Internet Marketing Plan for Intercontinental Hotels - Case Study Example

Internet Marketing Plan Name Class Unit Executive summary Intercontinental hotel is owned and operated by intercontinental hotel group PLC with its headquarters in Denham UK. This report have looked and discussed on five internet marketing objectives which the hotel uses which are establish presence, increase visibility, increase sales, improve product awareness and brand management. The hotel uses five internet marketing strategies that are aimed at ensuring the hotel meets its objectives. The strategies are; search engine optimisation, social websites, newsletter, hotel website and mobile marketing. The analyses of these strategies give information on costs, benefits, designing and how these strategies work. Table of Contents Executive summary 2 Table of Contents 3 1.1 Hotel information 4 1.2 Target market 4 2.0 Hotel objective 5 2.1 Establish presence 5 2.2 Visibility 5 2.3 Increase sales 6 2.4 Improve products awareness 6 2.5 Brand management 6 3.0 Internet marketing strategies 7 3.1Social websites 7 3.1.1 How it works 7 3.1.2 Costs 8 3.2 Search Engine optimisation 8 3.2.1 How it works 9 3.2.2 Costs and benefits 9 3.3 Mobile marketing 9 3.3.1 How it works 10 3.3.2 Costs and benefits 10 3.4 Company website 10 3.4.1 How it works 10 3.4.2 Costs and benefit 11 3.5 Newsletter 11 3.5.1 How it works 11 3.5.2 Cost and benefits 11 References 12 Appendix 14 1.0 Introduction This report is based on internet marketing for hotels. The report will analyse critically internet marketing carried out by Intercontinental Hotels, their target market, internet marketing objectives and five major internet marketing strategies. 1.1 Hotel information Intercontinental hotels group PLC is a five star hotel company. The group owns and operates hotels worldwide. The company uses nine brands in its hotels which are, Intercontinental, crowne plaza, hotel Indigo, Holiday inn, HUALUXE hotels and resorts and Candlewood suites. The group have their headquarters in Denham United Kingdom. The group was founded in 2003 and operates more than 4, 500 hotels in over 100 countries (Intercontinental Hotels). Among the hotels operated by the group, this report will look at Intercontinental hotel. The hotel provides high quality services to the customers. The hotel has comfortable casual atmosphere, swimming pools, fitness centres, and wireless internet and is designed with an aim of providing comfort to those who wants a healthy and active life style. The services offered by the hotel are premium and have comfortable lounges. The hotel has been able to receive four star ratings due to its operations and services (Datamonitor). 1.2 Target market To maintain its four stars standards, the hotel offers high quality services to its customers. The hotel targets both business and leisure travellers. They also offer services tailored for the families such as room service, swimming pools and lounges (Intercontinental Hotels). Most of the customers to the hotel are travellers and families who enjoy the premium services offered. The high investment in fitness centres and comfortable amenities such as lounges have been able to create a positive customer experience according to web reviews. From the internet reviews, the major customers to the hotel are business and leisure travellers followed by families and young couples (Datamonitor). 2.0 Hotel objective Intercontinental hotel have five internet marketing objectives. The objectives will be discussed in this section. 2.1 Establish presence Making an impression online is a major objective of the online marketing. Online presence is considered as the first impression that the company makes on the online consumers. The hotel has to bring meaning by creating a webpage that say something about them. To bring the meaning, the website created has to know the target customers in order to say the right thing which draws them to the hotel. The hotel has created a website with a passion that it will give them a great online presence (Chaffey 42). 2.2 Visibility Having great online presence is very different from visibility. The customers need to know more about what the hotel is all about. The hotel uses social websites and professional sites to enhance visibility. The hotel is seen in LinkedIn, twitter and face book among other sites which enhances visibility. For example, the more blogs and articles are written about a company, the more it becomes indexed by Google. This makes the hotel visible. The hotel has been mentioned in several blogs and articles. The hotel engagement with social media has made it increase its visibility. When one searches the hotel name online, it appears in multiple sites due to fact that it has been indexed (Juon, Greiling & Buerkle 50). 2.3 Increase sales Increasing sales is a very vital objective in internet marketing. The online sites enable the customers to connect with the hotel and make reservations. Increase in sales is the main end results of a successful online marketing. Intercontinental hotels drive their sales from their websites. Online marketing uses a lot of efforts to make customers transact with the hotel. The tools offers by the sites are the most efficient in enhancing business success through increased sales. The hotel uses online sites to promote its products. For example, intercontinental hotel have introduced online bookings where transactions can be carried out (Chaffey 34). 2.4 Improve products awareness Intercontinental offers different products and services to the consumers. Internet marketing is a vital tool in reviving interest on a product that has been on market for a time. Intercontinental hotel uses web channel to market its products and services as well as enhancing awareness. The hotel has been able to increase its awareness since adoption of its online strategies (Juon, Greiling & Buerkle 31). 2.5 Brand management To enhance and maintain brand in the consumers mind takes time and a lot of efforts. Intercontinental hotel have to maintain prominence in the public mind. The hotel uses images and tones which are able to remind customers on the brand and also promote their services. The hotel has been able to receive publicity worldwide through its use of logo in their internet marketing (Juon, Greiling & Buerkle 45). 3.0 Internet marketing strategies There are different types of internet strategies that are utilised by the business. Intercontinental hotels have selected 5 major online marketing tools which are Search Engine optimisation (SEO), social websites, mobile marketing, web marketing and newsletter (Juon, Greiling & Buerkle 12). 3.1Social websites Social websites provides a very important tool in marketing. Hotels which are able to utilise social sites in an appropriate manner are able to experience a 12 % fries in traffic every month. Intercontinental hotel is a social media hotel utilising channels such as Facebook and twitter. It has been proved through research that on every 13 people, one of them uses face book. Facebook looks like a search engine on its own. People are able to connect with each other and exchange any relevant information. Half of the Facebook users are able to log in every day. Intercontinental hotel have been posting relevant travel information in their Facebook page. The hotel has optimised their Facebook page making it visible. Research have proved that internet have the rank of second most visited site (Juon, Greiling & Buerkle 61). 3.1.1 How it works Most of the social networks allows free creation of own page. The hotel can create their own page and use it to market them. Users are able to make comments on the social websites of the company if they have subscribed to them. When the company makes any comments and post it, users are able to view it and make their comments. Intercontinental hotels have thousand of followers on twitter and Facebook. The hotel has been active in posting information and videos that are relevant to the customers (Juon, Greiling & Buerkle 56). 3.1.2 Costs Facebook and twitter pages accounts are created free of charge. In case the company wants to optimise their visibility online or use Facebook Ad, they have to incur some costs. Making an advertisement on Facebook has to be paid for by the hotel. Also using sponsored stories the company is supposed to pay. The costs of the Facebook Ads are based on clicks that the Ad receives. The hotel sets a lifetime budget where the cost should not exceed. If the hotel decides to hire someone to optimise their website, they incur the cost of the labour ranges from USD100 to USD550 (Lawrence & Tavakol 21). 3.2 Search Engine optimisation Optimisation of a website ensures that it appears on the top of list in search engine (Lawrence & Tavakol 27). There are various search engines such as Google, Bing and yahoo. Google is the most popular search engine. SEO involves ensuring that the website is designed with an aim of meeting the standards for the search engine (Page 14). The optimisation ensures that consumers are able to get relevance information online. The use of SEO ensures that the hotel relevance online is enhanced as it is ranked among the top in search results. SEO is carried out through addressing keywords, links, content and indexing (Chaffey 55). 3.2.1 How it works SEO uses keywords, in design and key phrases to increase online relevance of a company. The main key words and phrases in a hotel are its class, location, name and products. When a customer keys in a key phrase or name, the search results should show the hotel name or its website. When a consumer writes intercontinental hotels in Google search engine, the first results to appear are the group website followed by the hotel website. This is due to fact that both intercontinental hotel group and intercontinental hotel uses the same name and are all optimised (Lawrence & Tavakol 35). 3.2.2 Costs and benefits Using SEO, it becomes easy to enhance online visibility. SEO costs are charged by the web developer who offers advice and optimises the site. The hotel can use the services for website optimisation by hiring someone on a monthly basis or a contract. The pay also depends on the firm or individual being used and the standard industry rates. The costs are also based on the company size and type. At the moment, cost per hour ranges from USD 30 to USD 150. Despite this, most of the firms prefer hiring on monthly basis where the price is made standard. The cost ranges from USD 500 to USD 1500 depending on the factors mentioned (Jones). 3.3 Mobile marketing At the moment, a lot of people visit the internet using their mobile phones than computers. This has led to most of the firms ensuring that they optimise their services to be used in mobile phones (Hanson & Kalyanam 29). Most of mobile phone users use internet to book rooms and other hotel services. The hotels have thus been developing mobile hotel websites as a part of their marketing strategy. The rise of Smartphones has led to mobile Ads. The ads are a new field which are offered through companies such as Google. There have been claims that mobile ads enable the number of clicks to increase by 11% compared to other means. 3.3.1 How it works When a Smartphone user downloads an app, they encounter this ad which is made specifically for the mobile. The hotel can choose from different companies such as Google mobile ads. The consumer is able to views the ads just as in a computer. Due to high number of mobile phone users, the ads are able to receive high popularity (Lawrence & Tavakol 32). 3.3.2 Costs and benefits The ads are charged by the companies offering them. For example, using Google mobile ads, one can set the minimum price. The cost also depends on the number of clicks an ad receives. If there are no clicks, the company is not charged. One can also set the maximum price for example $2 to limit the number of clicks (Lawrence & Tavakol 35). 3.4 Company website When one types the hotel name on the search engine, the group website and the hotel websites are the first result to appear. The hotel webpage gives information on services, available dishes, booking information, pictures and videos related to the hotel and its locations (Chaffey 41). 3.4.1 How it works The hotel webpage uses picture and videos which makes it attractive to the user. The information contained is relevance to the targeted audience. A website should be easy to navigate and also get the information needed. Intercontinental hotel website is easy to navigate and all relevant information can be easily found (Juon, Greiling & Buerkle 52). 3.4.2 Costs and benefit Website design is very vital in coming up with the best site. A good website costs a lot since one have to register a domain name, pay for hosting, and also design considerations. The cost of professional website designers is also high. The standard price for the website design is USD 300 annually. The cost excludes maintenance costs (Juon, Greiling & Buerkle 19). 3.5 Newsletter Most of the hotels uses digital newsletter which targets its audience. The document is circulated within the organisation (Hanson & Kalyanam 27). 3.5.1 How it works Intercontinental hotels uses newsletter to spread news on the hotel activities to those who have subscribed. The subscription process involves giving ones email in order to gain automated mailing at a specific time. The hotel is thus able to reach the subscribed users (Chaffey 17). 3.5.2 Cost and benefits Newsletter involves automated mailing to the subscribed users. The hotel creates a database where those who have subscribed to the newsletter have their emails stored. The costs incurred depend on the number of contacts. For most of the hotels, the costs of subscription database have a maximum of USD100. This is a less costly service which helps the hotel to keep in touch with the clients (Hanson & Kalyanam 34). References Bruce Clay inc. Search Engine Optimization Prices, 2014. Available at, http://www.bruceclay.com/seo/prices.htm Chaffey, Dave. Internet marketing: Strategy, implementation, and practice. Harlow, England: Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2000. Datamonitor (Firm). InterContinental Hotels Group PLC. New York, NY: Datamonitor, 2000. Geoffrey, what should I pay for a website, 2014. Available from, http://geoffreymultimedia.com/how-much-is-a-website/ Hanson, Ward. A., & Kalyanam, Kirthi. Internet marketing & e-commerce. Australia: Thomson/South-Western, 2007. Intercontinental Hotels, Intercontinental Hotels and Resorts, 2014, Available at, http://www.intercontinental.com/hotels/gb/en/reservation?qAdlt=1&qBrs=6c.hi.ex.rs.ic.c p.in.sb.cw.cv.ul.vn&qChld=0&qFRA=1&qGRM=0&qPSt=0&qRRSrt=rt&qRef=df&qR ms=1&qRpn=1&qRpp=12&qSHp=1&qSmP=3&qSrt=sBR&qWch=0&srb_u=1&icdv=9 9612192&sicreative=30570616388&sicontent=0&siclientid=3459&sitrackingid=634018 819&dp=true&icdv=99612192 Jones, Kristopher. B. Search engine optimization: Your visual blueprint to effective Internet marketing. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley, 2008. Juon, Catherine, Greiling, Dunrie, & Buerkle, Catherine. Internet marketing, start-to-finish. Indianapolis, Ind: Que, 2011. Lawrence, Dave. & Tavakol, Soheyla. Balanced website design: Optimising aesthetics, usability and purpose. London: Springer, 2007. Page, Rich. Website optimization: An hour a day. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Appendix Web design and hosting costs (Geoffrey). Cost for website design (Geoffrey). SEO costs (Bruce Clay Inc.) Read More