Why revenue managers should look at the bigger picture?

Traditionally, revenue managers have been involved in coming up with pricing recommendations and decisions for only one of the five phases of the Digital Customer Journey: The Booking Phase. In my view, revenue managers should be able to understand?the full digital customer journey and its five phases, and, together with the marketing and CRM teams/specialists, get proactively involved in all five phases to engage, acquire and retain the customer.?

Google defines this digital customer journey as a fluid series of interconnected stages:?Dreaming, Planning, Booking, Experiencing and Sharing/Retention Phases, in which every phase both influences and is being influenced by the other steps of the journey.

Commercial directors/managers, overseeing all of the hotel teams/staff tasked to engage, acquire and retain the customer - revenue management, sales, marketing and CRM - play an increasingly important role in synchronizing the efforts, tactics and strategies of these diverse functions.

One of these very important tasks is to educate the commercial teams that the digital customer journey requires three?distinct, but interconnected and interdependent categories: Guest Engagement Marketing, Guest Acquisition Marketing and Guest Retention Marketing and that the hotel must?"play"?in all of these three categories: Not in one or two, but in all three categories.

Let's review the three marketing categories:

Guest Engagement Marketing:

This category includes brand marketing, social media, PR, influencer marketing, content marketing, etc. These marketing initiatives help hoteliers connect with the online traveler in the Dreaming and Planning Phases and steer them?"in the right direction"?in the next phase – the Booking Phase.?

Guest Acquisition Marketing:

This category includes all Performance Marketing i.e. ROI-focused direct-response marketing formats, including: SEO, paid search/SEM, display advertising, retargeting, metasearch, email marketing, affiliate marketing, omni-marketing campaigns, etc., as well as all of the hotel website related marketing initiatives: promotional slides, special offers banners and promo tiles, limited time offers, personalization marketing offers, etc. These initiatives build upon the successful customer engagements in the Dreaming and Planning Phases and help hoteliers?"close the deal"?i.e. convince the online traveler to choose the hotel and a direct booking at the hotel in the Booking Phase.

These performance marketing initiatives are ROI-centric, focusing on seasonal and ad hoc occupancy needs and acquiring first-time guests.?

Guest Retention Marketing:

This category includes all CRM marketing initiatives in the pre-, in- and post-stay marketing, loyalty marketing, drip campaigns and marketing automation initiatives aimed to turn the guest into a repeat guest and loyal customer. Building upon the customer relationship established in the previous Dreaming, Planning and Booking phases, and utilizing CRM and loyalty marketing initiatives, hoteliers can win the guest loyalty in the Experiencing and Sharing Phases.?

Only through coordinated team efforts of the Commercial Team and only through investing adequately in all three marketing categories above would the hotel be able to establish relationship with the digitally-savvy customer in all phases of the customer journey: Dreaming, Planning, Booking, Experiencing and Sharing/Retention and win the direct booking, resulting in increased RevPAR and occupancy, decreased OTA dependency and lower distribution costs.

Originally published as part of HospitaliotyNet World Panel.