Marketing Q&A with Jennifer Rodrigues

Oct 29, 09 | 1:59 am

Tweet

By Jennifer Rodrigues

Q: I attend a lot of industry conferences and have always wondered how I could get a speaking opportunity at one.  Any suggestions?

A: I would recommend starting to plan out your conference schedule a year in advance.  First step is to target the events where you'd like to speak. Put together a list and do research to find out who the contact is for each to submit speaking applications and when the deadlines are.  Ask yourself:

• Who is attending the conference? Is it hotel owners? Revenue managers? Suppliers? All of the above?
• What are your specific goals for the conference - new business opportunities/make sales/etc.?
• What is happening in the industry right now? Is there an issue that hoteliers are facing? Low revenues/occupancy? New marketing trends to embrace?
• What do you think the conference attendees are looking to learn/find out about by attending?
• What expertise or knowledge can you share with the conference guests?

Once you've answered these questions, you can figure out what speech topic will interest both the attendees and the speech selection committee the most.

Put together a short outline of the main points of your speech. You can use whichever format you think best outlines the speech. I personally like to use a short intro paragraph, highlighting the overall scope of the speech, with a short bulleted list of each main point that you'll be making.  It's important not to give too much or too little info; keep it less than a page long so that you don't lose the reader's interest.

A small note - By following these steps, you'll have a much better chance of being chosen to speak at your next conference.  Keep in mind though that some conferences receive thousands of applications so it's a numbers game.  Submit as many outlines to as many conferences as possible and eventually, you will be picked to speak.  

Q: I use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising but many of my customers prefer to call the hotel directly to book.  How can I track the results of my campaign in a market where people prefer to book over the phone rather than online?

A: According to MileStone Internet Marketing, for every one reservation generated online, there are between 2 to 7 times the reservations generated on the phone.  The actual ratio depends on the hotel brand and the market segment that the hotel operates in but it's obvious that if you're not tracking your phone bookings as well as the online ones, you aren't getting a proper picture of your PPC campaign ROI.  

There are several technologies available to track phone call conversions.  At the simplest level, you can assign a unique number for your marketing campaigns and your website so that all calls on the unique numbers can be traced back to the campaigns.  Make sure that those numbers do not end up in your marketing collateral or you risk diluting your results.  More sophisticated tools, such as the one shown below, will not only track calls from different campaigns, but can track by keywords and search engines.  

Customer tagging is one tracking method used, especially by companies who use loyalty programs to encourage sales.  To implement this type of tracking, the customer needs to be uniquely identified on the site, through a log in/customer ID/order ID.  The customer starts the booking online then calls the hotel to complete the booking.  The ID can then be used to track the online origins of the offline sale.

Pay-per-call.  Pay-per-call services can work with your PPC campaigns to track conversion across different search engines.  These work by generating a phone number specific to the online visitor based on the site they originated from.  Also, they track the call performance so you can capture call length, conversion and other information without the need to dedicate a phone number to that particular campaign.

Q: I've got my key messages and media list ready.  How do I put together an effective press release?

A: The press release is "a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something claimed as having news value.[1]"  While it is a basic component of almost every PR campaign, there are some stats I'd like to share with you about them:

• Some studies estimate that between 55-97% of all press releases sent to media outlets that are never used.
• There is massive competition for the attention reporters and editors: publications receive hundreds, some even thousands of releases every single day.

Surprised?  Now you know that a good press release isn't enough to guarantee coverage.  Press releases have to be well-written, provide good, newsworthy information and it must, must, must be timely. 

As well as having perfect spelling and grammar, a traditional news release should follow a set format and include the following components:

• Contact info for appropriate PR contact - The info should be included in two places: at the top and bottom of the release.  At the top, the name/email/phone number should be included (right aligned) and at the bottom, it should be included in the final paragraph.
• Headline - The headline should be eye-catching and give the reader an idea of the topic of the release.  Keep it short and sweet!
• Dateline - The first line of text in a press release should start with the date that the release is being issued on and the location of the company releasing it.  For example:
• "Miami, October 28, 2009 -"
• The lead paragraph - The first paragraph is the most important part of a press release.  It should contain all of the most important information contained in the release.  The purpose is so that if a journalist reads only the first paragraph, they have all the necessary info - the who/what/when/where/how/why of the story.  
• Body Text - The body of the release follows an inverted triangle format, which means that the most important info is up top and as you continue reading, the information becomes less and less pertinent.
• Length - No longer than 2 pages!

Once you've got your release written, it's important not to just blast it out to everyone on your media list.  This will get you marked as a spammer and blocked from a journalist's rolodex of possible contacts. 

Some other tips to consider:

• Avoid technical industry jargon.  It's confusing and journalists don't have time to decipher your messages.
• Don't lie.
• Be as available for interviews as humanly possible.
• If the journalist seems interested but doesn't know much about the topic, offer to send other info.
• If you know someone else who may be able to comment on a particular story (and who wouldn't take away from your publicity), offer that person for interview as well.
• If they do decide to write your story, thank them afterwards!
• And most importantly, an interview is not a sales pitch.  Provide the journalist with info that they can use in their story, not a sales pitch on the benefits of your company or service.

Good luck!!

Did this information help you?  If you have other questions, I'd love to hear from you - please don't be shy!  Send an email to jlr@travelinkd.com. 

And don't forget to check back twice a month for more PR and Marketing Q&As.


About Jennifer Rodrigues

Jennifer Rodrigues, Visibility Specialist with ThinkInk and TravelInk'd, is a seasoned public relations professional with a passion for the hospitality industry, which is expressed in her role at ThinkInk's travel division, TravelInk'd.  At TravelInk'd, she is responsible for developing cost-effective and creative public relations and marketing strategies for clients in the travel and tourism, airline, lodging, cruise and meeting/event sectors.  For more information on TravelInk'd, please visit www.travelinkd.com or contact Jennifer atjlr@travelinkd.com.

---

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_release