Conversion is still king, but clicks at every stage of the guest journey are critical to overall direct booking success. Different channels drive clicks that boost overall traffic, but implementing specific digital marketing tactics at each guest journey stage can dramatically improve your booking performance. In this webinar, attendees will learn how to: Deploy a full-funnel digital marketing method that increases direct bookings Increase traffic and conversions using different tools and tactics Effectively measure ROI for decision making at each stage Replicate the improved business results Property Managers and Hoteliers are experiencing To Watch The Full Webinar Fill Out The Form Below

Narrowing margins and rate pressure don't leave much wiggle room to deal with market fluctuations. Fees can be a vital revenue source, but how do you structure them? Should they be applied across the board? Do you bundle them? In this webinar, Matt Renner, Track Solutions Consultant, will uncover the most common and uncommon ways companies are using fees to stay competitive, cover costs, and generate more net operating profit. To Watch The Full Webinar Fill Out The Form Below

Track vacation rental software takes many day-to-day tasks off your plate through powerful automations, opening up more time to grow your business and tackle those back-burner projects like hiring, process improvements, and the occasional day off. If you feel like more of a juggler than a property manager lately, you will want to watch this webinar. Brett Wright, Track Lead Implementations Consultant, will walk you through how to set up the top Track triggers and automations within the following departments: Reservations Guest Communications Housekeeping Accounting To Watch The Full Webinar Fill Out The Form Below

Watch our cosponsored VRMA webinar: "Increase Operational Efficiencies with TRACK Triggers and Automations" with Michelle Marquis, Chief Revenue Officer, and Dawn Yeskulsky, Vice President of TRACK Enterprise Solutions. Property Managers who need to solve any of the following business challenges should watch: Manually entering detailed guest itineraries Dynamic scheduling Manual authorizations or check-ins CRM customization With triggers and automations, TRACK allows you to automate these processes to save time and money. To Watch The Full Webinar Fill Out The Form Below

Track Hospitality Software added lots of great features during Q1 of 2021 including: Owner Portal Communication An Owner Expense Tool Security Deposit Functionality Group Reservations and more! In this webinar, Track Product Manager, Matt Raab will walk you through the value, benefits, and the "how to" of TRACK enhancements and new releases.   To Watch The Full Webinar Fill Out The Form Below

In this month’s blog, I will focus on training tips for helping your reservations sales team convert more leads that come in by way of third-party platforms such as OTA’s (Expedia, Booking.com) and other closed-messaging booking platforms (AirBnB, VRBO). First though, readers may need a new perspective on such leads. Certainly, it is extremely important to do all we can with both “marketing” and “sales” efforts to maximize direct bookings.  However, such bookings are part of a healthy “mix” of booking channels for most hotels and vacation rental companies because there will always be some guests who will only find and book us that way. Before sharing these training tips, let me offer a few reminders. First, many of today’s booking inquiries are disguised as simple questions such as about locations, parking, amenities, services and the area.  Too many staffers simply reply with a direct answer. Next, remind your team that those who send messages are probably also messaging the competition with the same question.  Finally, remind them that even the  messages we get from those who have already booked should also be considering “leads,” especially in today’s era of more flexible cancellation terms due to the pandemic.   A key element of any training program on retargeting OTA leads is to ensure that your staff has a tracking system and process that works.  It is of course ideal if you use the Track Pulse CRM, because it is the only one that offers a “unified in-box,” providing your team a centralized, efficient place to receive and act on all leads they are fielding regardless of channel and if inbound or outbound.  However, if you have not yet convinced your boss to invest, at you can at least get in the game by creating a simple form in Excel, Google Sheets or even WORD. The first column will have the lead name and date received. The second column will have the date of the first response, which will hopefully be the same or next day.  The third column will have the date of the first proactive follow-up, such as in the case of an OTA, the date you initiated a message to the guests who have not yet booked, which should be done 1-2 calendar days from their initial inquiry. When sending that proactive follow-up message in the OTA app, be sure to first check and make sure the sender did not yet book through another channel.   Now, here are some tips for maximizing success at textual selling by way of OTA platforms. When replying, always mention that you are from in-house (or on-site) reservations, and provide your name to demonstrate personalized service they will receive as a guest.  Carefully scan the message, noting any details you can use to personalize the response. Some senders include a lot of details about who they are traveling with and the purpose of the trip.  You can then paraphrase and restate a few details when responding. Example: Example: “Hello Cathy.  This is Doug from in-house reservations.  I’m happy to assist you here with your questions about the  girl’s getaway trip you are planning, and I promise to block you some really nice rooms for you as well!” When the question sent was vague or if more info is needed, respond with questions. Here’s an example: “Regarding parking for your oversized vehicle.  Can you let me know the approximate size? Is it a recreational vehicle or commercial truck?” Personalize all replies to questions and inquiries.  Here is a checklist, with tips for each step to follow.  Use a personalized greeting and introduce yourself as an in-house contact. Comment on what they have shared. Proactively volunteer additional details. Endorse their choice (if applicable.) Express a personal interest in hosting them. Use a personalized greeting and introduce yourself.  Example:  “Greetings Douglas! This is Cathy from in-house reservations at (hotel or company name).” Comment on what they have shared. Example: “How exciting to hear that you are planning your first visit and congratulations on your milestone anniversary!” Proactively volunteer additional details. Example: “Does this offer a crib?” “Yes it does! And you’ll really love the view because when the baby is napping, you can sit out on your balcony and enjoy the picturesque scenery.” Example: “We are traveling with our two teenagers and each is bringing a friend. Wil this accommodate?” “Absolutely! There are double beds in the second bedroom.  By the way, this location is ideal for teens.  There’s lots to do in the area within walking distance, so they can have their freedom and you won’t have to worry.” Example: (Location) “Since everyone is a skier, the location will be ideal as it is so close to the lifts.”   Endorse their choice (if they have inquired about a specific option.) Example: “If you’re looking for the best value, this is an excellent choice. It has all the same amenities and there’s so much to do here you may not be in the room that much anyway.” Example:  “Since it is a special occasion, our deluxe option really is an excellent choice because your wife will love all of the extra amenities.”  Express a personal interest in hosting them. “Let us know what other questions you have or what else we can do on our end. We would love to host your vacation.” Thank you, Doug Kennedy To View Full Webinar Fill Out The Form Below

We have the distinct privilege of working with many of the finest vacation rental, hotel, and resort companies in North America. As independent lodging companies, each of you has a unique story that we think is worth celebrating. And worth sharing with the rest of our readers; there’s always a helpful tip or two in these stories that can help others succeed too. This month we celebrate Blue Beaver Luxury Cabins and their massive revenue growth after implementing the full suite of Track and Atlas solutions. In the 18 months following their Track go-live in June 2019, Blue Beaver grew revenues by 249%. In 2021 with additional Atlas digital marketing services, they’re on pace to grow another 50%! “I can’t give your Marketing team enough kudos – they listen and make great suggestions on how to attack slower periods – it’s been really helpful in growing our business.” Located in beautiful Broken Bow, Oklahoma, this forested, southeastern corner of Oklahoma offers travelers a place to surround themselves with nature, wildlife, outdoor recreation and even a bit of serenity for those looking to get away in a cozy cabin. Named after the deep blue color of Broken Bow Lake and nearby Beavers Bend State Park, Blue Beaver Luxury Cabins manages 80 homes and provides services to another 20 local properties. In the early 2010’s, owners Steve and Tonya saw an opportunity as their destination’s popularity took off. After self-managing a few of their own properties, they began offering property management services to other local owners and Blue Beaver was born. As their business and the day-to-day operational complexities grew, they realized they needed to up their game to continue providing their homeowner partners with exceptional services and to capitalize on the exploding vacation rental demand in their area. The PMS they were using began to show it’s limitations. Their team found it challenging to stay on top of daily workload demands. Support was lackluster – compounding inefficiencies as the team scrambled for workarounds. And most troubling, a data security incident caused their software provider to announce they would soon dissolve the company. To continue growing their business and strengthening their reputation, they needed a state-of-the-art technology partner with certifiable data security and responsive support. They also wanted a software platform with functionality that not only improved team efficiency and service levels, but could grow with them over time so there would be no need for other software systems ever again. We’re really glad they found and chose us. 🙂 In addition to their fantastic revenue gains, Blue Beaver strengthened their reputation enough to be voted the #1 vacation rental company in their area. They credit Track’s many automations with helping them consistently communicate with guests and owners, and the expanded visibility they get from PMS reports to make smarter business decisions. They estimate they’ve saved many hours (and introduced a bit more sanity to their day-to-day!) by automating routine property management tasks that used to take so much time. Serving guests is a 24-7 business that can take its toll on even the most seasoned hospitality pros. At TravelNet Solutions, we’re on a mission to transform how hospitality works, and couldn’t be more proud to hear compliments like this one from Blue Beaver’s leadership team. “The Track support team is great – I’m thankful they’re there to help when we have a problem at any time of day. I know my team is taken care of, so we can take off a random weekend or two even though this is a 7-day-a-week business.” A special thanks to Blue Beaver’s leadership team for allowing us to share their story! We’re proud of their success and are grateful to call them a customer. If you’d like us to feature your business in a future Customer Showcase, please send us an email at marketing@tnsinc.com.

Daily life was becoming more transactional before COVID hit. Fast pay, one click, grab n’ go. Now we can add social distancing and vaccine restrictions to the mix. The mechanisms that extract money from our wallets have gotten scarily efficient. It wasn’t that long ago when a family vacation required weeks of consideration and planning, gathering recommendations and building budgets. Now, you can book a five-figure trip in a few clicks and work out the details later because they, too, are close at hand. But in the business world, if everyone else zigs, maybe you should zag. Maybe single-serving stays that begin with check-in and end with check-out aren’t the way to earn loyalty and great reviews.  Thoughtful consideration of the entire guest journey is what experience marketing is all about, and thinking beyond the stay is the best way to stand out in the crowd. What’s Experience Marketing? To be sure, experience marketing (or brand experience) is loosely defined, but basically, it refers to marketing activities that focus on the end-to-end experience rather than the core value offering. Think of it as the important but unsung padding that underscores the value of the product or service. Before we continue, there’s an important distinction to be made between experience and experiential marketing. Experiential marketing involves the use of branded experiences to seize the attention of, and engage, potential customers. A recent example of this was the Stratos Space Jump, a Red Bull-sponsored streaming event in which Felix Baumgartner jumped to Earth from 128,000 feet. Yeah, we’re not talking about that. Take Apple, for example. Quite some time ago, they decided that the experience of buying an Apple product should echo the qualities of the product itself. From the Apple Store to their website and the elegant, soft-touch packaging, it has all been considered. How many times have you bought something you wanted only to have it be impossible to extract from the packaging? It’s a bummer, right? The same approach can be applied to vacation rentals. First, Articulate Your VR Brand This is an important exercise no matter what, but to market an experience, your brand needs to be clearly defined. Otherwise it can’t quite fill the space around it, so to speak. Add value without adding incremental cost, then spread that value out across the guest journey. Let’s say you have a 20-unit resort in the Northwoods. A big part of your brand is simply what you have to offer — in other words, the stuff in your property listing. You’ve got charming cabins, a sylvan lake, sports equipment, and most of the other amenities people are looking for. But are your amenities your brand? To an extent, sure, but experience marketing demands that you go deeper. You’re aiming for a warm, attentive, family-friendly environment with tons of local flavor. There’s a lot to explore in the area, so you also want to position your resort as the perfect jumping-off point for nearby adventures. While your reviews are generally positive, you wish you had more. Finally, you want to justify bumping up your rates without spending a bundle on upgrades or equipment. Now you’ve got something to work with. Let’s recap: Warm and attentive Local flavor Nearby adventures Thin on reviews Want to justify rate increase Armed with a clearer picture of what you want to project and achieve with your marketing, you can proceed. Next, Map Your Brand To Stages In the Guest Journey In general, the guest journey looks something like this: Research/evaluation Booking Pre-arrival and check-in Stay Check out and departure Follow-up/nurturing At each stage, you want to reinforce your brand. For example, how can you demonstrate your warmth and attentiveness before they even arrive? Maybe your options are limited during the Research phase, but what about booking? Do they get an ordinary email confirmation or one with a personalized note thanking them for the reservation? Before they arrive, could you use time-based triggers (two weeks out, one week, three days, etc.) to suggest local activities, restaurants, or color, with links to useful information? Could you use their booking anniversary as an excuse to reach out and invite another stay, noting any changes you’ve made or offering a small discount? You get the idea. As you connect the dots between your desired brand, the guest journey, and the tools you use to build relationships with your guests, you’ll see lots of opportunities for synergy. The stay itself, the steps before and after, and your brand are in alignment, all of which strengthens your value proposition. The time- and action-based triggers that help you connect these dots may not be possible with your current PMS, so if you don’t use Track, you’ll need third-party tools like Zapier or ITTT to do it.  While you link your brand to the guest journey, also look for areas where your desired brand and your current processes are misaligned. Remember that frustrating packaging example? If you’re selling attentiveness but guests are unclear how to reach someone if there’s a problem, that misalignment feels like a broken promise. Finally, Change Your Mind-the-Store Mindset Business owners tend to focus all their attention on the specific thing of value they offer. After all, that’s literally the moneymaker. And yes, it’s rightly your top priority. But it’s not the only thing. But when you’re focused on one thing at the exclusion of all else, a pattern emerges. We call it “minding the store.” The classic example of minding the store is the small-town auto shop. Great mechanics, fast service, and fair prices can go a very long way, but eventually, the waiting area gets dingy. It smells bad. The floor tiles are cracked. At a certain point, the customer starts to wonder, “Do these guys really know their way around a modern car’s computer systems? If I have to wait, do I really want to wait there?” Compare that to a large dealership. Everything is spotless, even the repair bays. Employees are dressed professionally. […]

“Nothing happens until somebody sells something.”  This old chestnut has been with us for decades. Nobody knows who said it first or in what context, but the point is clear. If you’re in business, then everyone’s job in some way supports a cascading series of events that begin with a sale. If you’ve watched Glengarry Glen Ross or sold anything, be it cups of lemonade or a seven-night luxury vacation, then you already know the sales process. It still takes a lot of no’s to get to a single yes. Fortunately, there are simple and cost-effective ways to segment your audience and target those most likely to buy, making the scattershot approach a thing of the past. Even so, it still helps to understand the process by which someone who’s never heard of you becomes a customer. The various models for this are called the sales funnel. What, exactly, is the sales funnel? So glad you asked. The sales funnel is a model of how people move from not knowing about a product or service to buying it. In other words, it’s a psychological journey. The better we understand that journey, the better our chances of influencing it, or moving people down the funnel toward a purchase. The sales funnel concept was pioneered by E. St. Elmo Lewis, one of the fathers of modern advertising, way back in 1898. To his way of thinking, the sales process looked like this: This now-famous concept is called the AIDA model, and it has informed every sales model that followed. Some funnel models have as many as seven steps, but we’re not going to worry about those right now. Attention is the widest and is called the top of the funnel, sometimes abbreviated by marketing nerds as TOF. This is the “Hey, look at me!” phase of the process where you try and squeeze your message in between the millions of others. Before you drive a prospect to your website, they first need to know that you are you, and that you have a website. That’s hard.  Examples of TOF activities are anything considered lead-generating such as OTA listings, advertising, PPC, and content that asks for nothing in return such as blogs or social media posts. Interest is called mid funnel, or the “You have my attention” stage. Whatever magic trick you pulled off to get them here has worked, and some tiny sliver of the attention you earned (or more likely, bought at considerable expense) is now focused on you. They’ve followed your link or completed your form and got on with their life. Examples of mid-funnel activities are your website, brochures, email inquiries, and phone calls. Desire is where the lower funnel begins. You’ve proven you know them well enough to understand their needs and wants, and the thought occurs to them for the very first time that they want your thing, so to speak. Now they’re willing to invest some actual time. Expressions of desire (in the business sense) include adding a trip to a cart or wish list, signing up for a discount, interacting with a sales agent, or chats. Action is where this has all been headed. It’s the business end, if you will, of the funnel. They found out about you, learned about you, want what you have to offer, and the price is right so they purchase or book. Does the AIDA model apply to hospitality? At its most basic, the AIDA model describes how a pool of potential customers become actual customers. So yes, it still applies. But in our business, the distance between funnel stages may be short or nonexistent. Booking travel might only come after extensive research (high consideration) or on the spur of the moment (low consideration). And, as we mentioned, digital marketing makes it possible to go straight to your best prospects, potentially circumventing part of the process. In hospitality, a more useful way to think of the funnel is from the bottom up. Where does a booking (action) come from? What convinced them to book (desire)? How did they come to consider you specifically (interest)? And finally, how did they find you (attention)? So even if the sales funnel doesn’t always apply, it’s still useful in understanding how a guest gets from not knowing you exist to booking with you. Audit your funnel Before you look at your sales and marketing spend through the lens of the funnel, you need to take a good, hard look at what you currently have in place. Attention The attention phase has become much, much easier for hospitality than it used to be. OTAs have deep pockets, and their ability to reach a global travel audience is what you pay a commission for. You have more access to more potential guests now than ever before. That said, there is some due diligence. Look at your listings and your channel distribution. Are you putting your best foot forward? Have professionals proofread your listing descriptions and taken your property photos? If you’re trying to drive more direct traffic, attention is considerably harder and more expensive to earn. Outside the OTAs, how would a potential guest ever know you exist? Direct business offers a higher margin and merchant-of-record benefits, but you’ll need to decide how much the cost of driving that traffic (traditional ads, PPC, SEO research, etc.) eats into it. As our VP of sales likes to say, the juice may not be worth the squeeze. Interest Whatever expectations you establish in the attention phase, you must pay them off here. Your primary asset at this stage is your website, and it has to be rock solid. If you’re lucky enough to get people there, it has to be fast, secure, appealing, work well on mobile, communicate your brand, and booking must be dead simple. If any of these things are dicey, then you will have spent a lot of time and money driving traffic that will bounce out if they don’t find what they […]

In Track, a reservation and a folio are two sides of the same coin. The reservation specifies their rate for each night plus all fees, while the folio represents what they actually pay and what you count as revenue. In many cases, folios are processed automatically. But let’s say something changes during the stay or that the property changes hands. You can now add a folio exception, which is just a little checkbox that will prevent the folio from being processed automatically with the rest. At the end of the month, you can then review folios marked for exception and deal with them separately. Track has tripled its investment in software development so our team can be more responsive to feature requests from our customers. If there’s a feature you’d like to see added or modified, let us know at the Track Ideas page.