channels:

• Google+ Business Page - CoMMingle will set up the page if needed and maintain weekly postings on the page. 
• Pinterest - CoMMingle will create a Pinterest hotel account, relevant pin boards, and then pin images weekly to the boards. CoMMingle will also monitor and engage with consumers as needed.
• Facebook - CoMMingle will create additional apps for the property, above and beyond what is presently being managed by the hotel.
• Ongoing Facebook & Twitter postings - CoMMingle will go a step further and assist hotels that don't have the time to post content consistently to Facebook and Twitter by posting content weekly on the hotel’s behalf.
• Wikipedia - CoMMingle will set up a Wikipedia listing if one does not exist and create social links. CoMMingle will also monitor the Wikipedia listing quarterly and check content for accuracy.

5. Reputation Management: Hotels of all sizes have begun to add social media technologies that monitor a hotel's or brand's online reputation, but unless those tools are being maximized, reputations and business practices can still suffer. Lodging Interactive believes that it takes people, in addition to technologies, to make reputation management effective. That's why Lodging Interactive and CoMMingle have teamed up with leading hospitality reputation-management companies to supplement their technology applications whereby CoMMingle provides the human resources necessary to answer guest reviews and manage guest responses on behalf of the hotel.

Hotels using solutions from companies such as Revinate can outsource the social media monitoring and guest review response portion to Lodging Interactive. Logging in as the hotel, the CoMMingle team will reply to guest reviews accordingly, always keeping the hotel apprised of comments and alerting it to concerns.

2013 Bonus Tips:
In addition to Lodging Interactive's top 5 budget recommendations, here are other items every hotelier should plan for in 2013:

1. Quarterly landing pages to promote seasonal activities through the website.  When properly keyword optimized landing pages provide fresh, relevant content for search engines and website visitors.
2. Facebook applications development to leverage a hotel’s website promotions on the largest social media engagement channel.
3. Create independent videos for the promotion of hotel meeting space and packages, weddings and other social events.  Once created, optimize them and host them on YouTube.
4. Consistent email marketing programs targeting travel agents and meeting planners.  Email marketing remains very effective and every hotel website should maintain it’s own email capture widget.

 

Lodging Interactive and Masterminds Form Strategic Partnership

Lodging Interactive is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Masterminds, a leading full-service travel and leisure creative advertising agency in Egg Harbor Township, N.J. This new alliance transforms the company from an interactive and social media marketing agency to one offering a comprehensive set of integrated marketing and media planning services, from branding to television/radio/video production and more.

"We are thrilled to strengthen our interactive marketing capabilities by offering our clients Masterminds' award-winning agency services through this partnership," said D.J. Vallauri, Lodging Interactive Founder and President. "Masterminds completes our product offering enabling us to offer fully integrated online and offline marketing plans with a proven track record for getting results. Masterminds’ talent has garnered an impressive collection of awards for their work in print, TV, radio, outdoor, online, direct mail and the disciplines of guerilla and experiential marketing. Their results-oriented approach to media advertising utilizes up-to-the-minute research from Nielsen, Arbitron, Simmons, Scarborough and others to evaluate all options and achieve maximum value for our clients' investment dollars.

Through its partnership with Masterminds, Lodging Interactive has the comprehensive resources to offer upgraded services to customers who require branding consultation, integrated advertising plans, award winning creative and full service media planning and management. The company’s ability to provide a single point of contact ensures a truly integrated marketing solution delivering proven results for hospitality customers.

"Today Lodging Interactive is a complete, one-stop-shop for everything marketing and advertising related that hotels, spa’s and restaurants need to stay competitive," he said. "By expanding our product offering to now include services typically offered only by large-scale ad agencies, Lodging Interactive is creating even more value for our customers."

Lodging Interactive remains focused on delivering comprehensive interactive marketing services exclusively servicing the hospitality industry, while its CoMMingle division continues to provide outsourced social media marketing services and reputation management.  New agency services, powered by Masterminds, now include:

• Integrated Marketing Plans
• New Product Introductions
• Branding Campaigns
• Logo Development
• Television Production
• Radio Production
• Media Planning & Placement
• Interactive Advertising
• Promotional Development & Sweepstakes
• Customer Loyalty Programs
• Direct Mail Programs
• E-blasts & Newsletters
• Photography & Videography
• Market Research
• Sales Kits
• Brochures
• Mobile Marketing

From Nancy Smith, CEO Masterminds: “Masterminds is pleased to partner with Lodging Interactive and looks forward to working together to provide truly integrated marketing and advertising solutions to a broad range of hospitality and leisure clients. To often, clients are forced deal with a variety of agencies in order to get interactive, social and traditional advertising services. Our unique partnership provides best in class services through a single agency relationship. We are especially pleased with this partnership because both companies share a unwavering commitment to client service and client satisfaction.”

Lodging Interactive Becomes Best Western Preferred Vendor

As a Best Western Preferred Vendor, Lodging Interactive, an interactive and social media marketing agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry, will introduce new pricing plans, financial service models, mobile website offerings and content management toolkits exclusive to members of THE WORLD’S BIGGEST HOTEL FAMILY® during the 2012 Best Western Supply Products Showcase, to be held October 11 to 13 at The Venetian in Las Vegas. 

"Maintaining an up-to-date website and monitoring the various social channels for visibility and engagement is critical to brand success today," said DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive Founder and President. "Industry reports show direct bookings via the hotel's proprietary website are on the rise, and unprecedented numbers of travelers are being drawn to new and established social media sites -- from Facebook, Twitter and You Tube to Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and Wikipedia -- to name just a few. Lodging Interactive not only has the team in place to design prized hotel websites for Best Western properties, but our proficiency in managing those sites, along with establishing brand presence on all social media marketing and engagement channels, is unsurpassed."

Through Lodging Interactive's preferred vendor status, Best Western members will receive fresh and enhanced website content, effective social media marketing campaigns, reputation and consumer sentiment monitoring, social search engine optimization, and assistance with online engagement of social media strategic planning via its social media marketing agency, CoMMingle. In addition, Best Western hotels will have the direct benefit of featuring Lodging Interactive's Guest Review System directly on their Websites, giving travelers a place to post comments and score their hotel experiences based on service attributes. In turn, hotel managers will receive real-time alerts advising when pending guest reviews pop up, eliminating delays in addressing concerns and turning potential problems into new opportunities.

Lodging Interactive is comprised of a team of more than 50 highly skilled web experts. Since 2001, the company has provided more than 650 hotels, resorts, spas and restaurants in over 35 countries with proven ROI-driven online marketing services. In May, Lodging Interactive was recognized by the Interactive Media Council Inc., winning three Interactive Media Awards™ for Outstanding Achievement in the Hotels/Resorts category for its website design services. This is the third consecutive year that the interactive and social media marketing agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry has been recognized by the IMC for its aptitude in designing, developing, managing, supporting and promoting hotel websites. 

"We are honored to be part of Best Western's preferred vendor program and look forward to meeting with members in October," Vallauri said. "Our unique online marketing techniques, combined with our social media marketing services, wins online business for hotels and resorts. Whether Best Western members need to supplement their current Internet marketing programs or establish new social media engagement programs, Lodging Interactive and CoMMingle will deliver proven services that are measured by clear definitive results."

AAHOA Members to Receive Aide Via New Lodging Interactive Membership

Lodging Interactive has joined the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) as an Allied Member. The interactive and social media marketing agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry will unveil a comprehensive program during the AAHOA Convention in May that is designed to assist members with website design, optimization and content management.

"On behalf of the nearly 11,000 AAHOA members who own more than 40 percent of all U.S. hotels, we would like to officially welcome Lodging Interactive as an Allied Member,” said AAHOA President Fred Schwartz. “We wish them the best as they join us for what we expect to be a very successful new year.”

More than ever before, hotel owners and operators are looking for ways to improve their Web presence, increase direct web bookings, control their online reputations and better direct their overall online marketing programs and use of social media. As an Allied member, Lodging Interactive will work to build relationships with hotel owners and assist them in all of these areas through strategic and affordable services and consulting.

"These are still challenging times," said DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive President and CEO. "The economy is beginning to recover, but we're not out of the woods yet. That's why Lodging Interactive will introduce new financial models at the AAHOA Convention designed specifically for both small hotel owners and those running full-service properties with multiple flags."

Plan, Socialize, Engage and Measure
"Also at the show, we are encouraging members to sign up for a no-cost, no-obligation social media marketing audit through CoMMingle, Lodging Interactive's full-service social-media marketing agency," he said. "The explosion in social media offers owners powerful new ways to interact with their guests and prospects. The CoMMingle team will assist members with planning their unique social media strategy based on their individual property goals. Then they will teach members how to socialize online, 'comingling' and managing their message on the channels (blogging, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and more) that work best for their properties. CoMMingle ensures that each hotel's message is communicated smartly, efficiently and effectively, constantly measuring each plans' critical success factors and fine-tuning each strategy for long term success.

"By leveraging the support of Lodging Interactive and CoMMingle, we are confident that AAHOA members will be widely successful in 2012 and beyond," Vallauri said.

Lodging Interactive information can now be accessed via AAHOA's website at http://www.aahoa.com/Source/Products/Search.cfm?Section=Search. The company will also be exhibiting at the 2012 AAHOA Annual Convention & Trade Show in Atlanta May 2 to 5 at the Omni Hotel and the Georgia World Congress Center in Booth No. 124.

HOW GOOD IS YOUR HOTEL'S ONLINE REPUTATION? Lodging Interactive Sites 5 Top Reasons Why Hoteliers Should Add a Guest Review System to their Website

Today's travelers love to tout their experiences whenever and wherever possible. Whether they post their travel reviews on Facebook, Google+, TripAdvisor, Amazon.com, Yelp, or simply send an email to their universe of friends and colleagues, the bottom line is, good or bad, the information is going to get out. As hoteliers, the best possible way to stay aware of that content and control the hotel-to-guest relationship is to add an easy-to-use and extremely affordable Guest Review System from Lodging Interactive directly onto their website.

Consider this: Statistics show that the average Facebook user has approximately 130 friends. In the social media realm, that equates to approximately 10,000 friends of friends, and over 1,000,000 friends of friends of friends. If a Facebook page has 500,000 fans (fans are people who clicked ‘Like’), you can imagine the vast reach each guest review can have in attracting travelers.

"There are many reasons why a hotel -- especially an independent property -- should add a Guest Review System directly onto its website," said DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive Founder and President. "In addition to the obvious need to take control of their online reputations, the Guest Review System from Lodging Interactive is the easiest way for travelers to automatically link their reviews from the hotel's website to Facebook, instantly sharing their adventures with their network of friends. When you consider that one review has the potential of reaching thousands of “friends”,' it's counter-productive not to embrace this technology. This is just one of many reasons why website-based reviews are so critical to business today. Her are a few others . . ."

Top Five Reasons Why a Website Guest Review System is Critical to 2012 Operations:

1. Gain Control Over What You Want Displayed on Your Website.

Due to the nature of the Web, there is no real way to validate whether or not a person claiming to be a guest with a bad experience actually stayed at your hotel. Placing guest reviews directly on the hotel's website puts a stop to fake reviews posted by competitors or dishonest guests looking for refunds. This not only helps hotels maintain an impeccable reputation, but it gives hotel owners and managers an opportunity to interact personally with their guests more frequently. By having complete control to approve or deny any guest review that appears on your site, hoteliers can better manage their online reputations.

2. Boost Credibility and Display Trustworthiness.

As travelers are doing more and more of their research online, hotels and resorts are relying on online reviews to entice new guests to stay at their properties. But consumers are getting smart. With critics complaining that an entire cottage industry of paid reviewers has sprung up, travelers are questioning the validity of reviews found on booking sites like Orbitz, Travelocity and Hotels.com. This makes moving reviews to the hotel's website even more valuable. Hotels that post replies -- both positive and negative -- will be seen as more credible and trustworthy.

In an recent blog post titled: Keeping negative Facebook comments leads to more trust in your brand, Internet consumer psychologist Dr. Brent Coker wrote: "It is rare that a brand does not have some unhappy customers on occasion. These customers should be given the chance to publically display their disgruntlement. In other words, brands should never tamper with their Facebook page by deleting negative comments, only allowing the positive comments to shine through. Ideally, responding to negative comments creates an opportunity to show the world that you care. The result is greater feelings of trust, honesty, and genuineness towards your brand."

3. Capture Lost Business From Third Party Review Sites.

Hotels risk losing website visitors if those potential bookers are forced to leave the website in search of guest reviews on third party websites. Once gone, they may never come back or worse, they may book with the competition or third-party distributor such as Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia or Hotel.com that sell rooms at a considerably lower rate. Adding a Guest Review System keeps your guests on your site and turns lookers into bookers at rates that you are comfortable with.
Studies have shown that 75% of online travel buyers will check at least three review sites before booking online.

4. Improve Communications with Guests Via Real-Time Email Alerts.

According to Forrester, 49 percent of people won't make a reservation at a property that has no reviews; only 7 percent of hotels are responding to reviews even though 71 percent of travelers say that seeing a management response is important. In addition, 79 percent of people say that seeing a response to a negative review is reassuring. When deciding between two hotels, Forrester reports that 65 percent of people seeing a management response would sway them to book with the responding hotel. But be careful in how you respond. Forrester advises that aggressively worded management responses will do more harm than good according to 60% of the people.

By adding a Guest Review System to the website, hoteliers receive real-time email alerts for every guest review submitted, ensuring their business is always on top of what guests are saying. This means no more delays in addressing guest reviews. If a problem is identified, real-time damage control is rendered, and a potentially lost customer can be saved.

5. Expand Social Media Effectiveness Quickly and Cost Effectively.

Integrating a guest review system with Facebook is key to expanding a hotel's social media effectiveness. This link enables hotels to collect and share their guest reviews right from their hotel Facebook pages. In addition, past guests can share their own reviews via a hotel's Facebook page.

"Implementing these five steps is easy via the Lodging Interactive Guest Review System," Vallauri said. "Our web-based tool empowers hotels to collect their own guest reviews and post management responses on their websites. The Guest Review System lets consumers post their comments and score their hotel experiences based on service attributes. Additionally, consumers can share their guest reviews on their Facebook wall and their network of friends. Hotels are notified in real-time of new guest reviews and have the ability to validate guest stay information before reviews are posted on their website. The Lodging Interactive Guest Review System is a low cost turn-key system any hotel can use to manage their guest reviews. There is no programming required and hotels can be up and running in 10 minutes."

Lodging Interactive is offering a free trial of its Guest Review System. There is no contract to sign and hotels can cancel anytime. For more information, visit www.GuestReviewSystem.com.

Info-graphic: Hotel Social Media Explained

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