The 6 Best Travel Marketing Posts This Past Week: Hospitality Marketing Link Digest

It’s been a big week for travel marketing and e-commerce news, Big Thinkers, with lots of great information and insights to help you make the most of your hotel’s digital marketing and distribution. In fact, here are the 6 best travel marketing posts this past week. Enjoy:

1. Tnooz explains what the recent travel tech deals mean for the hotel industry, which makes a nice companion piece to my look at what the Expedia-Orbitz deal means for your hotel.
2. Social plays a justifiably large role in marketing your hotel and resort. In fact, eMarketer uncovers data that says the travel industry sees strong Facebook CTRs and engagement. However, it’s not all good news. Tnooz asks whether dark social is destroying your travel marketing strategy. I’d suggest not, but it further highlights the need to improve attribution modeling and leverage your hotel’s data to drive growth.
3. Hotel News Now shows how hotel marketers are rethinking the affluent market.
4. Leonardo has a great post featuring research from Google on how to master mobile and millennials. Given that the marriage of millennials and mobile represents a key trend driving e-commerce, digital marketing, and distribution in 2015, you’ll definitely want to review both of these posts.
5. One big takeaway from the Leonardo and Hotel News Now articles just mentioned revolves around delivering on your overall brand value proposition. For this reason, you may want to review these insights from Priceline CEO Darren Huston on why brand value matters to help you own your customer.
6. And while we’re on the topic of “owning your customer relationships,” be sure to check out this look at who owns your customer, how customer data drives satisfaction and increased revenues on the blog, and this week’s episode of Thinks Out Loud, “Want to Own the Customer? Own the Data.” And, for a hotel marketing focus, be sure to review how the best hotels own the guest. Good stuff all around and a great way to kick off your week.

If you want even more of the best hospitality marketing advice and insights, don’t miss these round-up of these 4 award-worthy hospitality marketing posts, this great round-up of “7 Hot Hotel Marketing Insights,” and these “6 Totally Brilliant Travel Marketing Posts” all from our hospitality marketing link digests (part of the ongoing E-commerce Link Digest series).

And, if you’re looking to learn even more about how changing guest behavior shapes e-commerce and marketing, be sure an register to receive a special report I’ve produced in conjunction with hotel marketing firm Vizergy, “Digital Hotel Marketing in a Multiscreen World.” While it’s targeted specifically at hotel and resort marketers, the lessons apply to just about any business. You can get your free copy of the report here.

You might also want to take a moment to review the slides from my recent webinar, “Digital Marketing Directions 2015: Three Key Trends Driving Your Hotel Marketing Next Year” here:

Finally, you will definitely want to check out some of our past coverage of the mobile, local, social web and how to make it work for your business, including:

• 10 Key Posts about Millennials and Mobile: E-commerce Link Digest
• The Secrets Behind “It’s All E-commerce” for 2014
• Should Marketers Really Trust Google in 2014?
• The Zen of Digital Marketing Strategy
• 7 Steps to E-Commerce Heaven
• Today and Tomorrow: Mobile and The Changing Customer Journey
• Mobile Makes E-commerce Even More “Frictionless”
• Your 2014 Internet Marketing New Year’s Resolutions – Thinks Out Loud Episode 56