Marketing Plan Information

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.

By Michael J Farragher

The marketing plan is an integral part of the future success of any marketing department. Whether it is a large corporation or a small business just starting out, the marketing plan is a detailed analysis of: the internal components of the business, the external forces exerted on the business to understand the market in which it operates, and set goals that provide direction for future marketing incentives. Marketing plans are usually conceived to offer a specific strategy of how to introduce a new product, enter new markets or to fix a current problem. The following assertion discusses how to draft a five part marketing plan. The five parts include, but are not limited to:

1. Purpose + Mission
2. SWOT analysis
3. Marketing strategy objectives
4. Strategical marketing objectives
5. Budget analysis + implementation

Purpose + Mission Statement- The purpose of the marketing plan, while seemingly somewhat self explanatory, should be a concise statement of why this plan was drafted and allude to how the information in the plan could, or should, be used. Mission- If a new business is creating a marketing plan a mission statement may not exist and thus need to be devised. The mission statement needs to be a specific and clearly worded paragraph that embodies a stable and lucent long-term vision of the organization. A good mission statement should be able to answer such questions as: What is the business’s creed, or standard for doing business? What services does it provide? Why is the company in business? It is a strict guideline of what the business stands for, and what the business offers to its customers.

SWOT Analysis- This section of the plan analyzes is great detail the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of, and to, the company. Strength- ex: Current Products (features, benefits, pricing, incentives) Weaknesses- ex: Current financial condition (could potentially be strength) Opportunities- ex: Target markets (mass market? Segmentation, demographics, psychographics, needs of market) Threats- ex: Competitors

Marketing Strategy and Objectives- This section is crucial to the development of the proposed services or products future. This part consists of: identifying the marketing strategy, financial objectives, and overall marketing objectives. This gives a specific direction the product will take and creates accountability in the plan so efforts and results can be measured in relation to these starting objectives.

Strategical Marketing Programs- This is typically the longest part of the plan and is deeply detailed in respect to the strategy to achieve the designated marketing objectives in part three. These programs include descriptions of: Product, Price, Promotion, and Place. Ex: Define current market, and the planned changes. Define how these changes will be accomplished, and explain why these changes must take place (use evidence of research or due to competitors).

Budget Analysis + Implementation- This final section scrutinizes the business’s financial ability to carry out its marketing plan. Defining the extent of the marketing budget will help determine the financial impact and capabilities of the projected plan. As a precursor to the actual implementation of the products or services a performance analysis presents the expected results of the plan. It is an educated estimate of the potential overall success of the plan and helps to prepare for the future. The last step in the marketing plan is to organize an implementation schedule that shows timelines and identifies those responsible for certain tasks. This keeps the marketing team involved and held responsible for timely work and effort.