It’s no secret that hotel marketers and hotel DOSMs looking to increase meetings business in 2021 have a tough row to hoe. With meetings and meeting planner contacts scattered to the wind, as well as limited resources, hoteliers find themselves in that age-old struggle of having to do more with less.
Luckily, B2B tech has come a long way and hotel DOSMs who embrace tech could bulletproof their sales and marketing strategy for 2021. Here are five tools that hotel marketers and hotel DOSMs should get nice and cozy with next year.
Tool: Website Visitor Identification
Usage: Identify Companies Visiting Your Website
Hotel DOSMs spend thousands of dollars a month driving visitors to their website. But only a small percentage of those visitors ever fill out a form. What if you could identify companies that are visiting your website that never filled out a form? How might that impact your sales and marketing efforts?
The truth is, you can. Website visitor identification tools have hit the market in droves, some admittedly better than others. But all of them set out to give marketers more visibility into their marketing efforts. That extra level of visibility lets marketers understand if their Google pay-per-click campaigns are driving quality visitors or if they need to make improvements on user experience.
Tools like these also provide the sales team with clear targets for outreach. For instance, if “company XYZ” is shopping the meetings section of your website, your sales team gets notified and can proactively reach out.
Tool: ZoomInfo
Usage: Find Target Contact Information Quickly and Easily
Okay, so your sales team knows the name of a company that’s shopping your hotel website—now what?
That’s where tools like ZoomInfo come in. ZoomInfo specializes in searchable B2B data. ZoomInfo lets your sales team access a searchable directory where you can search by job title, company name, or even by individual. Then, with the click of a button, you can access that individual’s company email and phone number.
Hotel DOSMs who have a hard list of target companies (but no contacts) now have an easy way of appending contacts and contact information. Give your sales team a list of targets and let them dial.
Tool: LinkedIn Navigator
Usage: Track Prospects as They Change Companies or Job Titles
With all the layoffs and furloughs, contacts will inevitably be changing companies and job titles. LinkedIn Navigator lets you create a list of individuals and track them as they move. Hoteliers can leverage this tool to build a list of wedding planners or meeting planners and get notifications as they move around.
Tool: Marketing Automation
Usage: Nurture Prospects With Automated Emails
The problem with marketing automation is it sounds expensive and complicated. The truth is, it absolutely can be if you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve. Don’t overcomplicate it. Start out simple. Keep in touch with meeting planners after they fill out an RFP. That can be as simple as four or five emails deployed automatically over the course of a month. It’s a simple function in most CRMs. Don’t go out of pocket on expensive automation tools.
Tool: Chili Piper
Usage: Turn Leads Into Scheduled Meetings Instantly
Scheduling apps help your sales team turn leads into meetings quickly and efficiently. Meeting planners can fill out a form and schedule their first meeting all at once. How does that work? The scheduling app syncs to your sales team members’ calendars so it’s always up to date. Don’t worry, you can set a bunch of rules and restrictions to go round-robin or give your sales team enough time to prepare for the call.
