Don’t Know Where Your Advertising Money Goes?

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half,” said John Wanamaker, a public figure and marketing pioneer.

The problem that John so adeptly identified remains true today for so many marketers – hoteliers included. Marketers spent an estimated $628.63 billion on ads in 2018, including $273.29 billion on digital ads. Much of that ad spend, however, goes to waste. In a recent survey by Rakuten Marketing, participating professionals estimated they waste 26 percent of their budget on the wrong strategies and channels.

Wouldn’t it be more effective to know exactly who you are targeting (including guests and not just potential guests) at each specific time of day?

Target Specific Audiences Through Personalization

The best audience comprises people who are ready to spend – the ones who are already in your property. A survey by Adlucent revealed that seven out of ten consumers say they prefer content and ads that are tailored to their personal interests. Exploiting this crucial fact, Portier Technologies pulls the data that can help you cater to your niche market. For example:

Promoting floating breakfasts to Chinese guests delivers twice the conversion rate of doing the same for non-Chinese guests. If you want to sell your floating breakfast, chances are you’ll sell it to your Chinese guests first.
Floating breakfasts are the highest-converting item at resorts, with almost 6% of guests wanting to book one after reading about it.
Dining and promotions are the two most popular categories for readership – they make up 60% of all the time spent on Portier content.

Knowing what your target market wants helps you to target it better, and your customers will also be happier, as 58% of consumers report that personalized ads and content improve their perception of a brand.

Target at the Right Time

You might also want to consider the time when your promotions and ads are being displayed. Why? Because it matters! For example:

Portier’s read rate on promotional push messages is 85% – while the read rate from Chinese guests is 95%. The highest read rate from Chinese guests comes on Fridays and Saturdays, reaching close to 100%, while for all guests across the whole hotel, Tuesdays and Saturdays deliver the highest read rate.
Promotional push messages are most likely to be read between 9 pm and midnight (22.2%), while they attract least attention between 1 pm and 4 pm (19%).
When it comes to general content, the “Golden Hour” is 3 pm to 4 pm, with most pieces of content read during that time.
After reading a piece of hotel content, conversion happens most frequently on Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays, with 2.5% of read articles leading to a guest action.

Instead of having your ads and promotions go everywhere at any time, you probably ought to be using a specific time (otherwise known as the right time) to push your messages, and this is something you simply can’t do in traditional advertising. This is partly why it’s expected that by 2020, at least 50% of all advertising will be digital, taking advantage of another trend where mobile spending will account for 42% of all expenditure by 2022.

Furthermore, no matter which method you follow: affordable method, percentage of sales method, competitive parity method, or objective and task method, you will still want to maximize the returns on your budget spent. It is therefore crucial that you have the right tools, the right information, and the right partners, be they media partners, or 2nd or 3rd party data providers to work with you.

Portier not only helps your guests by making their stay with you seamless, but it can also help you achieve your goal through getting to know your customers better and helping you monitor your advertising budget.