Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?
When tasked with driving revenue over the challenging winter holiday season, we worked a little Christmas magic for our portfolio of 45 select-service Hilton, Marriott, and IHG hotels.
Leading into Q4 of 2022, there was plenty of pent-up demand for travel and our goal was to convert that into room nights for leisure properties in winter destinations. We also wanted to fill need dates at hotels whose traditional guests – business travelers – would instead be staying home for the holidays. Our goal was $1M in room revenue.
So we created a compelling marketing campaign with images, taglines, and copy that could be swapped into social media posts, paid social and digital ads, email blasts, and print collateral. Designed for the span from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, the campaign was tailored to reach, engage, and convert potential guests for our select-service hotels in leisure as well as business markets.
Campaign templates emphasized three overall ideas:
• Sharing travel experiences instead of exchanging presents
• Celebrating all the same love but in a different location
• Enjoying a full heart without a house overcrowded by visiting out-of-town family
Messages included:
• ‘Tis the SEAson to Travel
o Water you want for Christmas?
o Put experiences ahead of presents, so Santa can just coast
o Take your Vitamin Sea this winter
• Home (Away from Home) for the Holidays
o Trip ‘em up this holiday season by putting experiences ahead of presents
o All the same love in a different location
• The Gift of a Silent Night
o No time like the present for a good night’s rest
• Eat, Drink & Be Merry
o The way to their heart is through our doors
Paid social ads set parameters for location and demographics; email lists comprised people who had opted-in to receive marketing messages from each hotel. We created a trackable booking link connected to the holiday campaign messaging to accurately measure results.
Results: Which of your original goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the piece or campaign? Entrants should provide quantifiable results of their tactics or campaigns. (for example, click through rates or ad equivalency)
To make it a Merry Million Christmas, our goals for this campaign were to:
• Generate $1M in room night revenue (booked through a trackable link)
• Reach, engage, and convert potential guests
• Increase brand awareness for all the hotels
For a total ad spend of $8,103.30, we were delighted with the following results:
Rooms & Revenue Metrics
Room nights: 7,858
Average ADR: $147.15
Revenue: $1,148,688.50
Social Media Metrics
Impressions: 1,565,964
Engagements: 13,942
Link clicks: 20,658
Email Marketing Metrics
Campaigns: 106
Deliveries: 132,103
Open rate: 12%
Link clicks: 2,647
Return on Investment: How much revenue has the piece or campaign generated and how does this compare to your goal? What was the return on investment?
This comprehensive campaign — comprising social media, paid social and digital ads, and email blasts — yielded 7,858 room nights (booked via a trackable link) and generated $1.15 million in revenue.
All of the work was done in-house by our marketing, digital strategies, and communications teams, so there were no agency charges for creative. We spent $8,103.30 on social media and digital ads, with an ROAS of 141:1.
We exceeded our million-dollar goal by nearly 15%, making for a Very Merry Christmas indeed!
Entry Title
A Merry Million Christmas
Division
Integrated Campaign - Business to Consumer