Focus on Special Events Business | Returning to Basics

The special events business and hospitality industry is constantly changing - blink, and you may miss a hairpin turn and continue straight, right off the cliff, so to speak.  However, with technology and strategies all changing at lightning speed , there are still some basics that stay the same and will never change.  In all our years of consulting and ever more so in the recent years of economic challenge, we encourage businesses to return to basics.  What does this mean and how do you do it?

Returning to Basics
1.  Know your market and strengths and focus on this exclusively.
2.  Stop doing what is not bringing in revenue.
3.  Invest in areas where customers want it.  Hint: Use your social media to help get a feel for who your customers are and what they want.
4.  Whatever you decide 1-3  above is for you, stick to it and become known as being reliable for it and giving a consistent experience.

To Discount or Not to Discount?
One of the most common questions in a hard or recovering economy is  whether or not to discount your product or service.  The second most-common question is how much to discount, how long the discounting should take place or should be used. 

Discounts are no longer a point of reference for .  If all you do is compete on price alone, you will never be able to win.  While low rates may initially attract consumers to a product, indiscriminate discounting can isolate current clients as it decreases perceived quality.  But further, it does not guarantee that new customers will become long-term , loyal customers.  To help ensure this does not happen, the following are recommendations:

1.  Have a knowledge of who you want to target.  This is focused discounting to a specific market for a specific service or product and time. 

2.  Carefully watch your competitor's actions.  In the Beverly Clark OnLine Wedding Hospitalty Training Program, there is a dedicated exercise in the Final Exam to help you do just that.

3.  Find your USP - your Unique Selling Proposition - to see how you are different from the competition other than monetarily.  Go beyond to find out where there needs that are not being fulfilled and then fill those niches and make that your differential. The Beverly Clark OnLine Wedding Hospitality Training Program walks you through other ways to help determine your USP as well.

Tying all of this together is a matter of drawing from your history - the strengths, failures, opportunities - and involving your team as well as balancing the feedback of your customers.  Social media has proven an invaluable tool for this in helping to create custom products and packages based on the demand. 

One major airline "returned to basics" with three simple things they decided to focus on:  1.  Baggage that arrives with the plane   2.  A clean plane    and   3.  Friendly customer service.  They forgot all the other "bells and whistles" because they were not bringing in revenue and decided to focus exclusively on those three areas. 

If you focus on the basics - whatever those are for you - and provide service and a product without confusion or irregularities for the customer, you have the potential to increase your revenue the best way possible:  simply.

By Kerry Lee Dickey

Hospitality Sales Strategies | Using Internet Prospecting to Drive Revenue

The hospitality industry has evolved and so have sales strategies.  The Internet has become a staple in the business world today - advertising, research, competitive analysis and prospecting. Locating appropriate prospecting groups via the Internet (and having prospects find you) can be challenging, to say the least. As with most marketing tactics, there are numerous ways to approach internet prospecting, and the right way is the one that works for you and your business or service. Experimentation is key – don't get "stuck" doing the same thing over and over if you are not getting the results you want – change it up and track your success!

Here are a few things you can do to start the process in determining how Internet prospecting will work

best for you:

Search key words on Google, Yahoo, etc. for leads you are looking for (local charities, financial companies, schools, businesses, whoever your target market is). This becomes your "call list" for daily prospecting. How you are communicating with these leads is critical! Read on for more on communication. . .

Search key words that prospects use to find you (weddings, catered events, business meetings, golf tournaments, reception, auctions, charity events, etc., and include the city in which you are located). This is what your prospects are seeing when they are searching for you – are you well represented? Can you find yourself? If you can't, the prospects can't either.

Lead Lists – many companies offer (sell) lead lists based on demographics, industry type, size of company, buying patterns, even if they host events throughout the year. Do your homework to ensure the company you choose specializes in the types of leads you are looking for, and that their databases are updated frequently otherwise the information will be outdated. Also, it is helpful when the leads come with phone numbers, not just email addresses, so that follow-up can be accomplished more effectively. Companies like WeddingLocation.com offer support of pre-qualified leads and lists of those who register trying to make contact with wedding locations world-wide.

The How, What and Why of Communication

Once you have identified a lead list and are ready to prospect, how are you communicating with your prospects? More often than not, the first communication is an e-blast to an entire prospecting group. Why do we love email so much? It's cheap, it's easy, it's fast and it reaches many people at once. Recipients are accustomed to getting information via email, so many people scan their emails quickly and delete more than they read. So, the rule of thumb for sending an email is this - be brief, be brilliant, be gone!
Proper follow-up consists of a phone call if you have the phone number, and 3-4 more emails about the same subject. You do not want to be a pest, but you cannot give up too easy, either. It sometimes takes a prospect 4-5 times of seeing something in order for it to sink in.

To increase your chance of getting more "opens":

1. Avoid "spammy" subject lines containing ALL CAPS, exclamation points, words like "special", "price", "deal" and "save".

2. Send on Tuesday or Wednesday. Avoid weekends.

3.  DON'T OVERSEND. 3-4 times for the same subject max!

4.  Stick to once per week at the most and preferably on the same day each week.

5.  Make the email "from" your business name, not your own name

6.  Think about your subject line – make it count!

7.  Provide VALUABLE CONTENT EVERY TIME

8.  Content – Keep it Professional!

You are not typing an email to a friend, so keep your content professional, short and to the point. Include a table of contents when necessary, and organize information logically. It's ok, and preferable, to link to a website for more information. And please - don't forget the UNSUBSCRIBE language!!

Track Your Success!

The calls and emails are now pouring in. . . how are you tracking the results? Don't drop the ball by not tracking which of your advertising/marketing ventures is yielding you the most success. You want to know what to repeat. And, what to NOT do again! Evaluate your results on a regular basis and compare print media versus internet marketing.

By: Lynne LaFond DeLuca, Sr. Vice President, Beverly Clark Hospitality Training Program

Sales & Marketing Inspiration | Team Marketing for Event Professionals

Creating an effective sales and marketing plan appropriate to your marketplace and your specific property is somewhat of an art and requires some inspiration. If you are a seasoned catering and event professional who has been in your marketplace for a substantial period of time, you probably have a very good "temperature read" of what programming you should be doing and when. Old ideas can always need a fresh twist, though, or maybe a slight adjustment in order to gain more prospects from the same program. Utilizing your other department heads for a brainstorming session is a great way to gain a new perspective on how you can increase the revenues in your department. Some of the benefits to implementing weekly (or monthly, whatever is appropriate for your property) brainstorming sessions with your other departments include:

• Creating specific action plans geared at revenue enhancements
• A proactive, energetic approach to achieving goals vs. crisis management

• A system to monitor performance versus goals which will allow for better accountability and increased revenues

• Enable each team member to increase their personal effectiveness

By using your team in the brainstorming process, you are increasing your "brain power" to include all the members of your team, and any other group you wish to include. Marketing ideas get easier and easier with a group approach.

Once appropriate ideas have been turned into marketing programs, stay on top of your activities that are necessary in order to carry out a successful marketing plan. FOLLOW THROUGH on all steps of your marketing program, including tracking your results. That way, when you go to implement the same idea again next year, you will have a mechanism for remembering what about the program was successful and what you need to change. Soon, you will find the marketing plan process a creative outlet that guarantees financial success rather than a necessary evil!

By Lynne LaFond DeLuca, Sr. Vice President, Beverly Clark Hospitality Training