Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?
Overview:
Cendyn sought to develop a Cyber Monday campaign creative strategy for Independent Collection Hotels around “biggest sale of the year” messaging, destination imagery, and simple yet effective holiday themes to appeal to key demographics.
Goals:
• Drive direct bookings through special offers during a high-demand period.
• Maximize revenue through discounts of up to 40%.
• Secure immediate bookings, as well as reservations for need periods into 2024.
• Increase the average length of stay.
• Achieve higher occupancy rates.
• Enhance cross-property awareness within the IC portfolio, encouraging guests to explore and book multiple properties within the collection as a whole.
Implementation:
The campaign employed a multi-channel digital marketing strategy, focusing heavily on SEM and email marketing. SEM efforts were aimed at capturing high-intent search traffic and driving conversions directly on property websites, while retargeting customer resource management lists allowed both channels to reach brand loyalists.
Creative strategy centered on “year’s best rates” messaging, vivid photos of desirable locations and holiday theming. The offer and final creative imagery varied slightly by property to further enhance the client’s segmentation categories (luxury, lifestyle and resort). The sale was then extended from “Cyber Monday” through early December, at which point ad copy was updated across all campaigns to incorporate “sale extension” messaging — creating a sense of urgency for consumers over remaining sale dates. This was a unique strategy employed for the first time during this sale.
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)
• The sale was highly successful in converting consumer interest into actual stays, producing an 84.5% increase in room nights with only +4% more bookings than the prior IC campaign.
• The increase in room nights resulted in a 100% revenue increase.
• Occupancy rates also increased across the entire client portfolio, with November – December 2023 seeing 50% of the room night boost, followed by 35% midweek need periods into 2024.
• Average daily rate for the campaign was $349, a 7% increase compared to prior campaigns with lower discounts.
• Average length of stay increased to 3.1 nights (over 2.7 leading up to the campaign).
• The campaign achieved a higher level of engagement via SEM efforts, with a recorded click-through rate increase of 33% (from a combination of +131% clicks and +69% impressions against the prior IC portfolio campaigns).
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?
• 11:1 across the portfolio — solely via paid efforts.
• 100% increase in total revenue.
• 12:1 return via SEM campaigns alone (up from 8:1 return of previous campaign).
• SEM and Display campaigns generated:
• Over 7M total impressions.
• 50k total clicks.
• 25% of total rate plan production.
Entry Title
HHM Hotels — 2023 Holiday Cyber Sale
Division
Digital - Search Marketing Strategy