The Hotel marketing business is a fierce sector to market as the big multi-national hotels duel it out for business with the strong independent hotels and using every facet of marketing from partnerships offered to big internet providers like www.expedia.com and www.lastminute.com to internet search engine marketing to make sure their services appear at the top of Page 1 when internet searches are done.

Smart hotel marketers also work extremely hard to develop their repeat custom from the business/private sector – often referred to as client retention marketing. Companies spend heavily and once a company/person is signed up with your hotel, they will use your services all over the world or whenever that particular service is required. Developing and incentivising a strong loyalty scheme in the hotel and hospitality sector is paramount, you’ve made some marketing outlay to get the footfall through the door, it is imperative that some customer data is gathered in order to be able to email and offer those clients (or at least make them aware) of new special offers or a voucher code to incentivise them to repeat business.

For example, Hotel Chocolat develops their loyalty scheme with www.chocs.co.uk; Hilton Hotels does it with their Hilton honours program at http://hhonors3.hilton.com; IHG does it with the “world’s largest loyalty program. Be it with points or voucher codes, client retention marketing or loyalty scheme programs have become almost as important as all other niche forms of marketing. A client that has used your services once and has experienced a great service does not need much convincing compared to potential clients or customers been attracted for the first time.

Last month we blogged about how IHG uses branded USB flash drives for hotel marketing . The IHG commission images can be seen below. Developing highly retainable and work related branded technology products for persons or businesses in your loyalty program not only gives them an effective everyday work tool but an exponential marketing arm of your business that will keep on singing the praises of your business and services long after they’ve left the four walls of your premises.

Tangible, effective, high visibility and ‘work use’ technology business gifts like the IHG promotional USB flash drive or our newly launched branded power bank will: develop and endorse affiliation to your business; it can build and promote institutional pride; quietly and forcefully advocate the grade of quality of your service offerings; increase awareness of your brand as the recipients use the branded USB premiums in their sphere of influence and your company personalised USBs provides daily solutions; boost social chatter and touch points with clients; enhance the perceived value of brand and services and definitely pass the must put in the daily bag business gift test.

This is exactly why Best Western Hotels have developed the branded MP3 player commission with us at USB EXTRA. With over 280 Best Western hotels in the UK, the MP3 player branded with the Best Western logo cannot be given to every customer that walks through their hotels but as an incentivising tool based on clients that have being qualified through the different processes of determining who the few clients that give the business the majority of its profit.

The best Western MP3 player can be seen below; as you can see, printing is done before assembly.

We’ve already laid out the benefits of using perceived quality and relatively cheap branded technology business gift as part of your client retention marketing mix. Best Western was happy with the MP3 player commission we developed for them and the principle of can definitely be applied across the board.

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