Hoteliers share the secrets of their success-the power of interaction

Today, marketing through social networking, mobile media, and e-mail campaigns pose new opportunities for marketers in the hotel industry. Companies nowadays operate in a rapidly shifting environment, and changes come from globalization and technological advances. These have combined to create vast, complex networks with varying economic and social activity.

Facebook, for example, is the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections that has more than 900 million active users on the site. Facebook users spend more than a quarter of their time on the site consuming and interacting with the Facebook Newsfeed, and this activity represents 4 percent of all time spent online in the United States. When members use Facebook to make their likes and interests known, it translates into word of mouth publicity. Through social networking sites, customers can also read online reviews, compare prices, and discuss options. To find out more about how brand reach and influence fans through social media marketing, click here.

Today, 50 percent of the world’s population has a cell phone and 25 percent has internet access. As new technologies continue to evolve, mobile devices become a marketing media that opens up new possibilities and gains increased attention. Communication can be delivered in the form of text, audio, or video. Since the device is portable, marketers can push sales promotions or updates to customers instantly. Moreover, almost half of all new mobile phones purchased in developed markets are now Web-enabled smartphones. There are also growing numbers of 3G network users in the emerging markets.  Marketers can enable customers to reach hotel information on a mobile device through reformatted web pages or specific mobile websites and offer the ability to make reservation. Marketers can also send mobile coupons and provide mobile customer service.

Moreover, marketing through e-mail campaigns pose new opportunities for companies. Companies can buy mailing lists containing almost any group of potential customers as well as send newsletters, offers, reminders of upcoming promotions, and announcements for special events. Customers can be encouraged or rewarded to e-mail back when they have further questions, feedback and complaints.


Here are the action items marketers can take to start making a difference.
1. Establishing presences on social networking sites - encourage the spread of “word of mouth” about the hotel and learn how customers perceive the hotel and its offering
2. Developing mobile media strategies -mobile creates opportunities to build new applications which enable new consumer behavior and can unlock new economic potential
3. Marketing through e-mail campaigns - personalize the messages to prospects to build stronger relationships with customers


Marketers look increasingly to social media, mobile media, and e-mail campaigns as new ways of communicating and engaging with customers. This approach will create new opportunities for marketers in how they relate to their customers.


Phoebe Lin is a master’s candidate in the Northwestern Medill IMC marketing program and is specializing in consulting with companies on communication and social marketing. Phoebe can be reached on twitter @PhoebeLin4.

3 ways to engage your online customers

Nowadays, more and more people go to brick-and-mortar stores to see products, but end up making purchases online. E-commerce is becoming an irresistible trend and consumers are now enjoying the fruit of convenience that results from technology advance. According to the industry tracker, U.S. e-commerce sales of $44.28 billion in the first three quarter of 2012 were 17% higher than in the same period last year, web Digital Life wrote. For more detail, please visit here.

As a graduate student in the Northwestern IMC program, in which “customer-centricity” is an approach everyone embraces, I revisit the concept when looking at e-commerce industry.

When it comes to e-commerce, many companies focus solely on boosting their online sales and take any means to promote their products to consumers without considering customers’ online shopping experience. These brands would end up having lots of one-time customers but not long-term customers, who are the drivers of business growth. Some companies aim to collect as much customers’ information as possible, so they set up complicated procedures for online consumers to log in and check out. This will just stay customers away from shopping on the websites.

Good online shopping experience of customers will reinforce a brand. In order to maximize online shopping experience for consumers, a company should engage their online shoppers in three ways:

1.  Don’t swamp your customers with advertising/promotion emails every single day. A lot of companies doing e-commerce try to promote their everyday sales to every customer, but overwhelming customers with irrelevant advertisements will only irritate them. The best way to benefit from email marketing is to send sales promotion featuring the product that best satisfies customers’ needs. The promotion message should be high quality, but not large quantity. For more information about best practices of email marketing, please click here.

2.  Make shopping experience fun. With the advance of technology, online shopping is not limited to computers, but multichannel screens. Making shopping a fun thing will engage customers. For example, Peapod, the Chicago-based online grocery, recently put up a virtual supermarket shelf in a subway station, where people can use smart phone to scan the bar code of items and place the order immediately. This innovative way of grocery shopping attracts people to try.  For more Peapod digital advertising, click here.

3.  Easy to sign in, easy to check out. Online consumers value convenience. If a company can remove unnecessary steps to sign in and check out, consumers will be more likely to use that website. It will be convenient for customers to sign in with Facebook or twitter account, and check out with no more than three steps.

In conclusion, online shopping experience for customers are important and will influence their next shopping experience. Therefore, three tips to engage customers in online shopping are as follows. First, instead of swamping online customers with unnecessary promotion emails every day, send them promotion message that best satisfies their needs. Second, use multichannel screens to make virtual shopping fun. Third, build a system that is easy to sign in and to check out. With all the three tips, customers are more likely to enjoy shopping on your site. Additionally, businesses will benefit from engaging customers in their online shopping.

About the author

Patty Leu is a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill Integrated Marketing Communication program and is concentrating on data analytics and direct marketing. Patty will be graduating in January 2012. Patty can be reached on twitter using the handle @pattyleu

How Social Media Saved the Day for Hyatt Hotels

By Ruth Han @han_ruth

Companies are setting up Facebook and Twitter accounts to latch onto the social media trend and engage their customers, hoping it will transfer into incremental revenue.  However, as case studies have shown, many companies are unprepared for the various unexpected events that could occur on social media; for example the ChapStick Facebook fiasco.  You can read about it here if you are unfamiliar with it.

Similar event happened to Hyatt 18 months ago, but took a very different turn.  The story started with a customer finding a leftover box of Mexican food gone bad in his fridge upon checking in.  The customer responded by taking a picture of the leftover and tweeting it to @HyattConcierge, and headed out to dinner.  Within a few hours (when the customer was in the middle of his appetizer), he received a phone call apologizing for the mishap, and offered him a free breakfast for two.  He was further greeted with a bottle of wine and a hand-written card upon returning to his room.  The experience has turned the customer into a customer for life to Hyatt, and also provided positive publicity for the hotel.

While the ChapStick case may be seen as a warning to all marketers, the Hyatt case study showed how companies can use the social media to detect problems in the early stage and resolve it before it snowballs into a larger fiasco.  The lesson?  BE PREPARED when launching social media!  Without proper guidelines and company infrastructure set up to deal with customer’s various voices online, your company could be treading on thin ice, without knowing when the next social media fiasco will strike.

Here are some actions your company can take to ensure you’re covered for the danger of social media:

1. Set guidelines: Have a clear guideline for all employees, from frontline to back office, to follow.  What do they do when customer complains about your product?  Should they escalate the complaint to their manager, or can they resolve it firsthand?  What’s the time frame each complaint should be handled and responded to?  These guideline forms the foundation for your company in the face of unexpected event.

2. Be prepared for potential failure: Always be prepared for unexpected happenings online.  Any action taken by the company may result in a backlash from your customers.  Draw out a list of possible reactions from your customers before taking actions, and be sure your team is ready for them.

3. Mean it when you apologize: No matter how prepared your company is, there will always be some time when you make a mistake.  In those events, be sincere and apologize to your customers in a way that shows you care about their opinions.  Dancing around the mistake and offering a half-hearted apology won’t get you anywhere (as seen in ChapStick’s case).

In a nutshell, while social media can open up tremendous opportunities through interacting with customers, marketer should also be aware of the flip side of the new channel.  Whether your company scores high or falls flat in the next social media crisis depends on how prepared you are in the field.

Further reading: I recommend Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty, a book we recently studied as a part of the Integrated Marketing Communications curriculum.  This book goes into depth to show how companies can follow the “Five HRO Principals” and strive under the impact of unexpected events.

Ruth Han is a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC marketing program and specializes in social media strategic planning and data analytics. Ruth will be graduating in December 2012.  Ruth can be reached through twitter @han_ruth.