How should small hotels do network marketing?

Taking hotel rooms as an example, this paper discusses how the hotel industry should conduct Internet marketing;

I. Product strategy

In the internet marketing of hotel products, customers can only know the hotel rooms through the hotel website, so as to make a reservation decision. Therefore, doing a good job in web design and "virtual room" construction will be the key to hotel product strategy.

1, web design

To put it simply, the effect of hotel web design is exquisite and convenient. Specifically, we should pay attention to the following points: "First, the hotel's home page should be able to leave a strong and outstanding impression on customers. Second, the web page structure design is reasonable and the level is clear. Customers should be able to know the direction they should look for from the catalog on the home page. Third, the content of the web page should be comprehensive, covering as much information as possible that customers generally need. Fourth, the links on the web page should be easy to browse, and the transmission speed and download speed of pictures should be fast. Pay attention to avoid dead links and unable to adjust graphics. Facing so many networks on the Internet, hotels are creating opportunities for hotel internet marketing by saving customers' time and attracting customers.

2. Virtual guest room

A customer must know something about the products he will buy before buying a product, but in traditional marketing, it is impossible for a hotel customer to buy goods before booking a room like other customers. Before making a decision, visit the room you want to reserve. Face-to-face network marketing can meet this demand of customers. Hotels use high-tech means of computers and the Internet to create a "virtual room", so that customers can not only have an all-round understanding of the rooms they are going to book, but more importantly, they can design their favorite rooms in the "virtual room", thus truly combining tangible products, intangible products and intangible services of hotel rooms.

As long as the customer clicks the button in the eye-catching position of the hotel homepage, the screen will immediately enter a three-dimensional space viewed from the plane. Customers can enter the "virtual room" of the hotel to visit and design.

First of all, the well-dressed and smiling waiter on the screen opens the door for the customer. She takes you to the guest room, opens the window, makes tea and plays music for you. In addition, she introduced the room to the customers in a sweet voice. The screen will also be displayed to customers in turn with her introduction, and the screen will also display the panoramic view of the room, furniture and equipment, roof decoration, floor layout and so on in turn with her introduction. After the exhibition (of course, you can also visit and browse selectively), you can also move the mouse to check the new service items, learn how to use the room button, and even overlook the scenery outside the window. If the customer is satisfied with the "visited" room, he can confirm the reservation. If you feel that there is something you are not satisfied with. For example, the color of curtains, the placement of windshields, the height of floors and so on. Customers only need to input their own requirements into the computer, and the hotel will reply after a while. If your requirements can be met, the hotel will invite customers to enter the "virtual room" again-but this time, the customers will see the room designed by themselves, and everything in the room is designed according to their wishes. Customers will also have a room that truly belongs to them.

Second, the price strategy

Price is the most sensitive issue in hotel management, especially in marketing. Internet marketing makes the price of hotel rooms displayed in front of customers and competitors. Specifically, the price strategy of hotel room network marketing should do the following:

1, scientific pricing

Because of internet marketing, the cost of product development and promotion has been reduced. The hotel can further reduce the room price. And because online prices are open. It is convenient for customers to fully grasp the prices of other similar rooms. Therefore, we should increase the "transparency" of room pricing, establish a reasonable price explanation system, provide customers with the pricing of room-related products, and publicly introduce the procedures for setting room prices in the price catalogue to eliminate customers' doubts about hotel room prices.

2. Flexible price changes

Because the online room price may be impacted by hotels in the same industry at any time, an automatic room price adjustment system should be established online, which can automatically adjust the actual price on the basis of calculating the maximum profit according to the off-season, market supply and demand, and price changes of other hotels, and provide discounts regularly to attract customers.

3. Flexible negotiation

What needs to be pointed out here is that the bargaining here is by no means a "bargaining" between hotels and customers on the Internet. Because the author believes that if the same grade or even the same room can be purchased at different prices (except for factors such as off-season travel), not only the buyer is not particularly satisfied (he always thinks that the negotiated price can be lower, just because his quotation is too high), but more seriously, if a hotel guest knows that other customers living in the same grade or even the same room with him pay less than him, the reputation of the hotel can be imagined. Therefore, hotels can't "bargain" with customers who book rooms online. Hotels should make full use of the interactive function of the Internet to "negotiate" reasonable prices with customers. The hotel requires the customer to enter the price range he can accept, as well as the floor and orientation of the required room when booking, and then the hotel determines the room that satisfies the customer according to these materials. If the customer needs to reserve a standard room on the fourth floor with a price not exceeding $250, but the hotel can only provide the customer with a standard room on the fourth floor with a price of $260, then the hotel can negotiate with the customer, let him make a choice, and make a promise to the customer that if he stays in the hotel again, the hotel will give him a more favorable price. In this way, customers will make purchase decisions more actively. This saves a lot of trouble compared with the traditional waiter quotation method, and also saves time compared with customers choosing goods according to prices online. You know, the most important factors that affect whether customers roaming online make a purchase decision are time and patience.

Third, channel strategy.

If we only look at the level of sales channels, Internet marketing channels will degenerate into a single level of the Internet. Therefore, for hotels, the focus should be on constantly improving this channel to attract tourists. There are many ways to take, such as establishing a member network and providing free services or products. Taking the group's establishment of a member network as an example, this paper explains the specific practices of the hotel.

Member networks are network groups formed on the basis of virtual organizations established by enterprises. Hotels can form a member network of customers who have stayed in the hotel and frequent hotel guests. Promote the contact and communication between them, cultivate customers' loyalty to the hotel, integrate customers into the whole marketing process, and let each member benefit from each other and develop together.

For example, after the guest leaves the hotel, the hotel asks his opinion about the hotel room through e-mail on the Internet to show his respect and concern for the guest. For another example, hotels provide customers with the same experience, such as customers who are engaged in a certain occupation, all in the same social class and from the same city, with contact information such as email addresses to promote their communication; For example, on holidays, hotels can send beautiful greeting cards to members by email. Before the hotel launches new services and redesigns rooms, it can also notify members by email and ask for their opinions. In this way, customers will feel respected and valued, thus creating a lasting good impression on the hotel.

Fourth, promote the network.

Only by visiting a large number of hotel websites and webpages can we make a fundamental breakthrough in internet sales, so the promotion of hotel rooms on the Internet has evolved into the promotion of hotel websites and webpages, improving their click-through rate and browsing rate. Of course, the construction of website content is an important aspect in the early product strategy, but it is far from enough to have attractive web pages, and corresponding promotion means must be matched. Here are several commonly used website promotion methods.

1, e-mail form (e-mail)

E-mail is a private letter transmitted through the Internet. Hotels can send the hotel's advertising residence directly to customers through e-mail, which has the advantages of low cost and quick feedback of information release. However, hotels can obtain a large number of personal e-mail addresses through various channels. However, the information posted by the hotel is not necessarily what customers need, which is easy to cause a bad impression on the hotel. This requires hotel network marketers to conduct detailed analysis and strict examination, and make choices according to their own information to improve the quality of mail. Including wording, text design, background pattern and so on. Of course, using email in the above-mentioned member network is still a common method.

2. Professional sales network

This is a way to sell a certain kind of products directly on the Internet, and its main advantage is that it is convenient for customers to inquire. Generally, customers who visit the hotel sales network have a clear purpose-booking rooms, and professional sales network is often their first choice for inquiry. On the professional sales network, customers only need to input the name of the tourist destination and the required hotel grade information, and a series of hotel websites related to this information will be listed on the screen, which customers can quickly search and visit. But for hotels, the biggest drawback of this advertising method is that the hotel's website is easily submerged in the websites of other hotels. Unless someone deliberately looks for it, it is difficult to guarantee that customers will definitely visit the hotel website.

3, male * * * Yellow Pages

For example, Yahoo, InfoSeek, Sohu and other well-known websites provide website search services for the public, and often customers can find the information they need after entering keywords. This kind of advertisement, like the professional sales network, also has the danger of the hotel website being flooded, which requires the hotel website to be relatively easy to query.

Step 4 exchange banner ads

In contrast, flag-changing advertisements are more suitable for hotels. The operating mechanism of banner advertising exchange network is simply that hotels make banner advertisements to promote themselves, classify themselves into hotel industry types, and then send them to other sites for display according to the number of times the icons of the exchange exchange service network in the hotel webpage are seen and the categories selected by the hotel. This form of advertising has many advantages such as free, wide contact, real-time statistics and so on. But at the same time, hotels should also increase the promotion of websites and increase the visit rate.

The above are just some specific methods for the hotel industry to conduct Internet marketing. In fact, the hotel industry still has a long way to go to win a place in the fierce competition, especially the early investment and maintenance of Internet marketing need a lot of money, and the rapid development of information technology will make this period more bumpy, but I still hope you can make full use of network resources, broaden the market and strive for greater development space!