Black Friday (November 27th) and its youngest sibling (that never stops growing!) Cyber Monday (November 30th) are just around the corner!
This year more than ever, Black Friday and Cyber Monday can bring much-needed revenue for hoteliers.
The reduction of intermediaries to compete with, and the expectations of consumers to plan their vacations in a better and not distant future, offer you a unique opportunity to generate unprecedented income for your hotel direct channel.
Despite the huge challenges that 2020 is presenting to hoteliers, the opportunity to grow your business is huge. In 2019, our hotel partners that created promotions and added values during Black Friday and Cyber Monday saw exceptional results.
- +72% in bookings vs the previous week
- +24% in average length of stay vs the previous week
- +43% in Average Booking Value vs the previous week
We have prepared a quick guide to help you define and implement strategies for a winning Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign!
Work on unique branding
- Create specific artwork for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns. Be original and differentiate yourself from your direct competition and OTAs.
Adapt your Revenue Management strategies for Black Friday and Cyber Monday
- Exclusive offers and / or discounts: free nights, breakfast, transfer or upgrades, or special package deals that surprise potential customers.
- Exclusive promocodes and / or rates for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Think of naming your rates in original ways to create interest and differentiation.
- Mobile-specific rates to help convert the ever-increasing mobile web traffic.
- Reward your Loyalty Program members. Offer them offers, rates or added values exclusively, before making them available to the general public. E.g. 24, 48 or 72 hours in advance.
- Make stay dates, as well as cancellation policies, as flexible as possible. This year more than ever your potential customers will look to keep their options as open as they can.
- Control negative disparities vs OTAs and B2Bs. Even better, generate positive (even exclusive) disparities for your direct channel. You will see a direct positive impacto n your sales, profitability and brand equity.
- Offer specific discounts for metasearch to ensure that your direct channel price is always better than the OTAs’
- Ensure that you have enough allotment for your direct channel.
- Don’t limit yourself and extend the campaign dates. Make Black Friday last all weekend and Cyber Monday extend all week so that it becomes Cyber Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This will help you capture more sales and indecisive potential clients.
- Combine Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Keep your branding, storytelling and promotions throughout this period so that you can more time to capture potential clients.
Communicate accross key touchpoints
- Ensure maximum exposure for your campaigns on your web page: hero image and banners in key areas of your home page. Also, ensure that the Offers and Promotions section of your website is updated with your Black Friday and Cyber Monday content.
- Create a sense of urgency and use all the options available from THN: smartnotes, layers, inliners y exit pop-ups.
- Send email marketing campaigns to your full contact-list. Make sure your define an original email subject to make your campaigns stand out and maximise open rates.
- Increase your presence on social media. In addition to posting on your hotel channels, invest in social ads to increase the exposure of your campaigns. During this period of high content saturation on social media, the more exposure you receive, the more traffic to your website and sales you will get.
- Adapt your SEM (paid search) campaigns, creating specific ads for Black Friday and Cyber Monday and temporarily pausing your standard daily ads. Increase your ad investment in key markets so that you can improve your search, click-thru-ratio and, even sales.
- Implement retargeting campaigns. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, consumers will compare from a large number of online sources. Reaching them after they leave your website will allow you stay top of mind and increase your chances of enticing consumers back to your site for a new chance to sell..
Your Roiback Direct Channel Specialist will work with you to adapt these and other strategies to the specific needs of your hotel.
Let’s get down to business and let’s prepare a winning campaign!
