Internet Marketing Coaching

If you missed part 1 of my open letter, click here to read it now…

…With the number of resorts and islands in Fiji (as in many popular tourist spots), customer loyalty and repeat clientele is the key to success. From my experience in the tourism industry and in all of my other businesses I have found that I make more money from repeat customers than from once off customers. In fact, one of my most profitable clients has been spending with me for over 4 years.

I remember one gentlemen that I met while at Sonaisali Island Resort, who mentioned to me that he and his entire family had been coming to Fiji every year for 3 years. Each year he said they had gone to a new resort, still searching for the perfect experience. Imagine if just one of those resorts had captured him enough and incentivised him to be a repeat customer. The cost of marketing is in attaining the customer the first time, it only makes sense that the second and third spend will result in greater profits.

We humans are creatures of habit, so if we find something we like and are reminded of that experience, or even incentivised to re-live that experience we are more likely do that than to search for a new experience.

For example, now that I have been to Sonaisali Island Resort I feel safe going back again (I know the resort,I have positive experiences with the resort).  If I was to go to a new resort I would need to get to know the surroundings, the people and the customs of that particular resort.

At my live events I say that “People Like To Buy From People” and this is very much the case when it comes to customer loyalty.  Think about a hairdresser for example, I get my hair cut every second month. Every second month I walk out of my office down to the same hairdresser. 30 Minutes later I walk out of that hairdresser with the same horrible haircut. The question is, if I know it’s horrible why do I go back? It’s because I trust the hairdresser to give me the same haircut each time, it doesn’t get worse, it doesn’t get better, it’s just the same.

Now back to how you can implement something like this in your business so that the next time I go to Fiji (and yes I will be visiting again soon) I choose to stay with you. Here are just a few ideas:

- Contact - One of the keys to customer loyalty is regular, informative contact. In 12 months when it comes time for me to book a holiday, you as a resort want your name etched in my mind. But without regular contact, how am I to remember you? How am I to create a conditioned behaviour (more about that in a moment)?  Now I am not suggesting that you have to do a regular email newsletter (although I do think it would be a good idea) but at the very least you should take advantage of welcomed communication. In the accommodation industry it is now almost expected that following a stay I would receive an email from the resort or hotel thanking us for our patronage (this would be welcomed communication). I am yet to receive such an email from the team at Sonaisali Island Resort. Some hotels I’ve stayed in in Sydney actually send a text message after your stay to say thank you. Other welcome communication times would be birthdays, holiday periods and anniversaries of our stay.

Why not take a photo of us on check in standing by the pool and send us the photo via email in 6 months time asking me to take up a special offer. The image would immediately put me back into the positive state I was in while at your resort and influence my buying behaviour. If you are going to beat the other resorts and increase your occupancy rates then you need to Market better than other resorts. I could spend hours on the use of customer loyalty programs but let’s move on.

- Reward - I talked before about conditioned behaviour. Our brains are a maze of conditioned behaviours. Putting your left leg in your pants first, doing your right bicep curl before your left, buying coke at the supermarket instead of pepsi, these are all conditioned behaviours. Like Pavlov’s dog’s, conditioned behaviour is most easily created through reward and punishment. Now in your case punishment would not work but reward most definitely would. To set rewards in your business you need to first identify what type of behaviour you wish to reward.  Here are just a few ideas:

• Activities - If I was to partake in paid activities on your resort and buy, say 5 activities, you could make a “buy 4, get the 5th for 50% off” offer as a great incentive - in fact I probably would have taken it up. You reward my action of taking up activities (which ultimately is your cream) by giving me another one of your activities (which would cost significantly less than the quoted price). Look at Woolworths, they wanted to increase their average per basket spend from $25 to $30, so they introduced fuel discounts.  Not only are you rewarding a positive behaviour (therefore getting closer to a conditioned behaviour) you are also making extra money.

- Post Marketing - After our fabulous stay at your resort email, or even better send via snail mail, a souvenir or token from our stay with you. I still remember the day that we bought our first house. We walked in and sitting on the bench was a $50 hamper from the Real Estate Agent. Boy did we love that hamper and talk about that Real Estate Agent for weeks. In fact we are still using them now. Think about the psychology - I arrive home from Fiji wishing I never left, to find a gift from the very resort I came to love. Now that’s another stroke towards my visiting your resort becoming a conditioned behaviour.

- Contact Details - I am astounded that I have to even mention this, I still find it utterly amazing the amount of businesses that don’t take down the FULL contact details of all of their clients. If you were to search your customer database for my email address, my wife’s email address and my brother’s email address I would be willing to bet that you don’t have it. Let’s think about this, my brother isn’t married but I am sure that someday he will be, wouldn’t he be a prime target to have his wedding, honeymoon and future family holidays with you? Let alone my wife and I, who run events with 1000’s of people all over Australia and sometimes run international events. Wouldn’t we be prime targets to bring a group of Aussie tourists to your resort? But all of this is not possible as you didn’t do Marketing 101. Get all of your customer’s contact details, not just the person who checks in or makes the booking!

As I said at the start of this two part series, I totally enjoyed my stay at Sonaisali Island Resort in Fiji, I would even recommend friends to go there, but I just cant stand to see such great resorts make such simple marketing mistakes. You’re literally leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table!

An Open Letter To Sonaisali Resort, Fiji

After a great week-long vacation at the Sonaisali Resort in Fiji I want to firstly to thank all the friendly staff who made our getaway such a memorable experience. The staff at the resort were constantly smiling and there was not an hour that passed where we didn’t hear the the customary “Bula” greeting. I am happy to say that we kept up the great Fiji vs Australia Beach Volleyball rivalry with some amazing games and of course wins!

The only part of my stay at your fantastic resort that I regret is that I didn’t spend enough money with you! Now that might sound a bit weird but I am a person that really appreciates great service but absolutely loves marketing and salesmanship. Unfortunately for your bottom line and my personal experience the service was great but your marketing and salesmanship not so. Your future success lies in these 3 key marketing areas that your resort came up short on:

• Internal Marketing and Communications
• Customer Loyalty
• External Follow Up Marketing and Communications

From a management level it is quite obvious that you have a strong emphasis on a happy smiling staff. Which is a key component to your unique advantage, as Martin Lindstrum proved in his book Buyology, a business with smiling staff is more likely to make more money and be more successful than a business without smiling staff.

But this cannot be where your Internal Marketing and Communications plan stops, I have had extensive experience in the tourism industry and know too well that while accommodation pays the bills, it’s the extras that are the cream. For example with my stay at your resort, no doubt you made some good money from my accommodation bill but nothing compared to the money you made from:

• meals
• drinks
• day tours
• resort activities

Now without being privy to your internal marketing and communications plan here are just a few suggestions:

1. Airport Transfer – The majority of your guests are international guests arriving at the Nadi Airport. It’s great to see that you offer FREE Airport Transfers, this is your customer’s first interaction live with your resort. But this was all lost with us and other customers as your transfer driver was difficult to find, didn’t say a word and was outwardly rude. Combine this with the fact that your bus was dirty, your customer’s first impression goes from one of high expectation to one of negative positioning. Here are just a few ideas to make this first impression a more positive experience:

• Personal sign held by resort staff once clearing customs
• Staff dressed in your traditional resort attire
• Clean bus both inside and out for transfer
• Briefing at airport or on bus of what to expect at the resort
• Recorded tape playing on bus ride about the resort facilities with call to actions (book upon arrival style wording)
• Welcome pack with resort facilities, activities and dining literature with call to actions

2. Daily Activity Sheet – Now this is a stroke of genius, upon checking in we were informed that a daily activity sheet would be delivered each night for the next day. In our experience and other customers’ experience this never occurred, in fact the only time that we did receive a Daily Activity Sheet was when we asked the staff for it. Here are just a few ideas to make your daily activity sheet a piece of sales material:

• Have a designated area where you can pick up the daily activity sheet each day (make the next day’s sheet available with the current day sheet)
• Deliver the Daily Activity Sheet as per your initial intentions (a management checklist is probably needed here)
• Print the Daily Activity Sheet in full colour (in the case of what you are selling a picture can tell a thousand words)
• Place multiple call to actions on the Daily Activity Sheet (legitimate restrictions apply to your activities use them to make people take action, testimonials would also be very helpful)

3. Sell, Sell and Upsell – Your activity staff, reception staff, bar staff, even your cleaners must be trained to sell. Let them undertake each of your activities available and ask them to talk about their experiences with guests. When booking activities with the activities staff ensure they make recommendations similar to the activities being booked. Remember sales does not need to be high pressure, this could be more like a service to your customers than a sale.

Those are just a few things that you could do to ensure your internal marketing and communications make you more money, and well more money per stay can only be good.

All in all we had a great time and were happy with the resort and its facilities. Above are just a few suggestions to help you add $$$ to your bottom line.

Part 2 on customer loyalty coming soon…