PERFORMANCE MARKETING AS A KEY TO SUCCESS

Isn't our main objective to make our business profitable? There is a preconceived idea in the digital marketing sector that the measurement of certain brand and/or communication actions tends not to be part of the objectives when, in fact, this separation should not exist. We even find, more often than we would like, projects that do not even have basic digital analytics data, or that are not owned by them (and this is something that is hard for us to understand, but unfortunately happens).

As I have already introduced in TH leaders, the first step in a results-focused model is the development of objective planning. And these objectives need to be simple but straightforward, addressing the needs and seeking a balance with the expected return. For example, in terms of direct sales, the strategy should focus on the right balance of ROI and not just the volume of direct sales. A plan of objectives focused on profit maximization should be able to monitor and measure all marketing actions and, if necessary, link them with indicators from other areas, including offline.

Beyond the current difficult situation caused by the pandemic, the growth of marketing tools and actions has not stopped growing, leaving us with an ecosystem that is very rich in both its forms and procedures. Identifying the key players in a dataset, cleaning, sorting, grouping and understanding them both individually and as a whole is a much more sophisticated task than it may seem. In fact, it would be normal to have a team with a Data Science and a Data Analyst (plus the creative and execution team). The question that may arise right now is, how should we act to orient the strategy to results? We have to continue working from the personalization of experiences and, in turn, be able to measure all the actions in progress.

Now that we have philosophized a bit, let's try to bring these concepts down to earth. Regardless of the fact that specialized agencies have Data Science and Data Analyst departments with which to achieve very advanced levels of measurement, it is not an impossible task for those who are used to working with data. Broadly speaking, and with the aim of simplifying procedures, a logical order for data processing would be:

From the reflection we have to put on the table those indicators with which we want to work.

These data do not stand alone without any criteria. In fact, most of them are totally related to each other. It is essential to understand these relationships and sort them according to our objectives. And we may not need it all. Let's not underestimate the power of a simple, well-ordered structure that makes logical sense. 

It is essential to have an analytics tool (e.g. Google Analytics), but it is not the only tool we will need, nor is it enough to leave it as it is without configuring events, conversion funnels, contact lead funnels... Can anyone imagine having to drive a car without a dashboard? And if I have to be at an important appointment, how do I calculate the departure time?

If we have reached this point in one piece, we only have to send the data to a repository to analyze it. Either a spreadsheet or a Business Intelligence with which to create customized reports. The last step is the constant analysis and monitoring of our data with respect to the agreed objectives. And in cases where the data is very volatile and dynamic, an intelligent alert system is essential. Since we developed Bouquet Data, our alerting and data prediction system, we have been able to reduce the workload by 50% and improve the speed of execution.

Finally, another fundamental aspect that we usually encounter is the distance with other departments, such as Revenue Management. It is hard for me to imagine an ambitious project in terms of objectives, and well balanced, that does not work hand in hand with the Revenue department, assuming that a hotel marketing department must have knowledge about Revenue (and vice versa). And the same with other departments possibly acting outside the digital realm. If anyone was thinking that offline data were not important, in certain projects they are equally essential, especially in times when third-party cookies push us to explore new forms of data collection.

In conclusion, today more than ever, creativity is one of our best assets, we must eliminate the barriers between "results" and "brand". Don't we judge our companies by revenue growth and profitability? Always focusing on results is a more responsible way and will give us a better perspective on the needs of the stages of a conversion funnel.

Maxi Viale - article for TecnoHotel's magazine May issue