3 Ways Hotel Marketers can get better at Mobile

Getting Better at mobile

How often do you check your phone? A few times an hour? A few time a minute?

Like it or not, addictive mobile devices have become an important part of our daily lives.

Which is why hotel marketers need a great mobile presence.

Mobile is no longer a side dish; it’s quickly becoming the main course in terms of how people experience the Internet. In an article from hotelmarketing.com CEO of Pegasus Solutions David Millilli says mobile “has become a must for generating revenue.”

Guests aren’t just reading articles and skimming reviews either.  They are using their phones and tablets to actually book rooms. In 2013 booking.com’s mobile site had 260% more online bookings than the previous year. In  2012 bookings through mobile sources accounted for 7% of total online bookings, that number is a twelve fold increase from 2010.

Here are three ways any hotel can improve their online presence.

1. Optimize sites for mobile

If your site isn’t optimized for mobile you’re going to annoy plenty of would-be customers. Though mobile devices can navigate regular pages fine, the overall experience isn’t very good.  Full websites designed to be viewed on large displays simply don’t translate well to a tiny phone screen. Make sure that when viewers see the mobile site it’s an easy to navigate, clean and simple style.

2. Get an app

A lot of major brands have been in the news for developing apps recently. W-Hotels, Marriot, Mandarin Oriental and The Ritz-Carlton Hotels are just a few of the brands to have custom developed apps. Apps are great for a few reasons. One, custom designed apps are usually a more user-friendly experience than a mobile website. Apps also have the ability to increase brand loyalty, since the user downloads the app and will see it regularly it’s a great branding tactic.

3. Get better at social

Social media is one area that is quickly becoming more and more popular on mobile devices. In fact a 2013 survey by Adobe found that 71% of social media site users used a mobile device to access these sites. More and more users are using their phones and tablets to check their social sites. Being good at social media means being aware of how your users are consuming it.

Are you a master of mobile? Did we leave anything out? Give us your favorite strategies for having a better presence in the online space in our comment section below! 

 

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How to create Innovation in your Organization: Lessons from TEDx Youngstown

TEDx Yo Logo Innovation

Do you work in an innovative organization? 

Last week a couple of our associates learned all about innovation at the  first annual TEDx conference in Youngstown, Ohio. TEDx is an independently organized event based on the TED conference that brings together groups of individuals to deliver lectures on a chosen topic. TEDx Youngstown featured a panel of 18 local thought leaders who shared some compelling ideas about innovation.

Here are some key takeaways from TEDx Youngstown that any organization can use to become more innovative!

Respect the power of teams

Very few innovators show up as solo acts

-Tony DeAscentis

Don’t lose track of the fact that innovation isn’t a one-person job. Teams are a critical part of innovation. Take advantage of them.

In his talk, Tony DeAscentis from the Youngstown business incubator dispelled the myth of the “lone innovator”. Yes, there are the Steve Jobs or Bill Gates of the world, who seem to single-handedly change history, but even these master innovators had impressive supporting casts.

Remember that Size Matters… but not in the way you’d think

Innovation usually happens with small teams, off the beaten path

-Rob Gorham

Small teams, argued Rob Gorham, have a distinct advantage in terms of innovation over large ones.  Gorham, deputy director at America Makes, is in one of the most innovative fields in the world right now: 3D Printing.

A 3D printed logo is a great innovation.

3D printed logo made by America Makes

Small teams aren’t held back by organizational momentum, they can change rapidly and apply new ideas quickly. Look around your organization, has it become unwieldy?  Are there ways to organize into smaller teams?

Slowly but Continuously become more Innovative over Time

People tend to think innovative organizations were always that way. They weren’t. Organizations can work to become better at fostering an atmosphere of innovation.

Small wins every day matter, that is the discipline of organizational innovation

-col. Al Faber

Colonel Al Faber  made a great point about becoming an innovative organization. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s important to recognize the value of getting a little bit better every single day.

Pay Attention to your Innovation Strategy

Faber also laid out some questions  that companies should be asking themselves in regards to their innovation strategy. Can your organization answer these questions?

  1. Is there a leadership strategy?
  2. How do you engage your customers to identify opportunities for innovation?
  3. How do you collect and integrate information in tracking daily operations
  4. How do you manage innovation processes?
  5. How do you develop and engage workforce innovation?

Look at the Familiar with a Fresh Perspective

One theme that several speakers touched on was the ideas of being open to new ideas and continually learning, especially from sources you wouldn’t normally think of.

Brian Sinchak, a local high-school president, advocated that the innovation our education system needs is the Passport. Traveling to a foreign country in his formative years was a major influence on his life, and Sinchak though exposing young people to different cultures, and ideas can have a drastic affect on learning.

What does a Buddhist monk and Congressman Tim Ryan have in common?  They are both passionate about mindfullness! Ryan’s speech about bringing mindfullness to the masses and simply practicing living in the moment is a powerful idea. Ryan is so passionate about this practice to the Western world that he wrote a book about it !

Finally, Jeff Hoffman , self described serial entrepreneur and founder of priceline.com, adamantly talked about a daily habit he labels idea sponging,   learning about something new every day even if it doesn’t seem relevant.

Hoffman also talked about the value of looking at the world with a fresh perspective.

The world’s most innovative people look at the world with a sense of child-like wonder

Jeff Hoffman

Try new ideas, find new sources of information, look in the least likely of places. Innovation is a skill that your organization can get better at through practice!

Why Flat Design is Spreading Faster than a Zombie Plague.

Flat is the new 3D

The latest update to Apple’s iOS software brought the biggest graphical change to their user interface in years! Apple went Flat. The move towards flat has been a growing trend in the mobile computing world recently(Android and Windows Phone both use the concept extensively),and it has also become prevalent as a general graphic design concept as well.  Even Google has recently rolled out a flatter version of their iconic logo.

iOS6 is on the left and the new iteration, iOS7 is on the right.

photo courtesy of extremetech.com

photo courtesy of extremetech.com

If you aren’t familiar already, you can probably guess what flat design is. Flat, in a basic sense, refers to a design style that gets rid of attempts to create the illusion of depth and perspective.

These pictures of the Windows Phone home screen are a stereotypical example of flat design.

windowsph8-start-screens_2 2

photo courtesy of winbeta.org

As you can see, no beveled edges, no drop shadows, no attempts at creating the feel of depth at all.  A clean, simple interface that is … Flat!

 

Why Flat?

Skeuomorphism: what it is and why we’ve outgrown it. 

One of the major reasons that flat design has become popular is because it seems fresh compared to the tacky, and obsolete skeuomorphic designs of the past. Though you’ve probably never heard of it , you’ve interacted with skeuomorphic design at one point or another in your life.

Skeuomorphic design is the idea of designing something digitally to imitate the appearance of a real world object.  For example, Apple has been a huge proponent of this style. The iPhone alone, at least before this latest update, includes many examples. The notes app looks like  a legal pad, the games app features a green felt background, even the fact that the keyboard keys appear to have depth is an example of skeuomorphism.

photo from macrumors.com

photo from macrumors.com

Skeuomorphism was a popular design aesthetic for Apple and many other technology companies because it served as a transition from the real world to the virtual one. In the early days of computing it was nice for people to have digital analogies of the real world. The desktop, folders,  and recycle bin were easy concepts to grasp. Even though skeuomorphism was not functionally necessary, it added a layer of comfort to the experience of working with a virtual interface.

Today, when most of the world interacts with some type of computer on a regular basis, skeuomorphic design only serves to add clutter. Flat design looks clean because it is. It cuts out unnecessary clutter.

 

Back to Basics

Another reason for flat design’s popularity was that it was a “back to basics”  response to over complexity in design. As our tools became more powerful, designers felt like they had to use them. Pretty soon everyone was using drop-shadows, gradients, beveled edges, reflections and so on… Though these tools were effective, they were certainly overused.

Take Skype’s old logo for example. Notice the 3D beveled edges, use of gradient (blue goes from lighter to dark) as well as a drop shadow.

skype-logo-placeholder

 

 

 

 

In contrast, Skype’s new, flatter logo gets rid of all that. The result being a clean, flat logo.

logo_skype_web

 

 

 

 

Another example of a formerly overused technique is reflection. The effect of a company’s logo appearing like it was sitting on a plane of reflective glass was one of the hallmarks of “Web 2.0” and was used by every tech company. Today however, it just looks cliche.

LinkedIn-Logo-Reflection

 

 

 

 

Here is Linked-in’s new logo.It’s much easier on the eyes, and fits in well with website copy.

linkedin_logo_11

 

 

 

Another reason for flat design’s popularity that we can’t ignore is that it looks much better on mobile displays. Simple looks better when it’s compressed into a small space! Detailed logos lose a lot of their appeal when those details are crammed into a small display and are difficult to discern.

 

Is Flat here to Stay?

Flat is not a major innovation in design that will change the way we look at graphics and user interfaces forever. It is simply a trend. Flat design was around long before  beveled edges, reflections and drop shadows. Like all design trends eventually flat too will become overused, boring, and out of style. 

Before its inevitable demised however, flat will evolve.  It’s likely that designers will settle on a middle ground, an “almost flat” design. The key to success for this style, will be for designers and companies to utilize the unique advantages that both 3D design and flat have to offer.

Apple actually did a great job in their OS redesign by hitting this compromise. Using a featured called “parallax” to make their flat icons appear to float over the background, Apple used the benefits of advanced rendering technology to compliment the beauty of minimal flat design. Not to sound too Apple biased, but Windows Phone on the other hand may have gone too far in the opposite direction, just compare their home screen and iPhone’s!

Moral of the story, like most things in design, and life for that matter it’s hard to go wrong with the motto: All things in Moderation.

 

But who cares what we think? What do you think about the future of graphic design? Leave us a comment and give us your thoughts as to why Windows Phone is prettier than iOS!

Why Honoring a 100-Year-Old Coupon is Marketing Genius

Marketing Genius

Have you ever thought about the expiration dates on coupons? Are they really necessary? It’s not like someone is going to save a coupon and use it years later right…

 

Right?

Actually, a McConnell Marketing associate’s Grandmother was recently featured on General Mills’ blog by taking advantage of a coupon that was more than a few years past its intended use!

 

The Story

In 1984 Laurine Williams found an interesting piece of her mother’s old book collection, an original 1910 Gold Medal Flour Cookbook. On the last page of the book was a coupon for another free copy of the book, presumably so you could share with a friend. Williams wrote a letter to General Mills asking if she could redeem the coupon pointing out that it had no expiration date. Unfortunately, Williams didn’t send the letter immediately and it ended up lost.

Fast forward to 2012. Williams rediscovered her old letter and decided to send it in; at this point the offer for a free copy of the cookbook was over 100 years old! General Mills honored their original offer and sent Laurine a reprinted edition of the 1910 book. The company had actually begun reprinting the book because of situations like Laurine’s.

There is one significant change to the reprinted version of the book however, the word VOID is very clearly marked over the coupons in the back!

 

Old Coupons and Brand Equity

From a marketing perspective, the way General Mills handled this scenario is interesting.

They could have easily brushed the whole situation under the rug and no one, besides William’s would have noticed. Even then it’s hard to imagine that she would have been too upset with the company for not honoring a century’s old offer.

Really this story isn’t about General Mills honoring a coupon. It’s about the company going the extra-mile for a customer.

By putting in the time and effort to make sure that situations like Williams’ were handled appropriately, General Mills showed that they cared, something that can go a long way for a brand. Establishing trust with a customer base takes a lot of work, but the payoff is worth it. Which is why General Mills did what they did.

 

Word Travels Fast 

Laurine Williams is likely to be a loyal General Mills customer as a result of what happened, but in today’s world of social media and viral information spread she’s not the only one who will have a changed opinion of the brand.

General Mills didn’t just gain one loyal customer; they likely increased trust and brand equity with everyone reading this story!

The takeaway from this for businesses shouldn’t be, “Hmmm that’s a quirky thing that company did”. It should be how can we go the extra mile for a customer, How can we gain trust through care! What is our 100-year-old coupon!?

So think about it. Has a company honored a 100-year-old coupon for you? Has your company done something unexpected for a customer?

Give us your examples in the comments below!

Content Marketing—a Common Marketing Tool in 2013

Original Source: The Wishpond Blog

Content is fire, social media is gasoline. –Jay Baer

Interesting fact: Companies that blog have 55% more traffic to their websites. According to The Wishpond Blog, “Content marketing is fast becoming a regular marketing tool (marketers now spend 25% of their marketing budget on content marketing.”

Take a look at Wishpond’s Infographic—you’ll quickly realize that content marketing has a huge impact on how consumers view and interact with the companies they follow. Other findings include: brands that blog generate 67% more leads per month; 68% of consumers spend time reading content from a brand they are interested in; 90% of consumers find custom content useful.

Check out the full State of Content Marketing 2013 Infographic here:

Infographic_content_marketing

 

Do the brands you follow have good content marketing? How do they use it? Let us know!