Mobikon's Blog

We read this article written by Maureen Morrison on Ad Age Digital  where she speaks about  how Marketers struggle to marry social media and CRM also how Facebook, Twitter Present Huge Opportunities to Marketers ,but It’s Hard to Integrate Them Into Existing Databases

Here is what she has to say

Many marketers have strong CRM databases that they use to target direct mail or email offers. A growing number of them also have robust Facebook or Twitter followings. But few marketers have figured out how to marry the two.

The idea of one grand database of consumer information, interests and intentions is the holy grail for managing marketer-customer relationships, and the idea of using social data from a network like Facebook to get there is hugely appealing. But when it comes to integrating this kind of social data, it’s easier said than done.

“Everybody says they understand, but nobody really knows,” said Michael Scissons, president-CEO at Syncapse, a social-media-management firm.

Often different teams — marketing, CRM, social — pore over different data, and unless those are married up, it’s difficult for marketers to truly be able to interact with customers on a personal and targeted level.

We have understood these issues well in advance and we have a solution for the same

Konekt CRM and Communications Platform

A cloud based platform which helps marketers from the Hospitality industry to acquire, enhance and manage their customer relationships across multiple digital touch points.

Click on the link to know more:  http://www.mobikontech.com/emailer/intro/mail.html

Aside from watching key metrics, how do you measure your success as a hotel? As a hotel marketer?

First, let’s remember why feedback is important.  You may be thinking, “I don’t want someone else grading my performance!” But successful hoteliers understand guest feedback tells you…

• What you’re doing right
• What you’re doing wrong
• How you can improve
• Opportunities to attract more business and improve your reputation

…and this input comes from the only group that matters: your guests

Here we have a solution which will help you not only to get guest feedback with ease but will also help you get detailed graphical reports indicating how the guests have rated the hotel, based on different categories like service, food & beverage, hospitality, etc. are generated. This will help you take corrective actions for improving your service offerings to future guests..

Click on the image below to get the feedback app.

The vast majority of hotels, resorts and restaurants (72%) rate email as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ for return on investment. – Econsultancy “Email Marketing Census 2011″ (2011)

Our Konekt : Marketing system which works on the concept of software as a service platform helps Hotels, Resorts and Restaurants create, design and promote an emailer campaign as per their choice.

We have some tips that we are sharing out of sheer experience we have gained from doing campaigns for our clients.

Tip1) Define the motive of the campaign

For Hotels, Restaurants and Resorts there are various occasions when you feel like doing an emailer campaign to your guests to be in the good book list of the customer. Also such kind of email campaigns is a reminder to your guest that you care

Topic for emailer campaigns

• Room Booking Offer

• Food and beverage Offers

• Any special occasion (New Years Eve, Christmas)

• Birthday Wishes and Anniversary

• Launch of a new branch

• Quizzes

Tip 2) Have a catchy subject line

Please avoid the $ or INR signs or words like offer, discounts, free buffet/room/dinner.

E.g.) If Hotel abc has a stay for one night and get another night free offer

The subject line could be: See what ABC has in store for its guests

Tip 3) Re check on all the email ids of your database before doing the campaign

Tip 4) Avoid campaigns on Sundays or any holiday

Tip 5) Create a clear call to action to the emailer you send

-       You could have a landing page

-       If it’s a mobile email campaign have a click to connect button

-       Direct to your hotels website

Tip 6) Give the authority to your guests that they could unsubscribe from receiving any emails from your end

Tip 7) Prefer sending a two way email campaign where your guest gets a chance to reply their thoughts

Tip The email should be designed according to your hotels theme and tend to keep it constant for a while

Tip 9) Avoid heavy size images

Tip 10) Avoid sending continuous emailers to your guests and do not spam their inboxes. Twice a month is proven to give the best results

Tip 11) The best time to send your promotional emailers is day time i.e 10 a.m to 5 p.m.

This could vary according to the motive behind your campaign.

Tip 12) Avoid too many clicks

Tip 13) Keep your message short and to the point

As of now these are enough basic tips that could help any hotel, resort and restaurant to plan their email campaigns for their guest. For more tips stay tuned in to the blog or you could write to us to use Konekt: Marketing system at sales@mobikontech.com

Few emailers which were created,designed and promoted via using Konekt:Marketing system

Hotels and Resorts are a part of the multi-billion Hospitality Industry, which is booming at an exceptional pace & heading towards a new age. In this aggressively competitive market, speed is the new-age mantra. So the hotels do not want to miss on the opportunities to link up with the customers, both existing and prospective.

An innovative tool which could be used by the hotels is the short code services & free dialers on the print ads which will help them connect with the customers easily. The short code service opens new avenues. The information about new rates, new menus, special programmes, discounts, facilities and food festivals can reach the target audience in the blink of an eye by sending text messages to the opt in patrons.

The SMS short codes are generally 5 digit numbers, to which mobile users can send text messages, regardless of their telecom service provider and get the desired response in the matter of seconds. They are easier to remember, handy and integrated across all telecom operators to provide a seamless short code service experience to all the users.

SMS Short codes have started playing a vital role in the most traditional media—Print, Outdoor, TV & even Radio. As the ads in these media channels will include a Call to Action to have consumers send a text message to a SMS short code for sending their enquiry or request for information; hoteliers are increasingly using these services in most of their ad campaigns.

They use the short codes for launching interactive SMS services for their customers or any target audience. These services range from Information-on-Demand, Subscription service, SMS Contests, Quizes, Opinion Polls and SMS Voting Services.

Similarly the Free Dial service has proven to be all the more effective as it is a missed call alert service .The free dial number could be integrated with your print ads or commercials asking the customer to avail the offer just give a missed call from their mobile phone. This service is effective as the customer isn’t charged at all and instead receives the offer directly on the mobile phone.

The hotel can use the short code & Free Dial services for:

• Lead generation via displaying SMS short codes or Free Dialers in all the ad campaigns.
• Consumers can fetch Information-on-Demand by sending a text message to the short codes or giving a call on the Free Dial number.
• Send special offers for free stay or discounts.

According to a research ” More than 61% of people rely on their cell phone for up-to-the-minute information ” – MarketingProfs Source : http://hotelexecutive.com/subscribe/2387/

Snapshot of Short Code integration with prints ad campaign for one of our client

Customers are the most valuable assets for any business. Physical store-front businesses such as Restaurants, Hotels sees the customers come and go every day. Businesses have no direct way of communicating with these customers after they leave the premises. In this digital age the hospitality industry cannot afford to ignore the power of Digital marketing. Building the customer email lists or contact numbers enables these business to directly market to its customer base using Email Marketing or Mobile Marketing.

Hotels & Restaurants often keep track of important dates like customers “birthdays & anniversaries”.This information can be used to send customers Birthday Wishes and Anniversary Greeting  via emails & SMSs. These businesses can also use email marketing campaigns to send customers greetings on special holidays like Diwali, Christmas, Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day wishes and special offers.Now the Hotels or Restaurants have to always keep a track about all these events and then manually design emailers or text messages and send it to their customers.What if all this manual process would be automatic.Doesn’t it sound interesting ?

Yes our Konekt Marketing System is specially designed keeping the end user in mind. This is the back-end system which helps develop, design, manage, update and track the customer database for the special occasion dates effectively and promote campaigns accordingly .

Features of Auto Alerts of Konekt Marketing System:

• Design email templates according to the special occasion.
• Notify the Hotel about the Birthdays and Anniversary dates of their guests and accordingly push the email or text message.
• Customer responses kept Safe, Secure and Confidential from unauthorized users.
• A facility to attach a special offer code designed for your guests in the Email or Text message.
• A facility to attach a landing page to the emailer where the customer could request for Table Booking or Room Booking.
• Reports option helps to know whether your customer has received the email or text.

A few snapshots of Auto Alert emailers

Profitability for today’s hospitality industry is directly tied to customer satisfaction. Happy customers tend to be loyal, give repeat business and bring in more referral business.

Research has proven Hotels/Restaurants lose business and competitive advantage due to unsatisfied customers. The social networks have given more power to consumers to share and broadcast their bad experiences to thousands.

The solution to this is a good customer feedback system, which can help continuously measure customer satisfaction and identify deficiencies and areas of improvement. The system should also alert management of a bad experience so that it can be quickly resolved.

Well-established research by Bain &Company, which is applicable to customer, based organizations where in an increase in 5% customer retention can increase profits by 25% to 95%. Study also says it costs six to seven times more to gain a new customer than to keep an existing one. (Source: Bain & Company study in Harvard Business Review 2011)

So how does Konekt: Feedback system help in solving these issues?

Designed specifically for hospitality industry, Konekt: Feedback system works with the iPads/Andriod touch pads and as web application allowing guests to give feedbacks at the venue or via email.

Key features:

• An iPad/Andriod app, works offline (without an internet connection), the data can be synchronized with the server on daily basis.
• Design customer feedback questions as per your choice.
• Guests receive pre-designed offers on providing the feedback.

Tagging system allows management to supply certain tags on guest comments, which can generate an Email/ SMS alert for the management. (e.g., Guests using words like ‘BAD’ ‘Very BAD’ ‘Dislike’ ‘Not a good service’ etc, in their comments, will automatically trigger an Email /SMS alert to the management of the hotel)

• Option for guests to share their feedback or alert the management.
• Live analytics and reports on guest satisfaction ratio and trends.
• Option for management to Email individual guests directly from the system.
• View guests comments on Website or Mobile Site.
• Display feedback ratings on Website or Mobile Site.
• An option to share feedbacks on Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The Konekt:Feedback system will change the paper based guests feedback used today. With the hosted SaaS based solution, the GM’s, Owners and top management can now access reports and analytics on their laptops and smart phones at anytime. For more details and live demo contact us today on sales@mobikontech.com or call us on +912041005660 (international customers can call us on +1 6504851156)

Other Konekt Products

Visit : www.mobikontech.com for details