Series three, marketing for your hospitality property success. Chapter 17, developing your marketing strategy. If you've been with me through the your hospitality, property, organizational structure, and the employee development series and have been following all the steps and recommendations, I know you have been seeing improvements in your property's operation. Maybe you have not implemented all the changes yet. And that's all right. Many of these changes might feel dramatic.

So one step at a time is fine. But it is important to stay the course and to look at this new way of thinking as a work in progress. We are now moving on to series number three, marketing for your hospitality property success. This series is huge. And I just don't mean all the information you're going to receive. But the importance of marketing for your hospitality property because you're not getting hit In your beds consistently, then you're continually fighting an uphill battle.

In today's chapter, we are going to focus on developing your marketing strategy. What are the benefits of putting a marketing strategy in place? A marketing strategy gives your employees something to unite behind. Companies sometimes underestimate the impact a marketing strategy has on their own people in the employee development series, I encourage you to make your employees part of the team feel like owners. So this being the case, you want them to engage and be excited about your marketing strategy. employees don't have to understand the financial projections, but can get excited about a well written and well thought out marketing strategy.

Once developed, it's a good idea to release a nun abridged version of your marketing strategy to all your employees. If done with some excitement for the ventures to come, your employees will appreciate it. Being involved and work to making your marketing strategy as success. I've heard some owner say that it is very difficult to plan a marketing strategy, because things are consistently changing. It's a waste of time. While I'm here to tell you, if you don't plan, you're doomed.

And in precise market marketing strategy is far better than no strategy at all. What's the point of a marketing strategy? The point of a marketing strategy is to generate business. Without a marketing strategy. You'll wander aimlessly. Think of it this way.

You're in a new city, and you have to find a specific address. You do not have GPS or even a map. Yes, you might eventually find your address, but you will probably waste a lot of time and effort on the way. Another way to look at this is to think of the last time you bought a bookshelf from IKEA or updated a financial program for your computer. Did they come with step by Step instructions. Think of your marketing strategy as step by step instructions for your company's success.

A great marketing strategy is laid out to the lowest common denominator, like all your other policies and procedures in your operations manual. Your marketing strategy has to be an easy to understand process, with platforms, or to market dates and costs listed. You or your accountant do not keep all your business facts and figures in your heads. They should be in financial reports for ongoing reviewing and monitoring for your business to work effectively. You have to know the numbers. There is no difference in your marketing strategy.

You have to have a written document laying out your game plan. Imagine the mess if you or someone else who was responsible for your marketing, for some reason had to give up that responsibility. If a new person took over and did not have the plan, your plan they would To start from scratch, a huge waste of time and money. A marketing strategy should be designed yearly. But that could be difficult if you're in the middle of a day to day hospitality property operation. To do your marketing strategy justice, I recommend you step away from your business.

If your organizational structure is in place, and running properly, this will not be a problem. Get away from your smartphone, your front desk and make time to think of the big picture. brainstorm with your sales team, or at least a trusted employee or partner. After you've done this for a few years, designing your marketing strategy actually becomes reviewing your marketing strategy, enhancing the platforms that are working, deleting the ones that are not and researching the new exciting trends coming down the road. To factors you have to keep in mind one marketing a product 40 is not an extra or a luxury who are successful properties. A well thought out marketing strategy is imperative for your property success.

And when developing your marketing, you have to remember that your marketing strategy starts and ends, lives and dies with your customer. Two, it is absolutely essential that you ignore your dreams, your visions, your interests, forget about everything, but your customer. All right, where to start? The first thing you have to determine is who is your customer? What do they want? And how do you find this out?

You have to define who you are. And when I say you, I mean your property. What do you have to offer? What makes you different from your competition? So let's start at the beginning. What are your main goals?

I asked you about this and series one, your hospitality property coordinate Optional structure. You have to get used to the idea that your business will have an important role in your life. Your business isn't your life. So I asked you to answer these questions. What do you personally value most in life? What kind of life do you want to lead?

What do you want your life to look like when it's completed? Who do you wish to be? Deep down? Most Great business people can see the way they want their lives to develop. Until you can answer these questions and explain them. You cannot really develop your business properly.

The biggest difference between successful and less successful people is that successful people don't wait for things to happen. They work on their lives. They don't exist in their lives. After you have answered these questions, you can seriously look at the goals and objectives of your property. If you have completed the exercises in series one, your hospital properties organizational structure, you already have the answers to these questions. If not, you should go back and review.

You have to know your goals before you try to develop a way to get there. Who is your target market? I spoke with one independent hotel owner who told me his target market was anyone who walked through the door. I said, anyone? How do you market to anyone? He told me a brochures on the table next to the front desk.

And I said, Does that work? And he said, Yes. So I asked him if his occupancy rate was high. He looked away and said, No. We went on to discuss his demographic, and he admitted he had no idea who his demographic was. How do you find out who your demographic is?

Ask. Ask your current guests why they're staying with you. Study your competition and see who They're tracking. Have your guests fill out a survey. We've included a sample survey to find your demographic. Feel free to modify it as you see fit.