Marketing uses the term “target” a lot, making archery an excellent analogy. A target is essential when shooting a bow or arrow. Otherwise, you will be shooting arrows everywhere regardless of how skilled you are. Set up a target with concentric circles, a bullseye and a bullseye.
This analogy shows that customer segments are your hotel’s targets. Your research and data will help you to hone in on your shots. Your marketing campaigns, ads and website content will be too general if you don’t identify your target audience. It is easy to miss the mark if there isn’t one.
Instead of trying to reach everyone with the same message, your guests will respond to customized content and tailored campaigns. It is important to determine the types of customers that your hotel attracts. We can help you do this. Continue reading to learn more about customer segmentation and how you can use it to increase bookings. This article will explain why segmentation is important and what data you need to gather from customers. It also explains how to use technology that you already have to convert this data into bookings. Let’s get started!
How do I segment my hotel guests?
Market segmentation is a way to organize your hotel guests based on common characteristics. There are four major customer segments in marketing:
- Demographic: This categorizes traits such as age and gender, lifestyle, interest, occupation, education, income, and other factors.
- Behavioural looks at guests’ behaviour, such as their motivations for purchasing, how they feel about solving problems, and their loyalty status.
- Geographic refers to where people live, work or travel.
- Psychographic – This includes people, their desires, opinions and attitudes, and social status.
These groupings are not unique, but each hotel might identify additional segments based on its unique selling proposition (USP). If your hotel is near a state park that offers outdoor activities, you might already know that adventurers are one of your guest segments. Another segment might be wellness tourists if your hotel has a Spa. The following are other popular segments of hotel guests:
- Families
- Professionals in business
- Baby Boomers, Millennials and other generations
- Romantic getaway for couples
Let’s sum it all up: The guest segments that you create are based on the USP of your hotel and the type of guests who are currently visiting your hotel.
How do I identify and collect guest segment information?
First, collect guest data. Then, group it. There are many ways to collect guest data. You’re already collecting guest data! It’s just time to analyze it. Here are some ways that you can collect data about guest segments.
Booking detailsLength, the number of guests and room type are all important information. You can also ask your guests about their trip and what they know about you through the booking form. WebRezPro’s booking options feature allows you to gather additional information from guests and upsell additional services through the booking form. However, it is important to keep the required information to a minimum during booking as long booking processes can cause people to be put off.
To identify trends in reservation behaviour that can help you understand your guests, use your property management system’s book reports. Channel manager integrations with your PMS allow you to track bookings made through OTA channels. This allows you to see where and when they are arriving. This will give you information about your customers and help you decide which channels are worth your investment.
Guest profiles – Because guest profiles are created in WebRezPro automatically when a reservation is made, they can be a great resource for identifying repeat customers and tracing their stay history. You can also use guest profiles to store information about guests’ preferences and needs.
Pre-arrival emails These emails are a great way to ask guests about their stay and travel plans. Contact points include check-in, booking confirmation, digital registration, and other pre-arrival communications.
Ask guests to leave reviews in a post-stay email. Reputation management software integrates with your PMS to track reviews and measure them. Revinate allows you to gather all of your reviews on one platform, easy to monitor and respond to. It also provides sentiment analytics and segmentation!
Guest Surveys: Use Post-Stay Hotel Surveys to collect additional data. What are you looking for? Ask away! Ask guests for surveys as soon as possible after they have left.
Why is guest segmentation important?
Segmenting hotel customers is a way to increase revenues by increasing bookings and customer loyalty. It is possible to increase your revenue through market segmentation by 1) dynamic pricing and 2) targeted marketing.
Dynamic pricing Tap into the elasticity and demand with revenue management software to adjust your pricing according to each target audience and their reasons for travel. You might conclude that shoulder season bookings are for work trips while weekends are for leisure travellers. Midweek rates may be higher because business travel is so important. Revenue management software can adjust rates automatically using an algorithm. However, it can also track guest behaviour to determine customer segments. This can be done by tracking when and where they book their preferred length and preference for rooms.
Avoid wasting advertising dollars by segmenting your guests. You can target a smaller audience with smaller ads than if you spend all of your marketing budgets in one place.
Relevant content is all the rage nowadays, thanks to the availability of technology. Personalized service is not new. For example, think back to when customers went to their local butcher. Customers knew their names, and the meat was prepared right there for them. Personalization is a way to give customized incentives to your target audience, including stay and play packages, romance gift baskets, and more.
Cendyn, Revinate and other customer relationship management (CRM) solutions such as Revinate and Cendyn use rich customer profiles powered with PMS data to send intelligent segmented emails and drip campaigns throughout a customer’s lifecycle. Dynamic content lets you provide personalized and customized information to specific segments.
What else can you do with guest segment information?
Segmenting your hotel guests can help you:
- To offer more appealing upsells, features and offers to customers, and you need to understand their needs better. Upselling amenities relevant to your guest is a surefire way to increase revenue. ).
- Personalize your guest-centric web design strategy.
- You can customize email marketing and social media strategy, and digital ads.
- Your guests will be delighted by unexpected treats in line with their needs. This will result in word-of-mouth referrals, positive online reviews and repeat bookings.
You can make each guest a VIP with customer segmentation.
Digital guests expect personalized service. Every guest who enters your hotel lobby feels like a VIP. It’s crucial to make your guests feel like VIPs in digital space. Guest segmentation is key. You can anticipate your guests’ needs and solve their problems by understanding them better. A Targeted (not mass) audience leads to higher revenue and more loyal guests.