Customer Relationship Management is Very Personal

The Opportunity

Any time guests are scheduled to attend a planned event, it’s good practice to send a confirmation letter with helpful details about the facility. This kind of personal contact is especially important today.

Confronted by rising costs, lower occupancy levels and rate wars, hotels are cutting expenses to prop up their profit margins, according to Resort Marketing Partners. In such an environment, every written contact with a guest is another “touch point” to the overall experience that the guest has with a hotel, association or event.

Make Every Letter Count

Overall, corporate meetings and conventions account for about $102 billion in annual spending worldwide, according to Meetings Professionals International. The quality of a hotel’s contacts with the people renting its rooms is critical, especially when the hotel’s overall strategy is to strengthen and build lasting relationships with guests and event sponsors. Additionally, the more travelers are reminded of an upcoming event, the higher the attendance is likely to be.

The Errington Group Advantage

To build loyalty and return business, it’s important for guests to have a good image of your hotel. This is critical for your hotel to maximize attendance. That’s why every confirmation package sent to guests registering for a corporate meeting or association event should contain a customized letter based on the recipient’s registration information.

Along with thanking them for registering, the letter can contain payment options and personalized arrival and departure information, ensuring accurate dates and times for the recipient’s travel itinerary.

A well attended event benefits all parties. Crisp, professional, personalized confirmation letters are another value a hotel can provide to help organizers have a successful event. Highlight colour can call out exact details of a guest’s arrangements to ensure that precise and personal information is noticed. Such critical information can include flight numbers and times, hotel transportation and any changes that may have occurred. Finally, using co-branded colour letterhead with both association and hotel logos integrates the letter with other event materials for a consistent look and feel.

The Errington Group's Personalized Marketing Communications improve hoteliers’ customer relations management efforts.

Customized Event Brochure Simplifies Attendance For Guests

The Opportunity

One of the biggest reasons people attend events is to meet others with similar interests, backgrounds and jobs. This makes the event brochure an important document with helpful information about a particular gathering. An eye-catching brochure created for a specific event is a potent tool for conveying brand image, professionalism and appreciation for a guest’s relationship with the hotel. Such a brochure should be included in the on-site package a guest receives upon arrival.

Helping guests be in the right place at the right time

A customized event brochure has several functions. Content such as floor maps, meeting room locations and schedules ensures increased attendance at meetings. The document also indicates the hotel’s concern for guests’ comfort and convenience, enhancing the hotel’s image and helping to build and strengthen customer relationships.

The Errington Group Advantage

Templates for customized event brochures can be created by storing all static content—graphics, hotel floor plan, etc.—in an electronic repository, enabling brochures to be updated in real time, on demand, for each event.

One cost-saving advantage of being able to print on demand is that the volume of brochures to be printed can be matched directly to the number of guests expected at a specific event. A full-colour folded brochure can also be co-branded with association and hotel logos to integrate with other event materials for a consistent look and feel.

Customization makes the most of every occasion. Using colour can make the hotel floor plan or map stand out so that both the brochure content and the hotel are easier to navigate. Event managers can access the repository and order the high-quality brochures they need to serve their local customers.

Since every event is different, content can be customized for specific occasions. After selecting from a standard set of templates, they can add information directly related to the association or group they are hosting.

 

The Errington Group's portfolio of solutions and services makes the production of customized documents a cost-effective tool. It also serves as a powerful business communication solution.

Customized Event Brochure Simplifies Attendance For Guests

The Opportunity

Heard the one about the event planner who gave a party and nobody came? They failed to send a save-the-date postcard. Personal invitations are the tool of choice for many hotels to ensure that anticipated audiences have reserved the event dates. This component of their customer relationship management (CRM) programs helps hotels target and personalize marketing efforts and loyalty program strategies, better leveraging marketing dollars.

When Giving a Party, Make Sure They Come.

Along with planning assistance, more and more hotels are providing materials that support various events, such as annual meetings, weddings, conventions, etc. All of these materials are “touch points” to an overall experience that a guest/consumer has with a hotel, association or event. This kind of support not only builds the relationship with the event host, it helps to encourage participation in the event, leading to more guests booked and meals provided.

The Errington Group Advantage

A save-the-date postcard from the host facility can be co-branded with both the association and hotel logos to integrate with other event materials for a consistent look and feel. This kind of sharing creates cost-efficiency for postage and printing. The hotel can even provide PIN access to a web site where a postcard recipient can sign up directly for the event.

Responses are tracked, and a personalized letter would follow with a fulfillment kit to each respondent. Personalized communications increase response rates. Personally addressed postcards that are also graphic and eye-catching are more likely to be read than tossed away. Oversize postcards, for example, stand out in a normal stack of daily mail. The use of images is another element known to prompt higher readership and quicker response.

Beautiful photography enhances the desirability of the location, adds to the attraction of the event and can help increase attendance. The postcard can include a perforated registration form enabling collection of all necessary information from event attendees. The form is easy for recipients to tear off and mail to request a registration packet

The Errington Group's personalized communications solutions improve hotels’ response rates while tapping the vast power of full-colour marketing.