Homework for Session 3 Influencers

Why influencer marketing can benefit a hotel, or restaurant, or spa better than "traditional marketing"?

In the hospitality industry, customers make choice on what places offer but also more and more about the reputation of the place made by previous visitors. An influencer is one of those people that can provide living or personal feedbacks on hotels, spas or restaurants. An influencer could be more efficient to promote hotels or restaurants by reaching the right segment of customers because he is part of the audience and so he has more ability to know the demand of the clients, what they are looking for exactly. Furthermore, an ifluencer is more listened by the people than traditional ways of advertising. Nowadays wee are constantly on social media and we like as consumers to interact with people that have knowledges about a certain subject and with whome we can interact directly. And because an influencer could be well-known personnality, people might want to go to the same place as same and they might by more encline to believe their opinions or advices about a specific hotel or restaurant. Finally an influencer may have a huge network of followers that would spread the information about an hotel or a spa and so they would promote it in a much more efficient way than traditional marketing.

Session 2 Canva

Facebook Cover

Session 2 Word Cloud

Session 1 Exercice 2

What attracts Gen C to these properties and why?

Virgin Hotel
Virgin Hotels tend to attract generation C by changing the ideas that we have about hospitality. They want to break the usual process that each client is going through when they go to an hotel. The designing of the Room is made around the most important place for young generations: the dressing room. The services offered are made the easiest as possible as generation C doesn't have Time to lose. For example the internet doesn't require and code as in other hotels You might have to go to the reception to get a code and There is often connection problems.
The website of the Chicago Virgin Hotel is made like a social media website. There are lots of similarities with for example Pinterest with squares getting You through each service that the hotel offers. There are lots of pictures and the leastleast text as possible. Each Word used has been chosed to make an impact on the young generation.
The hotel offers all the basic services but adapted to generation C to create easy social experiences: check in and check out can be made at any time, as I said before There is no internet connection code,  There are social Hours and the drinks are at the same price as everywhere to promote social meetings. They also have developped their own mobile application and also The Know which allow the guests to give their preferences to the hotel's employees for their future stays.

Radisson Red
This hotel has developped a concept based on super modern design in order to attract the generation C in particular. They have included social spaces for people to meet and open spaces to promote meetings among people. The hotel is full on new technology in the rooms, in the common spaces and the top high technology features in the meeting rooms. The hotel wants to attract the young generation by focusing on the technology, the app and the almost futuriste features with a reference that they have used everywhere inside the hotel: the red color that would work as a point of reference for the hotel. They have instaured a way of life inside the hotel and they state directly on the website that they want to be different.
The hotel website has the least features as possible so the young generation won't be overwhelmed by too many informations. Sobriety is the concept they have used: lots of pictures and short texts and sentences. You roll the on the website as on a mobile phone screen.
The hotel provides an application, meeting event studios,a bar with food and drinks and spaces to meet, play and be social. They offer social experiences to the clients thanks to all the features that are made to meet and interact with the others.

Session 1 Exercice 1

How do the digital touchepoints differ from country to country? 

We can see on the graph that when we compare the large food industry between the US and France, we can notice that social channels play the early role before the purchase. We can find some reasons for that. The food is basically purchased based on the taste and with whom we are going to share it. So it's why social channels play the main assisting role in the purchase decisions. Another reasob is the fact that the food is a vital element that we need to purchase and so it's the one that we don't really make research on it; we just bought it because we have to in our society.
But then along in the customer journey to purchase, the Americans take more times before using generic paid search may be because in France, customers are more likely to compare the food products from one brand to another so we search earlier in the process our choice for food products alternatives.
And it's also quite different between France and the US regarding the channel that have the final influence on the consumer. The Americans will make their final decisions based on emails; so they need an influence from the seller directly adressed to them. Whereas in France, we will make a last search and on organic one because we want to make our own opinion on the product and the one provided by brand or generic paid search that come earlier in the process and which don't necessarily provide totaly true information as they have been paid and often based on advertissements.


How the digital touchpoints differ from industry to industry? 

I decided to compare two different industries in France that both concern the peoples' spare time. 

We can see on the graph that the display click channel plays the role of giving awareness for travel and leisures & hobbies products. The reason is that those products are not everyday life products and we got aware of them for most of the time without necessarily looking for them. For example we see on ad on the internet and finding it interesting we will click on it. Another reason is the fact that large businesses in those industries need to attract the attention of the customer among the competitors. And then early in the process, there is the impact of the social chanel because we will refer to our relatives to get advices or knowledges. But after that travel and leisure & hobbies differ.
The journey to buy travel products is equally sequenced between the different touchpoints except from the last because you plan a travel so you have deadline and then before deciding to invest in it to take your time to make the final decisions. After the social impact you will make generic search to compare and so you will be impacted by the email that you could exchange with travel agencies for example. The last channel to play a role is the brand paid search because you will look up for detailed information about your brand choice. 

Regarding the leisure & hobbies, there is a big gap in the journey purchase before using referral chanel to get advices from your relatives. The searches appear at the end because leisure & hobbies are more about what you like and what the others think is the best as they might do it with you. It's not an investment like travels. 

Off the various touchpoints, how many does a typical hotel use to convert lookers to bookers?

A lot of people are lookers regarding hotels because as consumers we are looking for the best place for the smallest price. So to convert a looker to a booker, a typical hotel should use three touchpoints: referral, email and social because it establishes a closest contact between the business and the hotel. 

Which touchpoints are most important for a hotel to employ and why? 

The email touchpoint is crucial for a hotel in order to have a direct contact with the clients regarding all the reservation details of the feedbacks. Referral is crucial as a hotel can get, through customer satisfaction, new clients thanks to recommandations from those satisfied. Then hotel must employ brand paid search because people often chose something that they already know so if the hotel is part of a group for example, customers might get to this hotel and not the one next to it because they are loyal to this brand. And for the well known hotel, this touchpoints is essential as they will appear on the top of the search page. 

Example of touchpoints 

Generic paid search 

Brand paid search

How many screens (devices) can people use in the decision journey?

As we live a technological environment we can use the following screens: mobile, computer, tablet, television, cinema, on screen advertising for example on the street.