Marketing Online -Tapping into Current Trends

The Opportunity

A lot has been said about the global meltdown and ways for companies to hold out during these trying times. Given the current business environment, marketing specialists are trying their best to come up with the most feasible marketing mix as well as strategies that could help their companies reap the most benefit while keeping a rein on spending.

Firms simply cannot suspend their marketing plans when times are tough as such an approach risks hurting their long-term market shares. Contrastingly, the current year can turn out to be very exciting and challenging for online marketers. As for now, there’ll be a need to build the foundation for future expansion, which would include brand enhancement leveraging the use of existing resources.

The total number of Internet users worldwide, as of December 31, 2008, was 1.57 billion, which is equal to 23.5% of the world’s population, according to the Internet World Statistics web directory¹. The Internet is thus clearly an efficient way for companies to gain customers from across the world through the medium of Online Marketing. Online or Internet marketing offers some distinct advantages: it allows businesses to reach a wide audience for a small fraction of traditional marketing budgets, and it provides results that are almost totally quantifiable, allowing for quick evaluation and continual adjustments to improve outcomes. Companies receive immediate feedback, which can be measured in terms of clicks, conversions, registration or sales. Through this advertising medium, firms are able to easily track their audience’s response - for example, the number of visitors through paid advertisements, the number through unpaid/organic search, what the exit point is, and how many are first-time/returning visitors. Perhaps the biggest attraction of this channel is that nearly all aspects of online marketing can be tracked, traced and measured.

We expect to see an increased dependence on online technology this year, and the following are the broad trends that we expect to witness:

• Search engines will continue to play a key role in communicating information online. Studies show that a large majority of users access travel information using a search engine (85%) than by typing in a web address (69%).
• The use of video in Internet marketing has grown sharply. With the Google search page no longer being a list of 10 web page links, website linked to a video are able to enjoy better search engine rankings.
• Emphasis on customer engagement through the inclusion of blogs and social media, as these are indexed by search engines and impact search results.
• There would be growing utilization of mobile and on-the-go marketing, making it necessary for marketers to have mobile-compatible sites.
• Marketers will need to cover all channels and work with both offline and online modes of marketing in order to reach out to the larger audience.

Changing Trends

A study undertaken by Merrill Lynch estimated that of all hotel bookings generated in 2008, 40% would be through the Internet, compared to around 33% in 2007 and close to 30% in 2006. The research further depicted that at least another one-third of all hotel bookings in 2008 would be influenced by the Internet, but done offline (call centre, walk-ins, group bookings, etc). By the end of 2010, said the Merrill Lynch study, over 45% of all hotel bookings will have been completed online. JD Power and Associates’ Independent Travel Website Satisfaction Study (2008) presents an even brighter outlook for Internet marketing: figures collated by this study show that of the total travel bookings done in the year 2008 globally, close to 70% were made online.

In a discussion, Tanya Racz, president of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Canada, shared the results of a member survey in which 70% of respondents expected business travel to continue to expand, albeit at a slower pace in 2009. The NBTA panel supported these findings and agreed that while people will still travel, booking patterns are changing. Individuals are now waiting until the last minute to book in the hope that they will see a fire sale.

The Internet is clearly exercising a growing influence on consumer decision-making, and this presents a whole new range of possibilities where selling products and services is concerned. Businesses should thus aim to move beyond the conventional ways of marketing and explore new avenues to reach out to a larger audience. In today’s competitive business environment, there is a strong case for businesses to be creative in their marketing, and this includes integrating a digital strategy with their print, outdoor, radio and TV plans. Companies need to think not only about the Internet, but also mobile networks.

Understanding the target market and its Internet/digital activities is crucial for developing an effective online marketing plan. This is especially so for the hospitality and travel industries, where, taken globally, the Internet is the most important revenue channel. With technology becoming more advanced, hotels are faced with both more choice in terms of media platforms, as well as more challenges in terms of utilising these options effectively. As a result, more companies are turning towards outsourcing their Internet marketing operations to specialists. According to a white paper by Quill Advertising, outsourcing of marketing and communications is now an upcoming trend; 53% of industry marketing executives say that marketing outsourcing, partial or complete, is a part of their future strategy. This is where HVS Web Strategies could step in for you as your consultants/outsourced marketing partners and provide a unique value proposition.

A Case in Point

Being a fully integrated hospitality consulting firm, HVS has been getting a lot of queries on online marketing solutions for the hotel industry and related sectors. Combining our industry knowledge with domain expertise, we have been able to offer a bouquet of online solutions tailored to the needs of the hospitality and travel trade industry. These include creating a website to maintaining and marketing it online; centralized access to information from any part of the globe by building ‘intranets’ and ‘extranets’; and online brochures and newsletters. Our online solutions are also replicated offline at the same time, to ensure a best-possible effort to reach out to a large and widespread audience.

We would like to share a case study for one of the clients we ran a campaign for: ABC Travels & Tourism (name changed) a new travel search engine. The objective was brand-building as well as to generate awareness amongst people. A Pay per Click campaign was run with the objective of increasing the client’s exposure and promoting its brand image as a leader in its field through online advertising. In the first two months, the Pay per Click contributed towards 96% of the site traffic, generating 6,023 clicks/leads with an average Search Engine position of 2.8.

Focus on CPA (Cost per Action), whether it be a lead, a sign-up or a sale. The best part is, you can measure and track the results that you get; for example, you can see how many people come to your website through the paid search or the PPC ads, which search words are fetching them to the site and what number of visitors are filling the contact form. Map them back to your marketing and business objectives to get a clear picture about returns on investment. Unlike traditional channels where the work generally ends after the ad has appeared on TV or print media, in digital marketing it begins once the campaign has gone live.

Conclusion

For companies across the world, measuring the true performance of their marketing effort and analysing its ROI is going to be the key question this year. Online marketing is becoming the most frequent touch point for buyers; and this requires that hotels properly manage their Internet marketing and distribution efforts. In today’s business business environment, there is a clear need for companies to adopt a focused and comprehensive marketing strategy that would possibly incorporate a range of platforms. And this is where marketing specialists can step in, to provide customised solutions that help hotels enhance their return on investment.

HVS – Web Strategies offers streamlined Internet and Web services to hotel and resort owners, operators, developers and investors, who recognize the key role technology can play in improving operations and financial performance. Our line of services comprises Graphical User Interface (GUI) Design Restructuring, Online Branding and Marketing campaigns, Custom Web Development, and Multimedia and Graphic Design.

¹ Source: www.internetworldstats.com. Demographic numbers are based on data from the US Census Bureau and Internet usage information comes from data published by Nielson Online, by the International Telecommunications Union and by GfK.