Someone just came into my restaurant and offered to sell me a quarter page display ad for $295 for the year. I’m wondering what kind of experience others have had with this sort of thing. It’s a 60 room hotel with about 50% occupancy on average so if I assume 1.5 people per room for the year that about 20k people per year. We are heavily exposed on Yelp, Urban Spoon, Trip Advisor, Google, our website, foursquare, etc. I make the assumption that most business travelers have smart phones and can certainly find us that way. Do you think it is a worthwhile ad spend?
We’re not a resort town, most people are traveling here for either business or to visit family. What are your thoughts? I’d just as soon spend the money on EDDM
I did one my first year of business and barely received any return. Decided to stay at the hotel one night to see why and found out that the third party company puts you in the guide, but that does not necessarily mean that the hotel staff will recommend you.
Following year I decided to offer incentives to hotel staff, catering for meetings, etc. Ended up getting them hooked on the product and saw a much better return on my investment. This year I will be continuing that but as a good faith will also be doing key cards and guides to lock out the competition,.
Hotel guide advertising is very negotiable on price. I’ve never gotten a great redemption from it but it doesn’t take too many orders to pay for a $200 ad. If I were you, I would offer 50% of the asking price and see how they respond.
The worst redemption was being in the book for hotel guests. I even had my 1/2 page ad just above the tv guide. Folks just do not look at the book as much as we want.
The next worst was key cards. Most folks take them with them when they leave so that means you get to buy more of them more often. Think about what happens to them. They go in a pocket and stay there. Out of sight-out of mind.
Then best redemption-hands down- is the cable guide in each room. It sits on top of the tv and has my menu along with my phone no. and some info about the hotel. I tracked them for my first year and cut back on the ones that were not very profitable.
Just some food for thought from an experienced end user.
Visitor business is a huge part of our business in a resort town. We do all the in room advertising we can. With that said, the rate has to make sense. The rate you quote is very high. We pay about a dollar a room for in room guides. The business is dominated by services that provide books to multiple properties so one ad hits hundreds of rooms. There used to be one property that did its own book like you describe. The rate there was stupid too.
If it is the only hotel in the area I might consider it, but otherwise I would not pay $3 per room for an in room guide.
We also go after front desk and van driver word of mouth with free pizzas etc all the time.