by: mark squires

wed, 15 apr 2015 18:26:38 +0000

chris: this is a great post. as an experienced direct marketer and media rep since the ’90’s i have always encouraged the smb’s and hotels i have worked with to build their own database of customers, and understand the lifetime value of a customer to their business. dun & bradstreet commissioned a survey many years ago about small business owners (under 25 employees) and their perceptions of the importance of marketing programs to develop and maintain their business. over 90% responded that they knew marketing was important to their business -but that they felt they did not have either the time or resources to focus on the task.
many small businesses (think b&b’s, independent restaurants, auto repair) have had great success using their customer email data with simple programs like constantcontact, mailchimp, etc. but, with so many review sites and other social media channels businesses need more multi-faceted and capable systems to deal with the new digital fragmentation.
hotel owners (and some franchise restaurants) these days often change brands or go independent due to (what they perceive to be) more lucrative franchise agreements and reduction in fees.
in the last 5 -7 years, many of the major hotel chains required new investment in software and hardware upgrades to facilitate hotel operations handled via cloud-based systems. because most of their customer data is in the cloud and not on their own pcs the customer data is now the property of the brand, and not the hotel owner. often, these enterprises change brands before compiling their own customer data. afterwards, they don’t even have access to what used to be their own customer base!
it appears to me with fivestars you can stop that from happening and help the business retain control of the customer communications for the business they built. bravo!

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by: mark squires