Crowne Plaza Greater Noida
Social Media Marketing for Weddings
Social Media marketing is an excellent medium for Hotel to promote Weddings, the Potential clients for weddings are all on the Social Media and all that is needed is timely messaging to build awareness. In this case study we see how we helped our Client Crowne Plaza Greater Noida leverage Social Media to win weddings during the second phase of Lock down in India between April / June 2021.
The Second Wave of Corona Virus saw a lot of restrictions being placed on the number of people who were permitted to be invited for weddings. New Delhi was in a complete lock down as the cases had really increased and Couples who had already booked Venues in Delhi were left in a lurch. We were quick to realize this and in discussion with our Client prepared the right messaging for the Social Media which was leveraged to reach out to Potential clients who were to get married. The Right messaging giving accurate information being shared at the right time was the Key here.
The quick thinking on part of the Crowne Plaza Greater Noida by curating a solution for couples who were left in a lurch helped them win over many Weddings. Despite the circumstances, Crowne Plaza Greater Noida offered these at a reasonable price, there by winning automatic referrals and Good will.
Social Media is where your Buyers hangout, all that is needed is the right messaging to be sent out to the right people who match your Brand. At Purple Albedo, our Solutions are tailored to increase the number of Leads that flow to the Top of your Marketing funnel, so that your Teams have enough prospects to follow up with and create multiple touch points and finally close more leads.
We help you create the right persona for your Brand, create an outreach strategy to create Brand Awareness, thereby increasing your Visibility. At the next stage we warm up the Audiences to make sure that they have a higher Brand Recall and lastly make sure that when they are ready to travel/book you are a Top of mind recall.
The Pugmark Resort Ranthambore
How the Hotel increased its Sales and Revenue leveraging Social Media
The Pugmark Resort Ranthambore is a hotel located in Sawai Madhopur and caters to Leisure Tourists who travel to Ranthambore National Park. During its 17 years of existence,The Pugmark Resorts source markets have been International Tourists visiting Ranthambore and booking their stay using Destination Management Companies in India.
The onset of Covid-19 disrupted how majority of Hotels including the Pugmark Resort did their Business. Though Ranthambore did get a decent amount of Domestic Tourism, The Pugmark Resort and many other Hotels were not plugged into the Domestic Source market. This meant that when the Travel did resume towards end of September 2020, The Pugmark had no concrete Plan and Strategy to tap into the Domestic Market and had to rely largely on OTA’s (selling at throw away prices) and a handful of Destination Management companies who along with Incoming tourism to India were also doing Domestic as well.
Being close friends with the Hotel Ownership, we took it upon us to push the Pugmark Resort Marketing on Social Media and take them direct to the consumers. At Purple Albedo we have been great believers in Direct to Consumer approach and we believe that this is where the Future of Hospitality Industry is. Hotels need to build a Brand Relationship directly with the Consumers to install more confidence and drive in Direct Sales.The Pugmark Resort was present on Social Media but was not active and the audience pool was largely not usable since it had operated in the Incoming Tourism and this audience was no good to us.
From our Launch on 4th December we activated the Social Media Accounts and leveraging Paid marketing went all out to reach to potential pool. Knowing that Holidays were around the corner and we did not have the luxury of warming up the Audiences as we normally like to do, we went very aggressive with our Paid Marketing approach. The results spoke for themselves, the Hotel went into a Sold out Status from mid December till 4th January 2021. We understood that we had been very lucky here as it was Holiday Season and people were wanting to Travel, the challenge before us was if we could repeat this in the coming months.
During the Period that India announced a 2nd Lock down and all paid activity we had managed to reach over half a million People, generate a healthy engagement of 41K+ from the audience which is nearly 8% of the people reached (The Average engagement rate on Facebook is 0.27%
We were able to generate 12K+ link Clicks from a total of 41K+ engagement rate meant 29% of people who engaged with our AD / Post went the next step to check out our offer.Overall we had a 2% Click thru rate, which is par for the course in India for the Tourism Industry.
So, what was our end result.
The Pugmark Resort had Sold out weekends all the way through till 2nd Lockdown was announced and did a healthy weekday occupancy between 40-50% at a decent rate and a vast majority of the Business that they got was Direct. The Share of Business that came from OTAs also went up and a lot of Guests who booked through OTA, when asked at the time of check-in told us that they became aware of the Hotel and Offer from Social Media, went to check the pricing on OTA and found the pricing to be the same, hence booked via OTA.
Lesson Learned and our Advise: Always have a Direct Rate which is slightly less than OTA or give additional Freebies to your Direct Customers to increase your Bottom line.
Takeaway for you as a Hotelier!
Social Media Marketing is an ART and has a lot of moving parts and variables to it. If your Social Media is not filling the Top of Marketing funnel and converting to leads and finally Customers, we can help you. Get in Touch with us and in as little as 60-90 Days you could be on your way to more Direct Bookings.