Blog
What is the main difference in marketing cost and the cost of using OTAs from a hotelier's perspective? IMEG client data shows there is a 10% - 15% difference in the cost to generate an online booking with marketing strategies versus using a OTA. The average OTA fee to generate a online reservation is between 18% - 25% depending on your relationship with the OTA. Read More »
A recent article written by the Knoxville News Sentinel makes accusations that the cities of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge made no use of social media to warn residents and visitors of the Gatlinburg wildfires. I wanted to chime in and complete this story because most people are unaware of this and just assume that social media is a great way, in today's time, to communicate with people. First, I will preface by saying that it may not have hurt anything to have posted on social media as a city to the community. But is it really that important they did or did not post to social media? NO! Here are a few reasons why: Read More »
At IMEG, we have been working with local government and other organizations to provide services, data and insights to help solve some of the problems problems with housing, communication, PR and marketing. We wanted to share this data with you to help our local businesses and community receive insights on the market. Read More »
November 12th, 2016
Did the 2016 Presidential Campaigns Prove the Importance of Digital vs. Traditional Marketing?
Digital Marketing Investments Through October
Both candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton invested millions of dollars into their marketing campaigns throughout the 2016 presidential race. How much of that budget was invested in digital marketing? According to reports by Bloomberg, Trump’s campaign invested 59 million dollars into digital and Clinton’s campaign invested 17 million. Bringing the difference in budget between the two of 42 million dollars. Read More »
OTAs can grow your business by generating bookings with your brand by driving traffic to their sites like Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Hotels.com and Booking.com. In return for their booking production, they charge you 15% - 25%. Good or bad deal? Read More »
Since February 2000, TripAdvisor has grown at an astonishing rate. Now, the world's largest travel site brings in over 170 million reviews related to hotels, vacation rentals, attractions and restaurants. Averaging nearly 280 million unique visitors each month, it's safe to say a brand's presence on the site is comparable to the importance of the way you dress for a job interview. A study of an online panel totalling 2 million people was completed by comScore for TripAdvisor. This case study revealed that 50% of travelers who book online visited TripAdvisor during their online journey. With this size segment of data, there is no argument that TripAdvisor plays a major role in the guest’s decision about where to stay. As a brand, what strategies are there to increase and sustain your presence on the site? Read More »
Data is everywhere, and, most likely, the data that businesses have stored about you have led to your transactions with them. This is not a bad thing, it just means businesses know more about us as consumers and what we value. This leaves less friction B2C and higher conversion rates, growing revenue at an optimal rate. Any business that is focusing on growing revenue is using data on the consumer's actions online to market to back into their values. Read More »
The History Of Loyalty Programs
Large flag hotels like Holiday Inn and Marriott have been implementing their loyalty programs since the early 1980s, not long after American Airlines launched AAdvantage in 1981. Since the creation of these strategies, these companies have continued to evaluate and refine their approach to produce the best return on investment. Read More »
August 30th, 2016
Google Announces Lowering Website Rankings for Sites Using Intrusive Mobile Pop-Ups
In late August 2016, Google announced they will lower the ranking of websites using intrusive pop-ups and interstitials starting on January 10, 2017. We have compiled some helpful information for our clients running our SASS Capture. We want to make sure you understand the details and how to handle this. Read More »
Hashtags are widely used on many social platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and more. In the research I have done at IMEG, we have found that hashtags on Facebook are not a good idea. Hashtags, at the core use, is for discoverability. On channels like Instagram, it's the only way to really discover anything, so it is a must-have. For a channel like Facebook, this is not the case. We see many of our competitors use, and in most cases overuse, hashtags on Facebook and we rarely do, so I wondered - “are we missing something that others are doing?” So I sought out to do some testing and research. Here's what I found: Read More »