Jeffrey Bergstrom is 30 years old and is currently an Assistant Director of Business Development at Rock Holdings in Detroit, MI. Rock Holdings is the largest company in Detroit and has almost 100 subsidiaries. Since graduating from University of Michigan he has been pouring his heart into the company, as he works to climb the corporate ladder to CEO. Bergstrom is great at balancing his time between work and his family, with 2-year-old twin girls and a beautiful wife at home, he is a busy young man. He enjoys taking his family to skate at Campus Martius, go to the Auto Show, and of course, to the Joe Louis arena for Red Wings games. Bergstrom, as with many millennials of his age, goes on Facebook everyday. Marriott understands that “By 2018, NextGen travelers will make up half of the working age population, replacing Baby Boomers as the largest segment of business travelers.” Marriott realizes that its target market is changing now, and it is evident that they are shifting their marketing efforts to cater to a younger, more technologically connected generation of travelers. Marriott should invest heavily into digital media advertising in order to appeal to my recommended target market- millennials.
Marriott avidly uses Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to promote its brand across multiple markets.
Marriott uses Pinterest to showcase views from its many locations across the globe, and to appeal to the younger, visual generation. It also uses Pinterest as a medium for inspiring event planners to plan innovative weddings and meetings for their clients.
Marriott, almost exclusively, utilizes its Twitter account to interact with customers.
Instagram is used by Marriott’s social media staff to promote diversity by posting pictures of food, drinks, people, traditions, and travel tips from across the globe
Facebook is also a very common medium for Marriott to interact with its clients, but it also uses the social media giant to promote specific hotels and events associated with them..
It makes sense to create content for Facebook and Youtube
The hotel chain is not maximizing its potential on Facebook: with 2,500,000 likes they should be posting once per week minimum, as of late they have been posting once per month and their client interaction is not exactly positive. As the “digital generation” moves toward spending greater amounts of money on travel, social media advertising is becoming more lucrative in the hospitality industry day by day. Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are all places that Marriott should focus its attention on.
Facebook is very important for Marriott because it is the only platform where they can target their market by age, gender, interests, location, company, school, and even occupation. Its Facebook ads need to be somewhat broad; and appeal to not just business people (like their LinkedIn promotions) and not just visually-intrigued, more creative people as they do with Pinterest and Instagram. Pinterest will be used to appeal directly to gen y and millennials in order to promote diversity through pictures of food, drinks, people, traditions, travel tips, and other content to bring people together at Marriott hotels across the globe.
YouTube advertisements will use content that does not PUSH the brand onto viewers, but it will pull them in by showing a luxurious lifestyle that can only be had by people who stay at Marriott’s hotels.
YouTube will also use click through to the specific hotel chain it is promoting with their specific pre-video advertisement.
It is evident that Marriott knows inbound marketing is important in this day and age because they actively use multiple blog accounts. The most effective blog they have is that of Bill Marriott. He posts enough, a couple of times per month, all focused on a common theme: the necessity and passion for company culture. In order to cater to the business side of our target persona, I recommend a post highlighting all of the business perks his hotels offer, from meeting spaces to fantastic dining on site for client meetings.
LinkedIn is used by Marriott and its executives to push corporate events and company updates, as well as for much of its recruiting presence.
LinkedIn would be used to target promote company updates and corporate events, as well as many things relating to recruiting. The articles, pictures, and graphics on LinkedIn will be business and numbers focused in order to appeal to professional people.
Many businesses’ have poorly executed email marketing campaigns, causing their carefully worded email to get caught up in the trap of “spam” or “clutter”.
The first steps in crafting a successful email plan are simply getting people’s emails, and letting them know what they will be receiving. This must be done by carefully outlining exactly what will be sent to people’s emails from your company: Marriott should specify what kind of offers it will send, what discounts they may send, how often these messages will be sent, etc. A great way to build a lucrative email list is to ask Marriott customers to sign up for it as they are checking out of your online store, it is obvious these people are interested in Marriott’s products/ services because they just purchased something.
Once you have a person’s email, you must get your targeted email INTO the targeted folder- that of which is NOT spam. A great way Marriott can do this is by having each subscriber add Marriott to their email contacts list, this will ensure that their emails will end up in the “whitelist”.
Marriott needs to stick to the timeline they promised at the beginning, if they promise one email a week- keep it to one email per week and not pitch too often; a healthy balance of content and pitching is of major importance. In order to get Jeff to read emails, value must be added by each and every email; whether it be with a 2-night free stay promotion or a heartwarming video, she needs to open the message.
Marriott has a desktop and mobile accessible website in order to peak interest in all of their locations (generate awareness) and to convert leads to sales with just a few simple clicks. Their new site is VERY easy to access on cellular devices, and their new mobile app is absolutely fantastic. The site is stress-free tof navigate, simple enough for Baby Boomers, yet advanced enough that it engages younger business travelers.
Marriott does a great job of avoiding “keyword abuse”; many companies still make the mistake of shoving a LOAD of key search terms (associate with their brand, ie, “hotel” for Marriott) into their links and text. In order to increase ranking for important words like hotel or travel, it is more beneficial for companies like Marriott to build content on their pages. Marriott’s website executes this very well.
While it is not efficient or effective for companies to crowd their presence with keywords, it is smart to have some “keyword presence” and Marriott seems to be lacking in this area. When a potential client googles travel, hotel, business hotel, luxury hotel, etc. Marriott is no where to be seen- I recommend that their marketing team step-up the ad-word game by utilizing Google cache or a similar product
Display advertising differs from search engine marketing because with display you pay on a cost per thousand impression basis, versus with SEM companies usually pay per each time their link is clicked.
It is important for a company like Marriott to have display advertising on certain websites because it could sway a potential customer to use their service, whether they are conscious of the advertisement’s influence or not. Expedia and its subsidiaries as well as Priceline and its subsidiaries, are sites I would target because when people are surfing these sites, they are actively looking to book a hotel room.
Marriott is the hotel business that is for a new era of travelers: the younger, hard-working millennial who deserve a fantastic hospitality experience- NOT simply a hotel room: that is the message I would promote. When users click on the ads for Marriott on one of the Expedia or Priceline sites, they will be directed to Marriott’s search page, as shown here.
One thing I would recommend adding to Marriott’s mobile application is a “beacon” system. When guests arrive, they will be able to skip the check-in process and be automatically “check-in” to the hotel they second they pull onto the property, grab their keys from the bellman, and head up to their room. This will cut down front desk traffic and make for a much quicker check-in / check-out process for those who are in a hurry to get to their next event or fall asleep after a long day.
An important part of a great mobile experience is the responsiveness of the site. Responsiveness doesn’t mean the “speed” of the page, which is what most people usually associate that word with, but it refers to the capability the webpage has to load with proper resolution on different devices. Marriott’s streamlined mobile site runs with high resolution on both Android + iOS. On the flip side, the Marriott mobile site is a bit drab, it’s grey and white color does not entice me to book a hotel room with them. I suggest changing the color scheme and adding a few more pictures of views from beautiful Marriott properties across the globe. When “Marriott” is Googled on a mobile device, their sites come up with no issues at all.
Marriott can measure the effectiveness of their website by using different analytical tools
Google Analytics, which Marriott should use, gives companies a fantastic overview of varying, crucial information like conversion rates, traffic, demographics, channels, and more.
Marriott needs to consistently analyze KPIs, so they know what is going on in their business, what they are earning the best return on, who is buying their rooms, etc.
Outside of these key analytics, they must keep their eyes on the metrics of their competitors, of which the largest are Hilton and Taj Hotels (purchasing their other major competitor, Starwood, was a great move).
In terms of a specific KPI, Marriott should focus more on conversion versus simply website traffic because they need people to book rooms- not just check out their website.
Analytics are a huge reason why digital media is a great investment; unlike billboards, print and other forms of traditional advertising, it is possible to measure ROI with much of display, SEM, and social media advertising.
I recommend testing out a pay per click (PPC) model and a pay per impression (PPM) model to see which commands a better return on investment.
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest success will be measured by engagement as well as clicks onto the landing page. YouTube will only be measured by landing page click throughs per ad.
