Four key points of hotel marketing concept

------------------------------------. The author recently learned in a lecture for hotel marketing managers in the whole province that there are still quite a few hotels whose marketing management still stays in simple sales promotion or low-level price reduction means. If the hotel lacks the correct marketing concept as the management guidance, it will be difficult for it to win in the fierce competition market. To do a good job in hotel marketing, we must grasp four points of marketing concept.

1. Choose the right target market

It is impossible for a hotel to occupy and satisfy every tourist market. For example, we simply divide the tourist market into three categories: A, B and C, which represent high, medium and low-grade tourists respectively. Suppose this hotel is a hotel with the ability to receive B-class tourists, which means that the hotel's hardware and services meet the needs of mid-range tourists. What will happen if we receive A-file customers? Because A-class tourists are familiar with the situation of high-grade hotels, they have high expectations for service. In this way, it is difficult for hotels to meet their needs, so they need to pay extra attention to cater to them. However, the reception capacity, hardware standards and service content of hotels cannot match the requirements of A-class tourists, and A-class tourists will still be dissatisfied for various reasons. What will happen if the hotel receives C-class tourists? Because C-class tourists are price-sensitive, they are also difficult to be satisfied, and it will also destroy the satisfaction of their own B-class tourists and the atmosphere of the hotel. There were two sales departments in a hotel where the author once worked, one was responsible for the sales of rooms, and the other was responsible for the sales of banquets. On one occasion, the banquet sales department solicited an order banquet from a township enterprise to fulfill the catering index. It rained that day, and a large number of suburban farmers entered the hotel loudly in rain boots, which not only polluted the ground of the hotel's light-spotter, but also crowded with a newly arrived Japanese tour group in the elevator. Afterwards, Japanese travel agencies complained strongly that the grade of the hotel was too low, which was completely inconsistent with the original sales staff's door-to-door publicity. As a result, because the hotel received a banquet with a value of only 31,111 yuan, it lost a Japanese series group that can be expected to bring in more than 31 million yuan in annual business income. However, the township enterprise still thinks that the banquet price is too high and the dishes are too elaborate and not affordable at all.

Therefore, hotel marketing managers must be clear about the hotel's market positioning and try to avoid receiving customers who are not commensurate with their own positioning. If you need to receive different types or grades of tourists at the same time, you should standardize the travel routes of different tourists in advance, and try to avoid the conflict between the two types of tourists by setting up special ladders, guiding by special personnel and distinguishing the floors of the houses. For example, in some large hotels, according to the service characteristics of the team, the turnstile set up a team check-in registration office, which not only facilitated and accelerated the check-in registration, but also avoided the service contradiction of different customers. Only by defining the market orientation according to the hotel's own conditions can the hotel better formulate an appropriate marketing plan for each target market, provide standardized service standards and improve customer satisfaction.

2. Constantly understand the customer's needs and create customer satisfaction

The customer's needs are diversified and difficult to understand, because the customer will not clearly tell the hotel his needs, which may be due to the customer's lack of consumption experience, incompetence or inconvenience. For example, the customer indicated to the travel agency that he needed to reserve a room in a five-star hotel, which he expressed in words, but his real need was because he could afford to pay for the room in a five-star hotel, and choosing five-star hotel was a symbol of his identity. Customers often have unspecified needs. In this case, he expects to get excellent service when staying in a five-star hotel, which can reduce his time consumption, energy consumption and purchase risk. At the same time, customers also hope to get pleasant sensory enjoyment, such as an indoor swimming pool in the hotel for leisure and entertainment, and chatting with considerate waiters in the bar at night. Customers may also have some needs that they don't want to say, such as: you can get bonus points when you stay in the hotel, and it is convenient to date someone. Therefore, hotel marketing should focus on constantly studying customers' needs, developing products and services that can meet customers' needs, creating characteristics, and trying to do better than competitors in the same file, so as to attract customers for a long time.

It is very important for hotel marketing management to obtain customer satisfaction. Imagine that marketers keep attracting customers in various ways, while hotels keep losing customers because of service problems. One-stroke business is bound to make the hotel go into recession, because the more customers are attracted, the faster the loss will be.

Research shows that it often costs five times more to attract a new customer than to keep an old one. In order to keep customers from losing, the key is customer satisfaction, because a satisfied customer will: 1) visit more times and have high loyalty to the hotel; 2) Willing to buy new products recommended by the hotel; 3) Take the initiative to speak well of the hotel to the people around you and help the hotel introduce other guests; 4) Ignoring the advertisements of competing hotels and being insensitive to prices; 5) Be willing to give some good suggestions to the hotel as an old friend; 6) Compared with new customers, the marketing expenses and service costs are reduced.

customers are the best teachers, and hotel marketers should constantly collect customers' opinions or suggestions, because in general, customers will not take the initiative to tell, and customers will praise or complain about hotels only when they are very satisfied or angry. Therefore, marketing managers should try to investigate and predict customers' needs through various channels and get customers' feedback. For example, when the customer checks out, please fill in the opinion form; You can set up an interactive website to communicate with customers; The guest relationship manager takes the initiative to visit the in-house customers; Sales staff tracking services, etc.

Customer satisfaction is the basis of the hotel's survival. Marketing managers should count the customer satisfaction, measure the customer satisfaction rate, and compare the customer satisfaction rate of this hotel with that of competitors. Only by maintaining a high customer satisfaction rate can the hotel obtain satisfactory income and maintain its long-term development potential.

3. Strengthen coordination and create a good marketing atmosphere

Hotel products are a whole, and customers receive the same services from various departments from check-in to check-out, and any department is very important in customer service. But often every department has the concept of departmentalism to varying degrees. In order to save energy, the engineering department will deliberately control the switching time of air conditioning, and the hotel will not know that the air conditioning is insufficient until there are complaints from guests. The finance department is unwilling to relax the credit policy in order to control the withdrawal of funds. Therefore: 1) First of all, as the link between the hotel and the customers, the marketing department must communicate and coordinate with all departments of the hotel from time to time, and accurately convey the customer demand information to the relevant departments; 2) The hotel should establish a correct sense of service from top to bottom, treat colleagues as internal customers, and create an atmosphere in which everyone serves the next process; 3) All departments of the hotel must fully communicate with each other, and coordinate to solve problems from the perspective of meeting customers' needs; 4) Recruit and hire suitable employees, train employees' awareness of customer service, encourage employees to use correct service methods, boldly and effectively authorize them, and control the occurrence of service errors through pre-,during-and post-event inspections; 5) From the general manager to the employees, we should have extensive contact with customers, listen to their opinions, and pass on their needs to relevant departments, respond quickly, and strive to make customers 111% satisfied.

4. Get satisfactory profitability

Marketers should not only create customer satisfaction through various methods, but also pay attention to the profitability of the hotel, taking into account the average house price and housing rate, and should not pursue one-sidedly but maximize profits. At present, the marketing department of some hotels does not do market research, public relations planning and business budget, and the marketing department only acts as the reception department and discount department. It is very dangerous for hotels to win customers' loyalty by simply cutting prices, because only short-term loyalty can be won through price competition. Only when the hotel is profitable can it provide better service to its customers. Marketing management should consider not only customer satisfaction, but also hotel satisfaction (profit) and owner satisfaction (return). This is the quality and ability that contemporary marketers must have.

training liquor dealers-five misunderstandings in hotel marketing

(2113-19-22)

foreign wine accounts for a small share in the liquor market in China. Why? Is it that the liquor enterprises in China have excellent marketing methods and keep the enemy out of the country? No! It is the foreign wine that can't adapt to the chaotic and disorderly competition situation in the Chinese liquor market.

1. Most hotels, which are the mainstream sales channels of domestic alcoholic products, require to sell goods on credit, and many stores have poor reputation, and the phenomenon of running out of stores (hotel closure) occurs from time to time.

2. There are many local workshops and small manufacturers, so far there is no monopoly pattern. Consumers also like to try new brands. Domestic liquor brands are booming and dying faster, and most brands only have a life span of one or two years.

3. The vicious competition in hotel sales is serious: the entrance fee, exclusive sales fee, bottle opening fee, promotion fee and public relations fee are exploited layer by layer, and the price is increased layer by layer, resulting in the sales price of products far higher than their own value. Suppliers have low net profit, high risk and are overwhelmed. Moreover, this vicious competition is getting worse.

4. Due to the high risk of accounts and high sales expenses, most manufacturers dare not directly set foot in hotel sales, and more than 99% of the wine sales are completed by the dealers according to local customers' conditions.

The special market needs special operation methods, and some operation ideas of the domestic wine industry are quite different from those of other food and fast-moving goods industries, even the opposite. Here, the author will explain the uniqueness of domestic wine sales and common market strategy misunderstandings from the perspective of how wine distributors, the main force of wine marketing, do the market.

Myth 1: Marketing in off-season and sales in peak season

Analysis:

The marketing practice of FMCG industry is marketing in off-season (developing customers, distributing locations and expanding network coverage) and selling in peak season. However, hotel channel marketing can only learn from this idea, but can't copy it. The specific reasons are as follows:

First; In the off-season, we should consider whether the cost can be borne.

The operating expenses of the hotel are extremely high, and once the goods are distributed, it is inseparable from the follow-up of various expenses, gifts and promotional items. And with the passage of time (closer to the peak season), the cost is getting bigger and bigger. The earlier you enter the market, the longer you spend in the market, the greater your investment. For most dealers, this long-term huge investment is unbearable.

second; Even if the market is well done in the off-season, there may not be sales in the peak season.

The off-season market is doing well, accounting for almost 51% of the hotel's market share. Will there be good sales in the peak season? Wrong! The hotel's sales in the peak season are based on the cost investment. In the peak season, you will find that the investment in promotion fees and bottle opening fees of various brands has increased significantly. Some good hotels will be bought out of the promotion rights, or even exclusive distribution rights-the "love" forged with hotels in the off-season can't stop the money offensive of manufacturers in the peak season. In the peak season, if you don't spend money in the hotel, you will be defeated and immediately out, and you won't even have a chance to compete.

Suggested strategy:

1. Appropriate time for new products to enter the market

Dealers should choose the time for new products to enter the market according to their own resource strength, and don't enter the market too early. (Unless you have sufficient market expenses) Generally, you can choose to enter the market to distribute goods in July and August, and start to invest heavily in expenses from October to October. In this way, the distribution of goods will not be delayed, and the pre-compensation period will not be too long, resulting in subsequent weakness (if the sales area is small and there are not many hotels, the market entry time can be put in September-October).

2. Strategy of cost investment

A. Survival in the off-season and development in the peak season:

Cost investment in the off-season should be saved, as long as the products can enter the store smoothly, be sold normally in the hotel, be able to establish a customer relationship with key hotel people, and not be inferior to the main competing products in terms of cost investment such as promotion and public relations. One month before the peak season is the best time to concentrate on spending.

b, sign the peak season promotion agreement in advance:

communicate with the store two months before the peak season to sign the peak season promotion agreement in advance, so as to prevent the related expenses of the store from soaring or the exclusive promotion right from being bought out by competing products.

C. Concentrated investment:

Hanging 21 flags at the same time in a restaurant street, the effect of having 21 salesgirls is definitely better than spreading these resources over 21 blocks.

D. Key investment in key hotels:

What do you mean by key hotels? It refers to hotels with optimistic sales prospects. Hotel sales are considerable, but if the store just doesn't pay attention to the products you sell after your repeated efforts, your products can't be placed in a better position, you are not allowed to promote sales, and you are not allowed to pay the corkage fee, you will definitely not have sales. This kind of store may sell a lot, but its sales don't belong to you, and the return on investment is very low.

Looking back at the sales history in the off-season distribution stage, look for hotels that are more willing to cooperate with their products (you can give yourself more care in the four links of display, promotion, exchange of bottle opening fees and payment settlement), choose some shops with good business conditions from them, concentrate resources and focus on bombing, and strive to have an absolute advantage in this store. You will find that the sales volume of a large and medium-sized hotel with good cooperation is more than ten times that of other hotels (including some large hotels with poor willingness to cooperate).

Myth 2: The more distribution points in the off-season, the better

Analysis:

Distribution points in the off-season (hotels that develop and sell this product) are for sales in the peak season. The more distribution points in the off-season, the more sales space in the peak season. However, the characteristics of hotel marketing determine that in the off-season, the more locations are not the better (especially for dealers with limited strength)

1. The increase of labor costs

The business procedures of hotel channels are much more complicated than those of ordinary retail and wholesale stores. A hotel industry should limit the number of hotel stores to 15, and the number of medium-sized stores should not exceed 31, otherwise the service quality will decline (especially the untimely exchange of bottle opening fees). The more locations, the more personnel costs and management costs.

2. The increase of account pressure and distribution pressure.

The hotel has a small warehouse, high frequency of goods demand, small quantity of single and secondary goods, and is basically sold on credit. Too many distribution points mean that the financial pressure and distribution pressure are increased, the control is not strict, and bad debts will rise sharply.

3. Dispersion of promotional resources.

the unique competitive environment of hotel marketing determines that selling products in hotels must be promoted. There are too many distribution points, and the limited resources (promotional gifts, public relations expenses, publicity props) are too scattered to form local advantages.

4. damage distribution channels.

every wine wholesaler has its own hotel customer network with good customer feelings. If the general distributor directly distributes too many points in the hotel, it will "rob the wholesalers of their jobs" and lead to the enthusiasm of downstream distribution channels.