When it comes to sales and special offers, implementing them successfully is a bit of a Goldilocks situation; you need to get the balance just right.
It can be hard to know how much is too much, and equally difficult to come up with creative ideas that will spark your customers’ intrigue. However, promotions are a valuable marketing tool that, when used successfully, can increase customer engagement and boost your bottom line. Learning the tricks of the promotional trade is essential for any hospitality provider. Let’s look at some ways you can make your offers exciting every time.
First, find a happy medium
Neglecting to advertise special offers can lead your brand to become less and less relevant in your customers’ conscious. This can make your property appear latent while other businesses win their attention. On the other hand, too many promotions can come across as spammy (or even desperate) and can end up having a similar effect as each offer becomes less attractive than its predecessor. Striking the right balance between too much and not enough can be a tricky thing to tackle. However, surprising your customers with promotions periodically throughout the year can help remind them that you care, boost their interest in your business, and keep your brand feeling exciting.
If you’re new to promotions, try first implementing them for special events only, like for the Summer holidays, the new year, or during popular sale events like Black Friday. Once you gauge the amount of interest in your promotions, you’ll be able to make a more informed decision about how often to implement them.
Get personal
Frequency is an important thing to consider, but even if you hit the mark in that category, you still need to think about the content. Personalisation is a great place to start. Your job is to speak to your customers’ needs and define how staying at your property can benefit them. A discount on their stay might be enticing the first time around, but generic offers just aren’t sustainable.
NewBook’s Guest and Lead Data Reports are a super simple way to start personalising your offers without delving too deep into analytics. These handy reports can quickly help you pinpoint and target past and potential guests, allowing you to brainstorm unique promotional content that will appeal specifically to them.
Here’s a practical example: Sweltering in Darwin? Come cool down in Coffs Harbour!
The objective is to say, I know you. I care about you. I’m here to help you”. Definitely not “I just want to sell to you.
Make them interactive
NewBook’s Interactive Promotions are anything but generic. They’re actually the perfect way to capture your guests’ attention and get them actively participating in your offers.
Here’s how they work:
- Create your brand’s own digital Scratch and Win promotions within NewBook’s Property Management System
- Customise your offer by choosing the prize type and winning odds
- Send out your Interactive Promotion via email or SMS
- Then, wait for the bookings to roll in as your guests start to reveal their offers by “scratching” their virtual tickets
Because you can choose the odds, a win doesn’t need to be guaranteed for everyone, giving Interactive Promotions a unique sense of excitement and sincerity that your guests will appreciate.
Add value
How many times have you bought something (that you never intended to buy) because it came bundled up nicely with a freebie on the side? My guess is A LOT. Adding value to an existing product is a great way to keep your promotions engaging and secure additional revenue. Paying for three nights at a hotel sounds okay. Paying for three nights with a FREE bottle of wine on arrival sounds a whole lot better (regardless of who the customer is). By offering add-ons, you’re offering more value for money and delivering a more personalised stay experience.
Use the power of promo
Let’s face it: people are always on the hunt for a killer deal. That’s why coupon codes are a fail-safe promotional option.
Here’s why we’re a fan:
- If a guest abandons their cart, offering them a promo code can get them over the line and entice them to complete their booking (find out more about our Cart Tracking feature here)
- Promo codes have an air of exclusivity about them because they relate to especial offers that aren’t usually advertised publicly
- They are often shared amongst social circles and can help boost your leads
You can use NewBook’s Promo Codes and Discounts features to create codes with customised options for activation date, deactivation date, uses, and eligibility and even cap your codes for the first 50 guests, so potential customers have even more incentive to act quickly.
Mix up the method
According to a 2020 study, 40% of consumers admitted that they have at least 50 unread emails in their inbox and nearly 1 in 10 admitted to having over 1,000! However, unread text messages are far less common, with only 4% saying they have 50 or more unread texts.
Changing up your delivery method is a fantastic, easy way to stop your offers from becoming stale. It’s also the key to appealing to the masses and making sure your promotions reach the whole span of your customer database without slipping through their fingers (or their inbox). We recommend maintaining a balance between short, snappy SMS offers, more substantial email marketing campaigns, and banners/alerts on your website or Booking Engine.
Here are a few options:
- Create your email within NewBook and send out to your database using the NewBook Marketing Campaigns feature. Once sent, you can see how successful your campaign was with insights like the number of opens, clicks etc.
- NewBook has its own SMS inbox with 2-way functionality so you can send SMS messages to your database in bulk, e.g. Flash Sale! Stay 3, pay 2 at NewBook Holiday Park. Ends Friday (links to your Booking Engine). Guests can reply directly to these messages and ask questions or place bookings without needing to call your property
- Use NewBook Online Sales to display a countdown timer on your Booking Engine to advertise and create excitement around last-minute discounts or expiring offers
Work with what you got
You don’t always have to target potential customers. In fact, you can get a great return on investment by upselling to guests already staying with you! Using NewBook’s Upgrade Promotions feature, you can entice existing guests with discounted stay extensions or booking upgrades, catching customers just as they begin to think, “I wish this holiday would never end”. Using the feature is simple:
- Setup your offers within Upgrade Promotions in NewBook
- Before arrival or after departure, automatically send out SMS or email prompts your guests to upgrade or extend
- If a guest replies YES, NewBook will take care of the rest!
There you have it! Those are our top tips for making your offers exciting (and keeping them that way). Now go get your promo on!
