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Tip no.1: Explore your hotel management software’s possibilities
Whether you have basic hotel management software or one with advanced features, you should take down all of your client’s information. Some may already be there, such as their name, address and dates of their stay. While being very useful, this kind of information may not be sufficient to lead effective marketing campaigns. An advanced hotel management software allows you to create your own fields. Customizing your fields can help you to get more information about your clientele depending on what interests you the most. For example, you might want to know the reason for their stay (business, family holiday, romantic holiday, etc.) or how they heard about you (recommendation, web search, advertisement, etc.). These elements will allow you to generate some statistics and compare them in order to narrow your results and better target your clientele.
Your hotel management software should be able to link an existing contact to a new booking. If you create a new contact for each booking made by the same person, you will then dilute the information and your statistics will be biased. Thus, if a client has stayed with you many times using a different profile every time, they will not be considered a regular guest and thus you will not be able to provide them with offers they would care about.
Tip no.2: Be rigorous
Every action taken within your hotel management software will then be used for sales and marketing. In order to generate satisfying results, every question your client is asked needs to be directly linked to a future action. If not, then it is very likely that the fields will remain blank.
Amongst the essential information you can ask your client, their e-mail address is the most important. A client you cannot reach by e-mail can be a lost client. Due to less and less advertising campaigns being carried out by postal mail, e-mail has become an essential tool to promote your hotel to the right clientele. You therefore need to consistently ask your clients for their e-mail addresses, even those booking via OTAs, so that you can reach them without having to go through an intermediary.
Tip no.3: Be relevant with your clients
Whether it be for your hotel management software or part of a competition, clients are often reluctant to share their personal information. Keep in mind that the more relevant and appropriate you are, the better your chances are at obtaining accurate answers. Hence, try to avoid asking unnecessary or redundant questions. For example, if a client books a room as a part of a business organization, the reason for their stay is rather obvious.
Tip no.4: Use your hotel management software’s marketing reports
These reports will allow you to learn more about your clientele by producing graphs or tables. These filtered reports can also help you to infer some information about your clientele. For example, if you launch a last-minute offensive, it is highly unlikely that your international clientele will be interested. You can therefore filter out your international clientele from your database to avoid losing them when sending out this last-minute offer. Additionally, if you are targeting families who have stayed with you before and have kids, you can filter your reports to target this specific segment of your clientele whom you know have brought kids in the past.
Data is part of the wealth of your hotel management software. It can make a significant difference when it is time to put together a sales or marketing plan, as a single wrong or missing piece of data may force you to revise your plans completely.