Recover Lost Website Revenue and Drive a Higher ROI Just Like the OTA S Do. Get $127 for every $1 with the Milestone CMS Revenue Recovery Tool

Transcription

1 ... Recover Lost Website Revenue and Drive a Higher ROI Just Like the OTA S Do Get $127 for every $1 with the Milestone CMS Revenue Recovery Tool

2 INTRODUCTION The hospitality industry spends billions of dollars every year driving traffic to their websites, yet 81%* of visitors leave before completing their booking. This presents the hotelier with two key challenges. How do you reduce the number of booking abandonments? If visitors do abandon, how do you get them back to your site to complete the transaction? Do what the OTA s do. Implement a revenue recovery strategy utilizing several popular digital marketing tactics. Studies show that one third of visitors to your website start a reservation but only 2% complete the booking. With the average hotel s conversion rate around 2-3%, maximizing the conversion rate is critical. Also important, enticing that visitor to book direct, rather than with an OTA. Do these statistics panic you? Well, the good news is that all is not lost. Studies also show that over 30% of customer s reconsider booking the same day and over 50% within the same week. Sounds like an opportunity, right? Wondering what can you do to increase your website conversions and directly influence revenue and room nights for your property?

3 As you can see in the graphic below, website visitors abandon the reservation for multiple reasons. The good news is that, with a little automation and upfront planning you can develop a strategy that can recapture those who previously left. 39% Just Looking/ Want to do More Research 37% Price too High/ Want to Compare 21% Need to Check With Other Travelers 13% Booking Process too Long/ Complicated Checkout 9% Technical Issues/ Lost Connection 7% Payment Issue/ Lack of Options It is interesting to note where those visitors left the transaction, as well. More than half abandon the transaction when shown the total price; almost a third abandon when they are asked for personal details and 21% when they are asked for payment details. If you have set up your checkout to ask for immediately, you should have already gathered it from about half of the potential customers and you can utilize it for your revenue recovery strategy. Cart abandonment, booking recovery or revenue recovery strategies are quickly becoming an industry wide best practice. It s already common in ecommerce. You have probably experienced this when making your own online purchases. Have you ever decided that you were ready to leave a website and when you went to close the window, a popup appeared offering an enticement of some sort? Or maybe you put an item or two in your cart, and started the process of checking out, but then you were distracted by your boss and completely forgot about it? You might have noticed that you received an , usually within 24 hours of abandoning your purchase. If you didn t go back at all, you probably received more than one .

4 While a pop up can entice a visitor to stay and complete the booking, an reminder could prevent that customer from booking via an OTA. Thus, you gain a new customer and you don t have to pay the OTA commission. Now hoteliers have an opportunity to directly influence customer intent and drive conversions while keeping OTA costs in check. Not only is it cost effective to utilize the Milestone Content Management System (CMS) Revenue Recovery Module, but it allows you to stay relevant to your customers and beat the competition. THE REVENUE RECOVERY MODULE The Revenue Recovery Module is a new feature of the award-winning Milestone CMS which helps business professionals like you take charge and drive higher returns from your existing website. The Revenue Recovery Module is one of the most effective ways of directly enhancing your bottom line and driving online bookings for your hotel. By utilizing the tactics below, you can gain back a reservation that would have been previously lost. 1. Reservation Abandonment Promotions: Marketing Promotion messaging displayed when users on your website display exit intent. Milestone will develop for you automated site abandonment promotional messaging that will be programmed into your existing Milestone website. Marketing promotion messages are triggered based on agreed upon settings and visitor interactions determined by client. Marketing promotion banner

5 2. Reservation Reminder: The user can request an reminder to book later. Milestone will develop for you an automated campaign that is auto scheduled at the request of the user. Auto reminder request 3. Reservation Retargeting Campaign: Encourages the visitor to complete their original booking. s are auto scheduled the moment a user abandons a reservation without converting. Milestone will set up your account, design your s and develop your automated campaigns. campaigns are integrated with your booking engine. captured during the booking process which will be used to send campaigns to bring the customer back to finish the reservation.

6 SUCCESS STORIES But does it drive conversions? Here are some success stories We implemented Revenue Recovery on three of our customers websites over a period of 2 months to test the effectiveness of the campaigns and its ability to generate revenue and bookings and found that hotels could drive a relatively high conversion rate of ~5-8% and a ROI as high as $127: $1, while recovering transactions that previously would have been lost forever. Client 1: a legendary golf, tennis and beach club in Southern California This client has a fourth generation, family-owned and operated 14-acre beachside resort. The resort includes four properties, including a nine-hole golf course with a beach and tennis club. Milestone deployed the revenue recovery module across the client s two hotel properties, and since launch the product has generated about $32,300 with 18 recovered bookings providing a ROI of $127:$1 and a conversion rate as high as 9.38% for one of the properties. Client 2: a year-round beach resort for families located in La Jolla, CA Another Milestone customer, with a beach resort offering sun and fun to vacationers and families in La Jolla, CA, has generated about $15,869 with 13 recovered bookings providing a ROI of $62:$1 and a conversion rate of 6.74%.

7 Client 3: a family focused full service hotel in Anaheim, CA Situated steps from Disneyland Theme Parks in Anaheim, this hotel provides travelers home-like comfort with large, family-sized rooms, free Wi-Fi, a restaurant, pool and more. The typical clientele is families visiting Disneyland. Milestone deployed the revenue recovery module for this client and since launch the product has generated about $8,039 with 11 recovered bookings providing a ROI of $30:$1 and a conversion rate of 5.88%. Clients who implement the revenue recovery module, immediately notice a significant increase in revenue and conversions. Unlike some marketing and web strategies that require patience and time to discover their effectiveness, the revenue recovery strategies described above and implemented by Milestone, show results almost immediately. Most clients who implement the revenue recovery module, will quickly see a significant increase in revenue and conversions. To learn more about the Revenue Recovery Module features and pricing, please contact us at sales@milestoneinternet.com, or www. milestoneinternet.com. It s never too late to take ownership of your ecommerce strategy. * **Your results may vary

8 About Milestone Milestone is a leading provider of digital marketing software and services for hospitality, retail and finance. We provide a full range of solutions including website and mobile design, content creation, SEO, analytics and competitive intelligence. Our best in class technology and solutions drive revenue and ROI for clients across the globe. Over 2,000 companies do business with Milestone, including leading hotel chains, major retailers and financial services companies. Milestone has garnered over 300 awards and a reputation for blending About Milestone CMS Milestone CMS is a next generation cloud-based content management system architected for high performance, consumer-facing web sites. This platform allows hotels, retailers and financial services organizations to rapidly deploy and manage websites, location pages and micro-sites with great ease and at a fraction of the cost of existing systems. Milestone CMS has been built around three core principles: speed, mobile first capabilities and compatibility with modern search technologies like voice search and machine learning. Milestone CMS allows companies to build websites that consistently score over 80 on Google s speed tests for both desktop and mobile, and that are powered by innovative technologies like Google AMP.