Marketing

How do you market to other hospitality marketers?

By Roy MacNaughton

If you market a product or service to/within the restaurant or lodging industry, how do you want to be approached by another marketer of a product or service? Sure, you fully understand that they have a job to do, just like you. You know they have to make approaches to potential buyers. So how do you want to be approached? Is there a right way or a wrong way to do this?

In a recent study, conducted by Three Deep Marketing, with assistance from Marketing Sherpa, more than 70 percent of the marketers told the researchers that they did not want to be approached by a telephone call or a face-to-face meeting. Of the respondents, 70.9 percent said "no" to phone calls, 63 percent didn't want group presentations; and 57 percent didn't want a face-to-face meeting.

Today, links to a web site and email presentations are favored by most marketers. Specifically, 87.4 percent liked web sites and also approved email solicitations (pitches). Even 74 percent liked a web-based demonstration from their computers. Each of these numbers is greater than those who preferred the "pre-Internet" way of communicating a sales pitch.

Why is any of this important to you? None of this is likely telling you anything new, but if you're new to marketing, or just don't understand it, you should know what other marketers are up against these days; what their needs are. It is a long list. First and foremost, they are anxious to be able to demonstrate a positive return on their investment in marketing dollars. There is tremendous pressure from the top to clearly show that marketing is paying its way. This is one of the most difficult and elusive measurements possible. There are a hundred different ways to use statistics to tell your story, and there are nineteen ways to skin a cat, but what acceptable method can you use to prove that you are earning a proper "return" on your budgeted marketing dollars? And what, pray tell, constitutes a "return"? How do you define it? The variables are endless. Calculating ROI on marketing budgets is quite fashionable these days, but still elusive, when you cut through the manure, smoke and mirrors.

Next on the anxiety list comes the need for generating some flow of leads. Just getting a few scattered leads from any marketing initiative isn't good enough. The tactic must produce an ongoing "flow" of leads to be considered successful. The next most anxious thing on their list should really be at the top of it. They have it a bit mixed up, but this is due to the pressure from the boss, many of whom are bean counters and really don't understand the art and science of marketing. They care only about numbers, so the marketer feels the pressure to perform according to someone else's numbers, and hence his biggest worry is the one connected with his longevity at this employer. He is haunted by 'return on marketing investment'.

However, at the top of the list should be "how to differentiate oneself". This is next on the list those researchers discovered. But in reality, if you know how to successfully differentiate yourself, hopefully in a preemptive manner; and you incorporate that into your master marketing strategy and logical tactics required to accomplish that strategy, you will be so far out in front of the rest of the competitive pack, your marketing dollars will sprout great returns and your leads will flow like good wine.

However, "differentiating their company from their competitors"; only comes in third in importance to the marketers in this study. This is another example of number-crunchers having a disproportionate, and in my opinion, negative effect on business. Fourth on the list is the need to deliver the marketing communications in a clear, consistent manner at all times. Last on their list of concerns is the need to qualify the lead status before handing leads off to the sales force.

Take a close look at these "concerns" held by this particular group of marketers surveyed. Four out of the five concerns are "tactics" or "measurement tools" while only one is strategic in nature; and then it is placed in third order of importance to them. This is getting the cart before the horse for sure, but it is the reality of what you have to face out there these days. You and I are not going to train or re-educate these folks, or change the way most businesses now look at "hospitality marketing".

In order to get the positive attention of another marketer, and then close him/her on your products or services, you must know "how" they want to hear your message (and this implicitly includes the "when" they want to hear it too). Moreover, you need to clearly understand other marketers' concerns; anxieties and needs in terms of what your product or service can do for them. If it can't help them with one of these five problem areas, you are going to be hard put to get their attention, let alone close them on what you offer.

You need to re-think the benefits of your hospitality product/service and re-frame them in the context of these five key areas of need as perceived by other marketers. I would try a little different tack. First, I would stress how my product or service can help them "differentiate themselves" in the marketplace. Given that, I would then indicate that if the prospect is truly differentiated, it and they will attract more positive attention from potential buyers, generating more leads, leading to higher sales, which in turn will increase the return on the marketing investment. This should get his/her attention. But don't call her on the phone or ask for some face time. Send him an interesting, wellcrafted email instead.

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Bio:

Roy W. MacNaughton

Roy W. MacNaughton is an operator, marketer and journalist with over thirty years of international hospitality and foodservice experience. He is president of his own firm that specializes in “niche markets,” while writing for several industry on and offline publications. He has taught hospitality courses at the university level in the U.S., Canada and the West Indies. As an employee or consultant, Roy has worked with McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Wendy’s, American Express, Four Seasons Hotels, Hyatt, Hilton International, Johnson & Johnson, H.J.Heinz, John Denver’s Windstar Foundation and the Aspen Highlands Ski company, among others. He is a graduate of Ryerson University’s School of Hospitality in Toronto; and he holds an MBA from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. He may be reached at: roymac@winning.com