The online sales and marketing ecosystem has evolved into a multifaceted environment that includes dynamic and feature-rich websites, more use of streaming media, greatly increased use of mobile Internet-enabled devices and a sometimes bewildering array of social media all of which is used by a more diverse and global audience of travelers. Although increasingly complex, this ever-evolving environment provides new and enhanced opportunities for you to improve your organization’s sales and marketing performance. This article takes a brief look at 25 essential activities for online sales and marketing professionals.

 

FOCUS ON YOUR TARGET AUDIENCES
 
Orient your online sales and marketing initiatives to the target audiences that are significant to your hotel, destination or attraction. Create and deploy relevant and valuable Web site content, and leverage e-mail, social media and other online formats to offer superior travel solutions to your customers and to gain more of their business.
 
Some key audience segments include leisure travelers, business travelers, travel professionals, meeting planners, groups, and international travelers. Provide links on your home page to take these different traveler segments directly to the site content that is most relevant to their requirements. Create and deploy useful Web-based features, content and tools, such as planning tools for meeting planners, to offer more value and build better relationships.

 

EMPHASIZE ONLINE RESERVATIONS
 
To encourage additional online sales, emphasize your Web site’s search and reservations features. If possible, place these features directly on your home page. Marriott’s home page (http://www.marriott.com/) prominently displays a search and reservations feature that dominates the left side of the page. Intercontinental Hotels (http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/intercontinental/en/gb/home) integrates its search and reservations feature across the lower portion of its home page where it is prominent but does not distract viewers from the images displayed above it.
 
Make the online reservations function prominent in your website’s navigational scheme. Provide convenient links throughout the site so that viewers are only a click away from their next reservation.

 

STREAMLINE SEARCH AND BOOKING PROCESSES
 
In addition to making your online reservations features easy to find, you should make them easy to use as well. Simplify the booking process and provide different search options to meet the needs of individual travelers. Marriott’s multifaceted search and reservations feature provides viewers with several options for locating a hotel using a city name, airport code, state or country. Alternately, they can use a keyword search feature.
 
Look for ways to reduce the number of steps required to make an online reservation. By reducing the amount of work your customers have to perform, you decrease the virtual distance between you and your next online sale.

 

MOTIVATE THEM WITH SPECIAL OFFERS & PACKAGES
 
Special offers and packages offer unique value to travelers and are designed to encourage reservations. Use your Web site effectively to promote special offers and packages.
 
Hilton’s home page (www.hilton.com) contains a Flash-based feature that helps to increase awareness of special offers at its worldwide hotels and resorts. It displays a slide show of attractive photographic images that captures viewer attention while describing key destinations and special rates. A “book now” button further encourages viewers to book online.
 
Promote special offers via online resources other than you website, too. Leverage your blog, social media sites, opt-in e-mail messages and other online formats to promote these valuable, sales-enhancing initiatives.

 

LOCATE CUSTOMERS WITH ONLINE MAPS
 
Online map services not only help travelers to get to their destinations; they can also help your organization to generate more online sales. Free online map services including Google Maps (maps.google.com). Yahoo! Maps (maps.yahoo.com), Bing Maps (www.bing.com/maps), MapQuest (mapquest.com) and others provide local search, mapping and directions features that make it easy for travelers to locate your organization and access its website. Map sites may also be good venues for targeted advertising.
 
Within your website, use your own branded maps to generate additional online reservations. Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts (www.fourseasons.com) contains an attractive, Flash-based, interactive map that makes it easy to locate hotels and access their Web pages for more information.

 

SHOWCASE YOUR DESTINATION
 
Your hotel’s destination can be a key selling point. Sell your destination more effectively by providing comprehensive destination information that meets the needs and wants of your different customer segments. Provide this information in a variety of formats including text, photographs, videos and maps and create useful hyperlinks to the Web sites of nearby attractions, restaurants, and more.
 
Hilton promotes key destinations worldwide through its City Travel Guides that feature content created by Fodor’s. Ritz-Carlton’s site divides its destination information into “General Information” and “Attractions and contains a slide show. External links make it easy for visitors to access in-depth information. By doing more to promote your destination, you gain additional opportunities to attract new customers.

 

PERSUADE THEM WITH RICH MEDIA
 
Web-based rich media – including photographs, videos, Flash animations, panoramic views, maps and more – can help you to sell your hotel, attraction or destination in ways that text simply cannot do. Hilton, for example, encourages additional online sales with Flash-based animations containing images from its hotels and resorts along with information regarding special discounts, bonus points and more.
 
Peninsula Hotels showcases its luxury hotels with superb and glamorous large-scale photographic images. Combined with Flash, these images make a powerful positive impression to encourage travelers to make online reservations. Make sure you are leveraging the power of rich media to sell more effectively and persuasively in the online world.

 

PROMOTE WITH VIDEO
 
Digital video can add a more compelling and immersive dimension to your online sales and marketing efforts. Deploy videos that showcase your destination, guest rooms, meeting spaces, and more via your website and across other digital marketing platforms.
 
Intercontinental Hotels & Resorts powerfully leverages video to showcase its worldwide destinations and convert online viewers to real-world customers.
To do this, Intercontinental created a separate video marketing website (http://www.intercontinentalvideo.com). The site makes it easy to link to a video, share it with friends via e-mail, download and save it in a variety of file formats, or subscribe to an RSS feed. A link to the company’s primary website at www.intercontinental.com encourages online reservations.

 

WOW THEM WITH WEB APPS
 
Travel-oriented Web applications or “apps”, especially mobile apps, are growing in popularity, number and variety. Apps can make a customer’s online experience easier, more rewarding or just more enjoyable.
 
Best Western International recently created a Web app that lets pet owners combine photos of themselves with photos of their pets. The humorous images that result can be shared with friends and family or posted to online Friends Forever Inseparator website at www.bwff.com. Best Western uses that site to emphasize its pet-friendly policies and to differentiate it from its competitors. Consider creating your own branded Web app to offer more value to travelers and help build your business.

 

SELL WITH STYLE
 
Good website design can help you to make online sales and great website design can help you to make even more. The design of your site should express the nature of your brand, differentiate it from competitors and attract and sustain viewer interest.
 
Look at examples of excellent website design to gain ideas and inspiration for your own site. Use design including color, typography, photographs, animations and other rich media formats to showcase your brand’s key assets, promote special offers and packages, highlight new hotels, services and amenities. Good design is a strategic sales and marketing asset that can enhance consumer awareness of all that your organization has to offer, and, by doing so, increase your potential to generate more online sales.

 

SUPPORT YOUR CUSTOMERS
 
Don’t miss online sales because your customers cannot find the information they require or are having a problem with your Web site. Make it easy for customers to obtain the assistance they require and provide this assistance in a variety of formats to accommodate individual preferences.
 
Westin’s customer support page, for example, contains several different features including an “instant answers” search feature, chat, and FAQ sections, E-mail contact and telephone numbers. Hilton’s Web pages promote its customer support features by listing both the company’s toll-free support number and by providing a link to its customer support page which contains e-mail options, a FAQ section, categorized telephone numbers and a push-to-talk feature.

 

GUARANTEE YOUR RATES
 
“Our Best Rates, Guaranteed plus more”. That is the message displayed prominently at the top of the reservations feature on Marriott’s home page. Similarly, Radisson Hotels & Resorts displays the message, “Best Online Rates. Guaranteed.” on its home page.
 
Emphasize your best rates policy throughout your Web site, and via your other online sales and marketing platforms from blogs to social media and videos. Display your best rate guarantee prominently and inform viewers how the process works. Make certain that online visitors are aware of all of the many advantages associated with making an online reservation with your company to help build more online sales.

 

REWARD LOYAL CUSTOMERS
 
Your customer loyalty initiatives enable you to sustain and enhance good relationships with your customers. Help to solidify those good relationships by providing easy access to your online loyalty program resources and linking to them directly from your Web site’s home page.

 

Provide extra rewards and incentives for membership such as extra points or miles when members make reservations online via your site. Use your Web site, blog, Twitter or Facebook accounts or other digital media to highlight the benefits of membership. Promote special offers with travel partners and affiliates. Add personalization features and simplify check in and check out for members.

 

PARTICIPATE IN SOCIAL MEDIA
 
Social media includes blogs, micro blogs, social networks, wikis, social bookmarking, social news, photo sharing, video sharing, music sharing, virtual worlds and others. Use it to interact with consumers, gain valuable insights, enhance awareness of your organization through word of mouth marketing, and drive additional traffic to your Web site. Identify and utilize social media that is most relevant to your target audiences and evaluate potential returns against the costs of participation.
 
Popular generic social sites to evaluate include Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube. Investigate travel-oriented social media such as TripAdvisor, Wikitravel and others. Don’t forget to create and manage an entry in the widely-used Wikipedia.

 

MAKE FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK
 
Leverage the power of Facebook to help you build online sales. Facebook is already being used by a substantial number of travel-sector organizations including Hilton Caribbean Hotels & Resorts, Luxe Worldwide Hotels, Berlin Tourism Marketing and British Airways.
 
Facebook can be accessed via PCs and mobile devices and is available in over 60 language versions covering key markets worldwide. Real-time search capability makes it easy to locate destination- or brand-related travel information. Deploy compelling content, images, links and resources relevant to your target audiences. Create links to drive additional traffic to your primary Web site and update your Facebook content frequently.

 

GENERATE SALES FROM TWEETS
 
The popular free social networking site based on “tweets” – microblogging posts of 140 characters or less – is being used by many companies and organizations within the travel sector including Starwood Hotels (http://twitter.com/StarwoodBuzz), Travelocity (http://twitter.com/travelocity), Omni Hotels (http://twitter.com/OmniHotels), Fairmont Hotels (http://twitter.com/FairmontHotels) and Travel Oregon (http://twitter.com/TravelOregon).
 
Leverage the real-time nature of Twitter to build additional online sales by informing consumers about news and time-sensitive offers. Twitter’s search feature can help you gain valuable and up-to-the-minute insights into what travelers are saying about your organization. Use its bio section to provide a snapshot of your organization’s activities and create links to your primary Web site or other online sales and marketing resources.

 

LEVERAGE SOCIAL TRAVEL MEDIA
 
Travel-oriented social media connects you directly with travelers versus general consumers. Some popular social travel media include TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet, IgoUgo and Wikitravel. TripAdvisor (www.tripadvisor.com), one of the most popular social travel sites on the Web, claims to offer “25 million traveler reviews and opinions”. LonelyPlanet.com enables travelers to share information, advice and opinions via its Thorn Tree Forum. IgoUgo.com features travel forums and a community blog.
 
User social travel media to build relationships, enhance brand awareness, monitor traveler opinions about your organization, and to gain valuable and actionable insights. In addition to participating, consider using targeted advertising at appropriate social travel sites.

 

CREATE BRANDED SOCIAL MEDIA
 
To generate additional sales, consider developing your own branded social media platform. Various companies and organizations within the travel sector including hospitality companies, airlines and others are already using this technique.
 
Sheraton Hotels and Resorts sponsors a branded online travel community via its website (www.sheraton.com). Travelers can share stories and images related to their travels and stays at Sheraton properties all across the globe. British Airways created MetroTwin (www.metrotwin.com) an online community of travelers and residents who provide insider recommendations for accommodations, sightseeing, dining and more for the “twinned” cities of London and New York.
Investigate how you can offer the benefits of online communities to your customers within the context of your own brand.

 

BUILD MORE BUSINESS WITH BLOGS
 
A blog can be a valuable component in your online sales and marketing tool chest. Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ professionally-produced blog, theLobby.com (www.thelobby.com), provides insights about Starwood’s destinations and enables viewers to post responses, rate or print out individual articles. Photos and YouTube videos are included and viewers can also “re-tweet” articles to Twitter to help spread information about the brand.
 
Travel Oregon’s excellent blog (blog.traveloregon.com) and the Hawaiian CVB’s high-quality blog (www.govisithawaii.com) enhance consumer interest and awareness of their respective destinations. By providing frequently updated information, images, videos and hyperlinks within a user-friendly format, a blog can provide unique opportunities to enhance consumer awareness of your organization.

 

ENGAGE CONSUMERS WITH E-MAIL
 
Despite the growing popularity of social media, e-mail remains a significant channel for building online sales. A recent study released by Epsilon Research suggested that over 60 percent of travelers who signed up to receive e-mail messages were more likely to make purchases from the organizations sending them.
 
Use e-mail to stay in touch with and build better relationships with your customers. Use the customer opt-in model, let customers know that you will protect their privacy and e-mail addresses, and make it easy to unsubscribe. Be creative in your e-mail approaches, too. Londontown.com, for example, enables e-mail recipients to create an individually customized PDF version of its comprehensive and visually-rich monthly newsletter.

 

CHOOSE THE RIGHT ONLINE ADDRESS
 
More than simply telling consumers where to find you on the Web, your organization’s domain name is an essential element for online sales and marketing. Your ideal domain name should clearly identify your organization, be easy to remember, and – if possible – be short and easy to type. Some well-known and excellent examples of domain names include Marriott.com, Hilton.com and Sheraton.com.
 
Register creative variations of your primary domain name for use now and in the future. British Airways, for example, uses both britishairways.com and ba.com. Consider registering the same name in top level domains other than .com and .org. For international sales and marketing, consider the implications of internationalized domain names (IDNs) that use non-ASCII characters.

 

EMPLOY WEB ANALYTICS
 
By measuring and tracking how consumers access and interact with your Web site you can gain numerous, potentially valuable insights to help you evolve your online sales and marketing efforts in the most profitable directions. Web analytics can help you to do this.
 
Web analytics is a fairly complex and technical topic. However, a substantial number of Web analytics tools exist and can help to make the process more manageable and productive. In addition to monitoring activity at your Web site, Web analytics techniques can also be applied to blogs, RSS, streaming media, widgets and more. A variety of free Web analytics tools are available from Google Analytics and others.

 

MAXIMIZE MOBILE SALES
 
Numerous studies and reports suggest that use of the mobile Internet by travelers will increase substantially over the next several years. To capture a greater percentage of online and mobile reservations, create Web pages that are optimized for display on smaller screens. Reduce the amount of navigation required to locate and reserve accommodations or make other travel-related arrangements.
 
While branding and visual identity cannot be neglected, functionality and ease-of-use should be primary considerations on compact devices. Leverage mobile and local search features. Provide mobile-optimized CRM services and consider developing mobile apps or widgets to build better relationships with customers and make it easier for them to book their travel arrangements with your organization.

 

GET FOUND WITH SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
 
Being found by a potential customer is the first step toward making an online sale and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) can help travelers find your organization on the Web. SEM has two major components: SEO (Search Engine Optimization), techniques for maximizing your organization’s visibility in online searches and PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising, the advertisements that are shown on search engine result pages.
 
Search Engine Marketing encompasses areas including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search-based advertising, Web analytics, Social Media Marketing (SMM), local search, map-based search, video search, local and mobile search, vertical search, international search, semantic search and more. Learn what you need to know and work with SEM professionals to give your hotel, organization or destination greater visibility in the online world.

 

SEEK OUT GLOBAL TRAVELERS
 
If you want to make more online sales, try expanding your online sales and marketing efforts within significant international marketplaces. Marriott does this by hosting ten international Web sites in addition to its primary site. Its global sites contain localized site content written in the languages of the local consumers – a major competitive advantage. Intercontinental Hotels & Resorts similarly provides a convenient “Select Language” link on its home page containing multiple language choices.
 
To make more global sales you should: identify key international markets; consider local laws and regulations; create foreign language and market-specific site content; accommodate international payments; and, simplify the online reservations process.

 

This article originally appeared in the HSMAI Marketing Review, the premier publication of the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International – HSMAI. To learn more, visit HSMAI at www.hsmai.org.