By Eric Powers
A hotel marketing plan is your action plan to fill the rooms of your new hotel. A marketing plan focuses on the four Ps (Product, Promotion, Price and Place), but doesn’t neglect customer retention and key partnerships. All of these elements should be specific to your hotel’s intended customers and the geographic area.
1) Product – Your hotel’s services
For every hotel, the basic product offered is the same service – use of a bed for a night. Beyond this similarity, there are endless ways to differentiate your service. Services can include entertainment (i.e., in-room cable, on-premises nightclub), food (i.e., chocolates on a pillow to a five-star restaurant), communication (i.e., free local calls, wireless internet), and health (i.e., a pool, fitness center, spa). Consider whether unusual services will be a draw for your customers or if you are better off providing the tried and true. Whatever you choose, present the information clearly and in just enough detail so that readers understand the level and type of service provided.
2) Promotion – How to get the word out
Promotion is how you make your people aware of your hotel and its unique value proposition and convert them into guests. The promotional tools you use depends entirely on the customers you seek. Rather than thinking about how other hotels seek customers, think from the customer’s point of view. How do your desired customers seek hotels? Make sure yours can be found where they are looking, whether this is in travel books, magazines, websites, or elsewhere. Remember that the most powerful type of advertising is the kind that money cannot buy – press. Consider whether a public relations strategy can help make this happen.
3) Price – The right rates for your hotel
Your marketing plan must show where you want your pricing to fall within the market’s range. The choice of price ties directly to your hotel’s profitability, but also to the brand you are trying to build in the minds of customers. If you bill your hotel as extremely upscale, but price it in the middle of the pack, customers may not believe your assertions that you are the next Ritz-Carlton. Pricing is about finding the right price to both represent what your hotel is and to cover costs, leaving room for profit.
4) Place – Where customers and your services meet
Place is more than the choice of location for your hotel. “Place” in this context means distribution, and this is the choice of how customers will book hotel rooms and receive other services you provide. This can be through websites, travel agents, or a dedicated sales staff, each of which have their own cost and benefit tradeoffs. Distribution of services continues inside your hotel and involves both your staff and your means to communicate with your guests (i.e., phone systems, TV ordering, even doorknob signs).
5) Customer Retention
Most of the cost of providing service to a customer is in getting them to buy for the first time. To keep a customer returning should be significantly cheaper than getting a new one so explain your retention strategy. For example, loyalty programs provide incentives for repeat visits and customer relationship management (CRM) software can save data on the preferences and activity of individual guests to make returning more enjoyable for them.
6) Partnerships
Finally, consider how you will work with your hotel’s neighbors, local government, and other stakeholders to build business. There may be potential for you to either get guests from or send guests to many local businesses, improving the experience the overall experience for those customers. Consider mentioning a few key partnerships that will pay off because of their importance to both parties. Don’t stretch yourself too think by proposing to partner with every business on your street. Describe any successful legwork you have done to inquire about the possibility of making those partnerships a reality.
Growthink helps entrepreneurs develop professional business plans and raise capital. Are you looking for more tips on how to start a hotel or develop your hotel business plan? Call 800-506-5728 to learn how Growthink can help you build your hotel business.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_Powers
March 7, 2012
By John F Hunt
Sometimes finding a sample marketing plan to use as a guide for writing yours can be a challenge. The problem is that there is no “one-size-fits-all” plan that you can specifically use for your business without some kind of modification.
In this article I will outline the 6 necessary elements you need in your marketing plan and some applications that will help illustrate each element. The six things you must include: an evaluation of your marketplace, the profile of your ideal customer, what you want to accomplish as a result of your marketing, the big picture view of media tools, an accountability structure that will aid in implementation, and strong financial proof that your plan will work.
Evaluate your marketplace
No matter what format you use the concept of evaluating your market is always the first step. In this part of the plan you research your top 5-10 competitors and come up with a list of strengths and weaknesses for each. You do the same exercise on your own company. This will help you create a clear picture of how you are different from everyone else.
It is on this foundation that your marketing efforts should be built. In the car rental business Hertz has always been the number one company. This made Avis come up a slogan that could help set it apart… “We’re #2 but we try harder.” This helped position Avis as a company that would work harder for you by giving you that extra level of service.
Profile of your ideal customer
The worst thing you can say about your product or service is that, “everyone has a need for it.” Segmenting your market and defining a specific profile of your best customers will help build your marketing plan in strong and healthy ways. The benefit of clearly defining your target market will not only make your job of creating and choosing marketing materials easier, but it will also save you money because you can focus your efforts on a very specific market segment.
What do you want to accomplish as a result of your marketing?
You can’t measure the success of your plan unless you have clearly defined benchmarks for comparison. Every marketing effort needs goals. They can be long-term or short-term but need to be measurable. Also, part of your plan should include evaluation points to gauge progress of your efforts.
Getting the big picture view of media tools
Before choosing what media tools you are going to use in your campaign it is essential to evaluate each tool based on the information you gathered in the first three sections of your plan. Can you effectively deliver the message of how you are unique through a particular tool? Does the tool clearly reach the ideal target market? Can it help you achieve your goals without making you go broke.
If you have done the appropriate research these questions are typically easy to answer. It is only when you decide on your desired media tool first before evaluating it’s attributes on a big picture level that you can get yourself into trouble.
Creating an accountability structure that will aid in implementation
All of the best laid plans are for nothing if you don’t have a proper implementation system. In most sample marketing plans you can see how a typical marketing calendar is laid out. It really doesn’t have to be that difficult or pretty. You simply need a week-by-week list of the specific marketing activities you want to accomplish in order to complete your overall plan. This involves taking each marketing strategy and tactically dividing it into weekly chunks. The marketing calendar should also contain the evaluation points we discussed before to help measure the progress of your goals.
Having strong financial proof that your plan will work
The final element of any plan should include a budget that gives strong financial proof that your plan will work. This is accomplished by projecting sales as a result of your marketing efforts, accurately costing out the various pieces of your marketing mix and then doing an ROI analysis (Return On Investment). Your ROI analysis should clearly show that your marketing efforts will produce a return. If your company has a long sales cycle then sometimes this will involve simply a break-even on the marketing costs up-front with the promise of larger future sales.
These six necessary elements should be included in any sample marketing plan format you are evaluating: an evaluation of your marketplace, the profile of your ideal customer, what you want to accomplish as a result of your marketing, the big picture view of media tools, an accountability structure that will aid in implementation, and strong financial proof that your plan will work.
For a sample marketing plan or to get additional resources visit http://www.CompanyMarketing.co
John F. Hunt is author of “The Do-It-Yourself Marketing Handbook: How Anyone Can Learn to be a Great Marketer”
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_F_Hunt
March 7, 2012
By Ron P Passfield
There are several marketing plan examples when it comes to different businesses that can be put to use effectively. There are several businesses that make a great deal of money while others fail miserably and do not last even for a month. This is mainly because of the differences in mindsets and marketing techniques or absence of a good and effective marketing plan or techniques.
Your business success rate can go up steadily with the right marketing methods and continued demand for the products. As far as work at home business is concerned the following are some of the top 5 marketing plan examples.
You must first of all have faith in the product you sell or promote. You can learn all about the trade by having faith in your business and believing in the product. Only if you believe in the product can you convince someone to buy the same.
Your confidence in the product can also manifest itself while you sell it. You can also make use of a marketing plan template which can save you time and money and help you in improving your profits.
The power of testimonials can also work wonders in determining the success of your business. You can for instance read through the company’s testimonials from past customers. This is because the view points of real customers regarding a product can be believed more easily than the company selling the same.
Work at home mothers who are having their own home based business for instance can make use of brochures, testimonials on their sites. In this way they can also earn the confidence of potential customers.
You have to have a good image. This is because your personality can reflect a lot about yourself. The same goes for a business. If you are running a restaurant you must make sure that it is hygienic in all aspects. When it comes to product packaging it must go with the price tag.
When it comes to online businesses your website must be truly appealing because this brings the first image about you before your customers. However it is essential to keep things simple. However it is better to keep things simple and effective and not overdo it.
Apart from the above, you must have thorough knowledge about your product and can also attend conferences so that you can be adept when it comes to answering the queries of customers.
You can also try to entice customers with your product samples. This can be really effective when it comes to products such as hair care products, skincare products etc. Once they know about the uniqueness of your products they will surely want to purchase the products from you. With these useful marketing plan examples, stay at home moms running online businesses can achieve success easily.
Develop your marketing plan with this comprehensive weekly plan complete with templates and examples: http://www.squidooaffiliatemarketing.com Ron Passfield is an acknowledged expert in social media marketing and Squidoo Marketing (GiantSquid100). Subscribe to his 9 day Squidoo Marketing e-course: http://www.smsecourse.squidoomarketingstrategies.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ron_P_Passfield
March 7, 2012
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