Laffitte Conseil

Best Practices in Developing the 2008 Hotel Internet Marketing Budget

Hoteliers are in the height of the budget planning season for 2008. Understandably, there is a great level of anxiety in the industry. Are you allocating the right budget for hotel marketing? What are your peers doing with their budgets? What are the best practices for 2008? Web 2.0, social media, consumer generated media—what should I do about these new media formats? What are the latest trends in Internet marketing and how should I account for them in the new budget? For a second year in a row, Hospitality eBusiness Strategies  takes a closer look at some important aspects of Internet marketing in hospitality and what marketing activities and line items should comprise the 2008 Internet marketing budget.

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Lucien Barrière vise une place en or sur les moteurs

Etre leader dans l'hôtellerie de luxe n'empêche pas de se passer du référencement. Loin de son cœur de métier, le groupe Lucien Barrière s'est lancé dans la course à l'optimisation.

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Anatomy of a well-integrated campaign

Four agency professionals describe what makes a cross-media campaign work and provide examples of those that are done right. 

When asked what makes a campaign "integrated," most people will tell you that all elements have a similar look and carry the same message. This is certainly true, but there's more to creating a successful, well-integrated, cross-media campaign than that.

Four in-the-trenches agency folks described for iMedia what a well-integrated campaign needs to consist of and what it takes to make it happen, and gave their opinions on recently executed campaigns that met the mark.

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Best Practices in Developing the 2008 Hotel Internet Marketing Budget

Hoteliers are in the height of the budget planning season for 2008. Understandably, there is a great level of anxiety in the industry. Are you allocating the right budget for hotel marketing? What are your peers doing with their budgets? What are the best practices for 2008? Web 2.0, social media, consumer generated media—what should I do about these new media formats? What are the latest trends in Internet marketing and how should I account for them in the new budget? For a second year in a row, Hospitality eBusiness Strategies  takes a closer look at some important aspects of Internet marketing in hospitality and what marketing activities and line items should comprise the 2008 Internet marketing budget.

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Word of Mouth Works Worldwide

There are more marketing channels aimed at consumers than ever. Yet more than three-quarters of consumers surveyed worldwide find that consumer opinions are the most effective form of advertising, according to a Nielsen study.

Nielsen surveyed Internet users in 47 markets in Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas and the Middle East on their attitudes toward many types of ads, including television, branded Web sites and consumer-generated content.

"The fact that consumers think opinions posted online are as trustworthy as brand Web sites speaks to the power of online reviews and recommendations," said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer.

"It also means that marketers need to focus as much attention on what consumers say about their brands online as they do on creating the brand Web sites themselves," Ms. Williamson said. "The easiest thing to do is to make consumer feedback an essential part of every brand Web site."

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Five Holiday E-Mail Marketing Do's and Don'ts

The holiday shopping season is 59 days away from its official U.S. launch on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. This time of year can make or break your e-mail marketing program. Tune it up now to avoid mistakes once the season is in full swing.

My do's and don'ts will help you avoid some common traps.

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Marketers Hooked on Old Media

Six in 10 marketing executives put at least one-half of their media spending into traditional channels, according to a Gundersen Partners survey. About 45% of respondents allocated less than 10% of their budgets to new media.

Respondents said they were going to change their emphasis on traditional media. More than one-half of respondents planned to put 10% to 30% of their media spending into new media, and 28% planned to spend over 30%.

About 80% of respondents planned to hit their new media spending goals in two years, and more than one-third planned to achieve their ideal new media spending level within 12 months.

Asked what was holding them back, 40% cited insufficient knowledge, and one-third said they did not have enough time to evaluate new media channels.

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Affiliate marketing delivers the most cost-effective customer acquisition

• 95 per cent of brands say affiliate marketing is ‘very cost-effective’ or ‘quite cost effective’
• An average of 18 per cent of the online marketing budget is spent in the channel
• Travel companies using affiliate marketing most effectively

Affiliate marketing is revealed as the most cost effective channel for driving customer acquisition in research out today from E-consultancy. Sponsored by buy.at, the UK’s largest independent affiliate network, the comprehensive research into how UK brands use affiliate marketing found that the majority of UK advertisers (merchants) say that it is either ‘very cost-effective’ or ‘quite cost-effective’ for acquiring customers. 44 per cent of merchants named it as ‘very cost-effective’ for driving customer acquisition compared with 34 per cent for paid search and just seven per cent for display advertising.

Paid search is the second most cost-effective followed by email marketing with these marketing channels viewed as ‘very cost-effective’ or ‘quite cost-effective’ by 90% and 82% of merchants respectively. Affiliate marketing is also a highly effective channel for driving volume, with three quarters of respondents (73%) saying that it drives either ‘high volume’ or ‘medium volume’. However, the best channel for driving volume remains paid search, with more than half of respondents (53%) saying that PPC generates ‘high volume’ for their businesses. Email marketing is the third biggest driver of volume, with 65% saying this channel drives high or medium volume. Mobile Marketing is still very much in the embryonic stage, with only 6 per cent of merchants saying that it drives high or medium volume.

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E-Mail Top Digital Marketing Tool

Major marketers worldwide use e-mail in their campaigns, according to The McKinsey Quarterly.

In a survey of 311 marketing executives, McKinsey found that 83% used e-mail, ahead of display ads, paid search and online video.

McKinsey also asked about the future of online marketing. By 2010, respondents generally thought the Web would be part of the first two stages of the buyer decision-making process — product awareness and information gathering — for a majority of all consumers.

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Web 2.0 vs. Search Engines: Are Search Engines Becoming Obsolete in the Web 2.0 Frenzy?

Web 2.0 continues to generate much attention in the online travel industry. Inquiring hoteliers want to understand the status and future of search engine marketing and other Internet marketing formats in this new Web 2.0 environment. Are search engines becoming obsolete? Are Web 2.0 sites going to replace the search engines as an advertising media? Will online travel consumers abandon Google as a travel planning and research tool and shift their attention to Web 2.0 sites such as TripAdvisor.com and social networks like YouTube.com? Must a hotel engage in such strategies?

Web 2.0 is the second-generation of web-based communities and hosted services (Wikipedia). Web 2.0 reflects a utilization of the Web in a new way, by both developers and Internet users. Especially of interest to hoteliers is the Internet user aspect of Web 2.0—also known as Consumer-Generated Media (CGM) or User-Generated Media or Social Media. CGM is online content created by Internet users and made available to other Internet users via Web 2.0 interactive technology applications. 

This new dynamic has caused a degree of confusion and many hoteliers are unsure about the implications of Web 2.0 on more "traditional" Internet marketing formats such as search marketing, email marketing, and display advertising. This article details the roles of Web 2.0 and search engines and their significance, as well as supporting data and case studies on how search engines remain of strategic importance long-term in online marketing and distribution.

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