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Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
How to Create a Killer E-mail Newsletter
Today with the evolution of social media people are getting less and less attracted by newsletters and trying to get rid of it. Here is an interesting article about how to avoid customers unsubscribing of the newsletters and to make them more attractive.
It is true when we open our professional inbox, we often have more advertising emails than professional ones. The first thing we do is to glance through them and after delete them directly. However, sometimes few of them catch our attention by attractive offers, which will consequently drive customer to visit the official website of the company. For instance, the companies such as “Groupon”, “La fourchette” are doing great job with engaging offers and not being spamy.
Compared to social media, newsletters seem to be outdated. After all, email remains important to build a strong relationship with customers.
Here are the 9 key strategies to make newsletters more interesting and engaging:
1. Make a compelling offer
2. Send often- but not too often
3. Choose a clean design
4. Get personal
5. Encourage conversation
6. Make the subject line count
7. Don’t oversell
8. Tie in blogs and social media
9. Keep improving
I believe that if these strategies mentioned in the article are well managed, the customer will not be indifferent to the emails and it can play a huge role to increase the sales of a company.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Mandarin Oriental Creates An Impactful Work Environment For Employees.
Here is an interesting article about how the Mandarin Oriental hotels help its employees to cope with the stress at work and the idea is “to create a safe and relaxing environment for employees”.
For example, the Mandarin Oriental in Washington opened a “colleague resource center” which offers employees different services such as weight loss, stop-smoking programs, language, and personal therapy. Suffering at work can also have a very bad impact on people’s personal life as they spend most of their time at work. This kind of program can help them to balance their personal and professional life.
In my opinion it is important to take care of employees in every organization. It helps to motivate them, deal with problems more easily, to be productive. We focus a lot on a high quality service to a customer, how to improve the service, what is the best for the customer and we often forget what also would be good to improve the work situation for employees. Who wouldn’t like to work in a friendly environment? It is always encouraging to work in a nice environment where people are appreciated.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
The Strangest Hotel Jobs Around the World Revealed!
The title of this article totally caught my attention. In luxury hotels, what are the limits for giving entire satisfaction to clients? Hotel managers certainly have a big creativity when it comes to satisfying their customers. But is there a limit for human dignity in having these jobs done? Here are some of the weirdest hotel jobs I’ve ever heard about.
If you enjoy listening to some stories, before going to bed, you can hire the special Bedtime Storyteller. No matter how old you are, this person will come to your room and read you the book of your choice. I find this service particularly interesting for people with eye problems, or old people that cannot read anymore. Maybe some parents that are very busy could be interested, but I guess that’s all its utility.
Some hotels in India, or Italy (Venice), must hire Pigeon Chasers. Their job consists in chasing pigeons nine hours a day using a flag. What about Monkey Men in India? They are paid to chase monkeys around the hotel in order to avoid them eating guests’ food. Even if there are no small jobs, I think this one is particularly degrading especially when the man has to dress like a monkey. It is not yet the case for hotels but at Lucknow train station in India there is a man dressed like a monkey and paid to scare them. It’s only my opinion but I don’t feel comfortable with this kind of job. I find it degrading that a man has to walk like a monkey in the streets, and paint his face.
You can argue he’s not forced to do it, if it’s a pleasure for him, fine, but I’m not sure about it. I just don’t think this job is humanly ethical.
Do you need a nice tan? Tanning Butlers are at your service in a famous hotel in Miami. Even if this service exists since the beginning of the hotel six years ago, it is still a must for the clients. I guess it’s a classic service as getting a massage in a spa, nothing very inventive in it.
What about Coconut Safety Engineers? Coconut safety engineers have a very important job in island resorts since they are paid to protect their guests from falling coconuts. These coconuts can weight more than 3 pounds and can be deadly for guests.
And the award goes to… a hotel from London that offers the exclusive service of a Human Bed Warmer. Yes, you are reading correctly. Do you hate having your bed sheets being cold or unfold? Well, you don’t have to worry anymore. You can hire the service of a person that will warm your bed with a special head-to-toe suit. This person will move around under the sheets just before you go to sleep to create a nice, relaxing, and warm environment.
In conclusion, I agree it is extremely important for a luxury hotel to give customers a feeling of being unique, in a warm environment with an excellent service at their disposal. People ready to give them entire satisfaction at any time of the day or night. Some jobs mentioned above are inventive and useful but some of them in my opinion are exaggerated. Where are the limits going to be pushed? Will clients need people to brush their hair as they walk, or throw a red carpet with flowers, flush the toilet for them? What do you think about it?
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
ARMANI: a hotel in Russia’s Caucasus?
This article is about the diversification of Giorgio Armani’s group into a luxury hotel brand. The group has already a luxurious hotel in Dubai since April 2010, but plans to open a new one in Russia’s Caucasus.
The cost of this project is around 150 million dollars. Promoters expect to break even in 8 years. At first glance, it can seem very risky since this particular region has a history of big instability. On the other hand, Russian people in particular love luxury brands and spas resorts. They will be hosting next winter Olympic games in Sochi and the mineral springs area is very rich in commodities, natural resources, and mountains.
Fashion luxury groups already have diversified their activities in hotel brands as Cheval Blanc for LVMH. What is driving these groups? Is it only diversification or potential benefits in reaching more clients? The big advantage for them is that their name already represents a known quality. But the big question is how far luxury companies can get their operations diversified without having their brand diluted or getting consumers confused? Maybe they are anticipating inflation in commodities and to attract people in that region. On the other hand, Russia will be also hosting the World Cup in 2018, which could mean an increasing demand in hospitality area. What do you think?
Sunday, January 23, 2011
How to Choose the Right Colors for Your Brand
Here is an interesting article about how colours can influence our mind in buying a product and how it is important for companies to make the right choice of colour for a specific product.
Colours have a dramatic impact on our lives. They influence our feelings, our physical and emotional health. According to the research, 60 and 80 % of customers make their decision in purchasing a product based on its colour.
Not all colours can fit with all products. Some colours can be disturbing in customer’s mind. For instance, when we go to the store to buy our shampoo or shower gel, beside the brand loyalty, we also look at its colour without being conscious of it. It is true that "the first point of interaction is shaped by the colour, and colour is the most memorable sense".
Let’s take the example of “Garnier Fructis” shampoo. They made a great choice for their product by choosing the green colour. Green colour refreshes the spirit and gives a feeling of relaxation and well-being. Therefore, it is important for companies to choose a right colour for their product in order to communicate to a customer in a right way.
It is important to notice that colour is contextual. For health products, red is maybe not adequate because it can reflect aggressiveness, and even danger. However in hospitality area, some hotels decided to use it. Red colour by definition inspires appetite, attracts attention, and creates excitement. It is dynamic, suggests vitality and ambition.
The choice of the colour shouldn’t be only artistic but also carefully studied and thought before being applied because it can have a huge impact on the sales of company.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Using Menu Psychology to Entice Diners
This is an article written by Sarah Kershaw and published in the New York Times. Even if it was published in December 2009, I found it very interesting so decided to write some comments about it.
The subject is about how restaurants use psychology on their menus to sell us pricy dinners without making us feel bad of spending money. It is what could be called subliminal mental manipulation. Of course when we are going to a restaurant that we already booked, we know in general how much menus cost, but even in such case, a good menu with a nice design and few subliminal techniques can make us forget we are spending pretty much for something not so special.
A very simple but efficient manner to make you feel happy buying an expensive menu is to use relatives. Who wouldn’t like to eat a special Grandma cooked plate. For an Italian restaurant it could be a Grandma’s Italian Lasagna. Another example is Uncle Sol’s butcher shop, which invites you to eat great burgers. In our mind, eating a plate cooked by our close family, like for instance our Grandma or Aunt, is exciting for our stomach even before having started to eat. It just makes our mind feel confident the food will taste great. We can see this technique is not only used in restaurants but also for selling products as rice. Almost everybody knows Uncle Ben’s rice. This is a good example of using psychology in order to sell us the product.
Another technique is the price presentation. Just by not using the € sign and writing 9 instead of €9 is more friendly for the client. “In the world of menu engineering and pricing, a dollar sign is pretty much the worst thing you can put on a menu…” Just by avoiding it, we are making the client feel more relaxed and not aggressed. A number that ends in a numeral like €9.99 inspires us value and not quality. Instead, It is more clever to use €9.95 which is friendlier. It is also better to not use pennies where you don’t need them. If you want to write twelve dollars for a price, you should better write 12 than 12.00. Of course without the dollar sign.
Restaurants are trying to permanently innovate in this field. A good menu presentation can be a key to more spending and keep clients coming. "The chefs write the music and the menu becomes the lyrics, and sometimes the music is gorgeous and it's got the wrong lyrics and the lyrics can torpedo the music". If you think these techniques are only reserved for pricy restaurants you may be wrong. In the casual dining arena engineers and consultants are trying to find the good recipe. Big food chains restaurants like Mc Donalds are a clear example of menu psychology use. With nice pictures and reference to farmers, fresh hamburgers, smokehouse bacon, country ham, they try to attract the client.
If you see that the most expensive item on the menu is at the top of it, it is not innocent. It is just to make other items look cheap in comparison. Research shows that people tend to order middle priced dishes. This idea came from newspaper layout, "which puts the most important articles at the top right of the front page, where the eyes tend to be drawn".
Just thin about it for a few seconds. You'll find around you all kind of manipulations used by companies, medias, through advertising. If you turn on your TV, you'll be surrounded by commercials and consumption invitation. Don't forget for the restaurant you are the entry and next time you to the restaurant, you will hopefully look at the menu differently.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
How Did No One Think of This Before? Snotels!
This article talks about a new original hotel brand, which is called “Snotels”. It has been created by a former snowboard instructor and resort executive, named Michael Metcalfe. This concept consists in a "mid-range hotel brand focused on creating experiences, freedom and altitude for hotel owners and alpine enthusiasts."
To convince alpine and ski hotel owners to rebrand their hotels and adopt the snotels system, they offer services in diverse fields that can make them benefit with marketing, hotel systems, support services and launch incentives. x
Right now they are focusing on targeting hotel owners residing in North-America and Europe. But they have the ambition to develop the brand around the globe too.
In order to achieve their ambitious goals, they want to create 50 hotels, ranging from about 20 to 150 rooms, open by 2016.
I think the concept is pretty interesting for people that already own a small hotel in the mountains and don’t want to spend too much money and time, in developing booking systems, improving their websites, but want to benefit from a quality and easily recognizable service. The major challenge is that because of being “new” in the hotel industry, they must make themselves known by people loving spending time in mountain sports.
However, as mentioned previously, the creator of the brand being a former snowboarder has a deep experience in this area. He knows what really customers need. If they reach their goal, booking a “Snotel” will give us a certain comfort for a reasonable price and a good quality of service for mid-class alpine hotels.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Hotel Mobile Apps vs Hotel Mobile Websites
What comes through my mind after reading this article is that technology is developing so fast that hoteliers should be prepared for this growing demand of the digital world and especially be ready for the mobile age.
Nowadays people are no longer using only computer to access the Internet but they are now looking for more ideas like traveling, purchasing, making hotel reservations through their phone …
But still, do the hotels need mobile apps?
First of all, these apps would be pretty expensive for the independent hotels and only famous hotel brands can benefit from this service. On the other hand, those hotels have already loyalty programs with million members and these apps could be only an additional marketing tool. And also not many people have a smartphone despite of the developing technology. If even they have it, according to the Emarketer survey, many people still prefer using the mobile apps for social networks, music and game, and not really for hotels.
For these reasons, in my opinion, smaller hotels should better improve their mobile website and make it easily accessible from users’ mobile phones rather than creating mobile apps. It can attract more customers, and at the same time promote the hotel without spending too much for a limited impact on their revenue.
It makes no doubt that in the future mobile devices will become computers in their own rights. The possibilities to reach potential clients and deliver more service to existing guests are infinite…
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