Big Changes At Hotels.com

This week we interviewed Vic Walia, senior director for global brand advertising at hotels.com.  The mega brand is making some major branding changes to enhance their brand and expand their reach. Check out this marketing blog exclusive interview:

1. What's the primary motivation for the new Hotels.com logo? We wanted to unify the brand globally and show our customers whether booking from or traveling to the US, London or Tokyo, it’s the same travel experience with hotels.com. We also wanted to convey our expertise and longstanding leadership in the market. 

2. In conjunction with the logo update you're also changing your tagline. Can you provide some insight into the update? Finding travelers the perfect place is really the core of what we’ve done for 20 years so we wanted to remind customers that we’re about hotels, and only hotels. We sell over 30 million room nights every year with up to 100,000 deals so we know our customers count on us to find the perfect room, which is why our new tagline resonated so well with our loyal customers on Facebook.

3. How has the Hotels.com brand evolved in the last year and where do you see it going in the future? The brand continues to focus on its core business, hotels. The travel market and ecommerce market is a dynamic one and constantly changes and Hotels.com will adjust accordingly, as it always has.

4. In your release you mentioned additional changes in the next couple of quarters. Can give our readers some insight into additional brand related changes you'll be making? In addition to the logo change globally, we will be integrating a new look and feel among all of our sites globally to help unify the brands. We have also began using our new font style within all of our creative from TV advertising, sale messaging and emails. New sub-logos have also been released in the new style for the loyalty program, Welcome Rewards and for Deal of the Day to name just a few. We are updating our Photography our Site Copy and overall page designs in order to give users a better, more informed experience as they navigate the site.

5. How will you measure the reaction and feedback to your new branding (logo, tagline, etc.)?The feedback will be measured most clearly by business results. Plus, we have already tested the new logo, tagline and creative with research to ensure that it appeals to our current customer base as well as any new potential customers. 

Special thanks to Vic Walia for sharing his rebranding secrets with us.  He is a Brand Marketing Director with over 13+ years of experience managing several billion dollar consumer brands in the Food, FMCG, Travel/Leisure and E-commerce categories.

How to Get ATTENTION

I want to start this post with a simple, yet profound question for you to ponder about your own business…

“What is the one thing and first thing you just do to get money in your business?”

The answers I hear when I ask this question from a live audience ranges from “Create a product” to “Make a sale.”

While these answers seem to make sense, the very first thing you must do in order to get money in your business is to GET THE ATTENTION OF YOUR TARGET MARKET.  It’s the critical first step to any marketing effort.

My mentor, Dan Kennedy, has this to say about this topic,

“It happens constantly and it is the hidden secret reason why so many marketing campaigns fall way short of their potential.  Not because the offer isn’t good or wouldn’t be welcomed by all the recipients; simply because many of the recipients never know about it because we fail to command their attention.”


Reread Dan’s statement.  It’s simple, yet profound.  Basically you can have the best product or service, yet if you are not getting the attention of your target market, you’re going to go broke.

Not too long ago I was visiting New York City.  While there, I strolled over to Times Square.  If you’ve ever been to Times Square you know it’s an overwhelming sensory experience.  There’s traffic noise, visual noise, people noise.  It’s a bombardment and if you stay there too long and your senses start to become numb.

Trying to market your product or services today is no different than standing in Times Square and yelling at the top of your lungs.  There’s no escape to all the marketing and advertising noise people face.  TV, radio, billboards, newspaper and magazines, direct mail, banner ads, pop-up ads, Google ads. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Your challenge is to cut through all the noise and clutter and create top-of-the-mind awareness with your target market.

Sadly… most marketing fails, because it is so “plain vanilla” and ordinary.  People are busy. They’re jaded, guarded, and skeptical. Some are cheap and down-right rude.

 Lots of folks have no time, no patience, and little interest in what you’re selling.  So how can you expect to get their attention by simply adding to the noise?

YOU GOTTA DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY!

One of the most effective techniques to grab the attention of your reader, either online or offline, is to use simulated handwritten notes and doodles.  In this day and age of computer-generated everything, the power of handwriting stands out.

You cannot help but see this technique used more and more.  It’s in the advertisements in your weekend paper; it’s on television commercials and in magazine ads. I’ve even seen it used effectively on book covers.  You are now starting to see its use on Web sites, blogs and squeeze pages.

The use of simulated handwriting goes back a long way in advertising, however, many copywriters and marketers give me credit for this most recent and widespread use of handwritten doodles with the creation of CopyDoodles®. 

As a matter of fact, marketing guru, Bill Glazer called CopyDoodles, “the biggest enhancement I have seen in the last 10 years for people that are writing copy for bumping the response and making the copy much more interesting.” 

Before CopyDoodles, the procedure to add handwritten doodles was both time-consuming and tedious.  Now you can add these powerful doodles to your marketing in mere seconds.

Over the years, my clients and I have done a number of split tests and across the boards the materials that contain handwritten notes and doodles always perform better than those without them.

Of course you have to know how and when to use them appropriately (just slapping a bunch of CopyDoodles on your materials without proper context can be counter-productive).

So why is simulated handwriting so effective?

Legendary direct marketer and author of Common Sense Direct Marketing, Drayton Bird, says, “The use of handwritten notes in the margins can add variety and interest to the eye and brain.”  Quite simply, the widespread use of computers, word processing and laser printers has created “homogenized marketing.” Meaning 95% of everything looks the same.  When you introduce a handwritten or hand-drawn element to the mix, it becomes very different in a simple, human-personality kind of way.

The effectiveness of a simple red handwritten note and doodle to a web page or direct mail piece can be huge and over time this type of copy cosmetic technique can add thousands of dollars to your bottom line.  Try it and see for yourself!

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Mike Capuzziis a marketing strategist, author, speaker and newsletter publisher.  Since 1998, he has been helping entrepreneurs and business owners improve their marketing and response rates.  He is the inventor of the wildly successful CopyDoodles, which allows anybody to quickly and easily add handwriting elements to their marketing.  For a FREE ebook on how to increase your marketing response and more information about CopyDoodles visit www.copydoodles.com.

Article Marketing Tips for Businesses and Internet Marketers

While article marketing can be a real challenge for internet marketers and online businesses, it is by far the most effective marketing strategy for engaging prospects, improving search engine rankings, and generating website traffic . However, in order for it to be effective, it needs to be done properly. Here are a few article marketing tips that marketers of all levels will find helpful.

The System is Not Flawed

With Google’s recent Panda updates, many internet marketers are starting to think that using keywords throughout their content is not wise. Remember, this system came about as a means for the search engines to find relevant articles for the searcher. The trick is to make sure keywords are used naturally within articles (4 or 5 times is more than enough for a 500 word article). Try to also spend time acquiring quality backlinks and attention through guest blogs and submissions to relevant authority sites, instead of using article blasting software. This is a smarter option to begin with as it means more exposure to your target audience.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of your Own Website

Many people think that for every one article they put on their website, they need five pointing back to it. This will help for difficult-to-rank keywords, but you can still rank well without backlinking. One of the best article marketing tips that should never be overlooked is having hundreds of articles written (as time and budget allow) on relevant keywords and placing them on your website.  This is particularly great if you have a service or product that can be addressed in many different ways.  Remember, you can keep many web pages hidden on your website so they can be picked up the search engines and not damage the look of your website.

Remember your Audience

One question that successful businesses and marketers frequently ask themselves is, “What is my target audience looking for?”  Following on from the previous tip, always keep in mind what your audience is seeking. As a website owner (regardless of your product or service), your aim should be to become an authority within your niche. Try to provide an extensive array of content on your website that is helpful, well written and easy to understand. You need to have a good reason for your audience to find you and keep coming back again and again.

In the world of article marketing, success comes primarily from patience and persistence. People who doubt their strategy are the ones who have the most trouble here. Take time to choose a strategy that has been known to work and stick to it – of all the article marketing tips, this is probably the most important.

About Article Marketing Co.

Article Marketing Co has been in the content industry for a few years now, but has recently launched a new website in an effort to make ordering and managing content orders as simple as possible. With experienced American writers and editors on staff, and an aim to provide the best articles on the internet at the most affordable prices, this place is definitely worth a visit. For more information, check out www.articlemarketingco.com.  

How to Conduct Effective Keyword Research

One of the most important steps a small business owner should take when starting a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is to make sure you are targeting the right keywords with your content, blogs and press releases.

The best way to do this (that’s also at no cost) is using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. This tool was build to help advertisers doing Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) through Google AdWords filter and pick more effective terms to place in PPC campaigns; and since PPC and SEO are often highly correlated, it is also a valuable tool for researching SEO keywords.

Google’s keyword tool let’s anyone with or without an AdWords account expand and filter relevant keywords quickly.

To start, type in 5-10 keywords and phrases that describe the product or service that you want to rank for:

If you are a local business, try adding the following modifiers before and after certain keywords:

●     Zip code

●     City

●     State spelled out

●     State abbreviation

●     Country

●     County

●     Region

●     City, State

●     “in” city

●     “local”

Once you have a solid list, type in the capcha and search.

At the top of the results you will find detail on each of the keywords that you typed in; below that Google will expand your list and provide up to 100 keyword ideas related to the terms entered. If you are just learning SEO some of these results may be surprising to you.

Next, click the “Local Monthly Searches” header to sort both lists by the average amount of times the term has been searched in your country or language.

Then scan the list for keywords keywords that:

●     are highly relevant to your business

●     contain a low to medium competition ranking

●     have a sizable number of local monthly searches

The competition ranking is speaking to the competitiveness of the term as it relates to PPC advertising, but it can be generally related to SEO as well.

If you would like to save your favorite keywords, check them off and click the download drop down menu followed by the selected option.  This will let you save your checked keyword list in a variety of formats.

Keyword research works best if you do several of these types of searches, constantly washing the keyword list that you build on subsequent expansions.

Once done you can then either use the final list of 5-10 keywords as the ones you are going to target, or use an SEO-specific tool to check the SEO competition for related terms. SEOMoz (paid) and the SEO SERP plugin for Google Chrome are great options for this.

To learn more about how to build an SEO foundation, check out Grovo’s expert series with Zach Ciperski, VP, Coffee For Less, Director of SEO, Elite SEM.

In this video series Zach covers a variety of topics, including:

●     A history of SEO

●     Choosing the right keywords

●     Onsite SEO optimizations

●     Creating SEO friendly content

●     Basic link building

●     Social media SEO

●     Video SEO

●     User experience and SEO

●     Mobile SEO

Special Thanks to Nick Narodny, Co-founder, SVP of Business Training for Grovo for sharing his expertise with the readers of the Marketing Blog!


See you at the top,
Mike Fleischner