Promotional Campaign Essay For Marriott International.

As the Marketing Manager for an existing Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) or for an existing hospitality enterprise of your choice, write a promotional campaign report addressed to the management team for approval of a conceptual idea and expenditure, with the following sections: 

1. A relatively brief overview of your selected DMO or hospitality enterprise, presenting its main attributes such as size, turnover, visitation numbers, occupancy rates and similar data that contextualises the report.

2. Determine a suitable promotional campaign strategy for your chosen DMO or enterprise; provide a clear rationale based on academic sources for this choice of strategy. Preferably focus on one element of the promotion mix, and only briefly describe links to other potential elements of the promotion mix your campaign would be a part of.

3. Establish target market(s) for the specific promotional campaign you are developing; include rationale based on detailed market research, and academic literature for their selection. 

4. Depending on where your DMO/enterprise is situated in its business cycle, determine the communication objective(s) of your promotional campaign.Substantiate your claims with reliable data or arguments to prove this point.

5. Identify the competition – what regions' enterprises are predominantly competing for the same/similar target markets – back up this data with research and statistical data.

6. Outline what types of communication channels you suggest should be used for this campaign and the duration of your campaign. Be specific – give detailed examples so that your readers can grasp how this promotional campaign will be communicated.

7. Explain, with detailed rationale, how the results of the campaign will be measured. Establish suitable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can be tracked and used to prove the success of your promotional campaign.

8. Provide a brief, but realistic, budget for your promotional campaign. This requires you to do some external research to find out costs, for example, for printing posters and fliers, or how much advertisements cost in print, online or visual media sources – depending on the campaign you develop. 

Brief Overview of the Hospitality Enterprise

The hospitality industry is concerned with the broad category of fields within the service industry which includes event planning, lodging, transportation, theme parks, travelling, cruise line and additional fields within the tourism industry. This industry is considered to be a multi- billion dollar industry that is dependent on the availability of disposable income and leisure time. Hospitality units such as hotel, restaurant and the amusement park comprise of multiple groups such as direct operations and facility maintenance (McAlexander, Koenig, and DuFault, 2016).

As the Marketing Manager of Marriott International, this promotional campaign report has been prepared to be addressed to the management team for approval of a conceptual idea and expenditure.

Marriott International is the multinational diversified hospitality company of America which is engaged in the management and franchising of a broad portfolio of hotels and lodging facilities. The enterprise was founded by J. Willard Marriott. The headquarters of the enterprise is situated in Bethesda, Maryland in the metropolitan area of Washington D.C.  Marriott International is considered to be the world’s largest hotel chain. The size of the enterprise can be determined with the help of its 6,700 properties across 130 countries in the world, 1.2 million rooms along with 195,000 rooms in the development pipeline in the year 2017. The turnover of the company amounted to 22.9 billion U.S. dollars in the year 2017. The enterprise has witnessed continuous increase in the visitation numbers as a result of its efforts, dedication and perseverance.  The overall occupancy rate of the hotel in the year 2017 was 73.7%. Approximately, 177,000 employees work for the success of this enterprise all across the globe (Marriott, 2018).

Promotion refers to the use of marketing communications for the purpose of persuading or informing the target audiences regarding the relative merits of the brand. With the help of promotion, interest can be created among the target customers along with increasing awareness, generating sales and creating brand loyalty. Promotion is often regarded as one of the elements of promotional plan or promotional mix. It includes advertising, persona selling, direct marketing publicity, sales promotion along with exhibitions, event marketing and trade shows (Luxton, Reid and Mavondo, 2015).

The promotional campaign strategy for Marriott International will revolve around the basic motive of  better establishment of the brand in the market. Marriot International is already a leader of the hospitality industry but the promotional campaign strategy will focus on improving the customer loyalty. The existing customers will be offered exclusive offers which they will be able to avail within the defined time period. Special discounts will be there for promoting the hotel for the new customers (Kandampully, Zhang and Bilgihan, 2015).

The promotional campaign strategy will focus on the advertising as the element of promotion mix. High impact ad campaign will be initiated by Marriott which will be focused on targeting the defined set of customers for the purpose of increasing brand awareness among them. The advertisement will portray the high brand recall of the hotel which has made it the global leader of the industry. The innovative incentives which will be offered to the clients such as vacations, free merchandise, upgraded rooms, gifts and other facilities will comprise the part of the advertisement. Frequent customers will be provided Marriott rewards as a part of its loyalty programs. The advertisements will be published in the business directories, business TV channels and on radios (Belch, Belch, Kerr and Powell, 2014).

Suitable Promotional Campaign Strategy

Such advertisements are linked with the other elements of promotion mix. The advertisements will attract the customers only on the basis of sales promotion techniques such as discounts, coupons, loyalty incentives, etc. (Xu, Hao and Han, 2017) Direct marketing can be used for advertising the offers to the existing customers by way of sending e-mails to them. The most trending way of conducting the promotional campaign for Marriott International is in the form of digital marketing. In this way, the offers and discounts will be advertised with the help of digital medium such as the website of the company, mobile phone promotions, social media such as Twitter or Facebook and writing blogs regarding the latest offers and the related benefits (Kitchen and Burgmann, 2015).  

The target market for the promotional campaign of Marriot International will comprise of the customers who do not mind paying a premium for comfort and luxury. The organization believes that a base service level is required by all the customers. However, the customers still differ in terms of their willingness to pay for diverse levels of luxury and comfort. Therefore, the promotional campaign of the enterprise will target customers belonging to high income bracket who are in middle to upper age group. The customers can be business professionals, seasoned/ luxury travelers. Customers who are in search for a hotel for conducting an event or occasion such as weddings or upscale business meetings also comprise the target market of Marriott International. Couples, families and seasoned travelers are also the target market of the promotional campaign (Dolnicar, Grün and Leisch, 2018).  

Multi- stage segmentation will be utilized by Marriot International. The brand named hotels will also be tailored in order to cater the distinctive target markets. The following hotel options are offered by the brand such as JW Marriot, The Ritz Carlton, Gaylord Hotels, Edison Hotels, Marriot Hotels and Resorts, Autograph Collection, Residence Inn, Marriot Vacation Club and Conference Centres, Marriott Executive Apartments, etc. (Appendix 1) All these hotels have new packages, services and promotion offers in order to finely key in on the target markets (Koch and Benlian, 2015).

Communication objectives can be defined as the intended goals of the promotional program. The communication objective of the promotional campaign strategy planned for Marriott International is especially aimed at creating awareness regarding the brand. The business meetings are generally conducted at renowned hotels as they have large budgets (Sozinova and Fokina, 2015). Moreover, the high income families and couples do not mind spending a little extra for premium services. However, they should be aware regarding the brand for obtaining their services. Therefore, the promotional campaign will aim at keeping the name of Marriott International in front of the customers along with reinforcing its image. The offers and discounts will also enhance the capability of the middle income group to avail them as now they will be under their reach (Gerodimos and Justinussen, 2015).

The promotional campaigns will fulfill the basic communication objective of increasing the business of the enterprise by way of attracting new customers. Furthermore, the objectives include retaining the existing customers along with increasing their stays and visits to the hotel. The communication objectives are required to be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely). The promotional campaign will help Marriott International in communicating with the existing customers though their website, social media or email along with encouraging them to refer it to others which will further increase its sales. When the customers are rewarded for the referrals made, the relationship gets solidified and strengthened (Jiang, Shang, Liu and May, 2015).

Target Market for the Promotional Campaign

Since the operations of Marriott International are spread worldwide, its competitors are also major giants in the hospitality industry. The competitors of Marriott International include IHG- InterContinental Hotels Groups, Four Seasons Hotels Limited, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Hilton Hotels and Resorts, etc. (Appendix 2). These enterprises are competitors of Marriott International across Australia and in the global context also (Parente and Strausbaugh- Hutchinson, 2014).

The net income of IHG was $417 million in the year 2016. The enterprise has over 5,100 hotels in the world and has approximately 760,000 rooms. On the other hand, Four Seasons Hotel has around 109 properties in 43 countries across the globe. Hyatt Hotels Corporation is known for its finest hotels, vacation properties and resorts since 1957 (Radojevic, Stanisic and Stanic, 2015). It has more than 700 properties in more than 50 countries of the world. Hilton Hotels and Resorts is considered to be one of the oldest hotels in the industry and is a big player of the sector. The enterprise has registered a phenomenal growth by ensuring its operations in greater than 5,200 properties having 856,000 rooms across 105 countries. Therefore, these major plays are aimed to be defeated with the help of the promotional campaign strategy of Marriott International (Krafft, Goetz, Mantrala, Sotgiu and Tillmanns, 2015).

Non- personal communication channel will prove to be effective in case of the promotional campaign of Marriot International. Social media has emerged as the most effective communication channel these days. However, for this purpose social media is required to be utilized strategically by tailoring the content for meeting the promotional objectives of the enterprise. Customers also look for offers on the social media websites; therefore, it will prove to be an effective channel for promoting the brand and offers (Kilgour, Sasser and Larke, 2015).

Another communication channel is public relations which is synonymous with the press releases. Popular bloggers can be requested to write regarding the campaign along with the PR announcement. Or social media can be used for promoting and monitoring the thinking of people regarding the announcements. Another communication channel is Pay- per- click in which the offers are advertised on the social media sites and other websites (Tomše and Snoj, 2014). There are a number of advertising options available on social media. Promoted accounts can be crated on Twitter or sponsored updates can be posted on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. larger group of audience can be reached with the help of pay per click promotions. Tighter targeting options are provided by pay per click as it allows targeting segments by keywords, gender, location and LinkedIn groups. Moreover, traditional ways can be used such as advertising through newspapers, business channels, etc. The ideal length of the promotional campaigning is 45 days (Fill  and Turnbull, 2016).

The promotional plan will be required to be formally defined in the form of a written document. Within this document, the situational analysis, time tables for effective integration of the different elements of promotion and other platforms will be covered along with the different elements of marketing mix. It will be determined in advance that how the effectiveness of the implementation of strategy will be measured. Marriott International will measure the results of the campaign by way of comparing the actual performance with the planned objectives. It will be done by way of comparing the financial results of the period prior and after conducting the promotional campaign. The increase in the number of visitors, referrals, offers availed will also be considered as the criteria for measuring the results. Surveys can also be conducted on social media regarding whether they recognize or recall particular advertising messages or whether they do remember such message. Along with this, their opinions regarding the advertisements can also be obtained by way of the most popular medium namely social media. Moreover, information regarding the changes in the attitudes of the customers through the offers and discounts can also be analyzed for the purpose of measuring the results of the promotional campaign (Blakeman, 2018). These factors will act as the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and will help in measuring the results.

Communication Objectives of the Promotional Campaign

Huge expenses are required to be incurred in order to conduct a promotional campaign (Shen, Chiou, Hsiao, Wang and Li, 2016). Since advertising is selected as a mode for the promotional campaign, the following expenses will required to be incurred by Marriott International for promotions in Australia.

The above table clearly specifies the amount required to be spent on different forms of advertising by Marriott International. Since posters is the most common and traditional form of advertising and promoting the offers and discounts, a number of poster 50,000. Newspaper advertising assists in reaching a wider audience and will cost $ 20,000 to the enterprise. The organization will appoint a marketing professional especially for the purpose of handing this campaign. The salary to the marketing professional will be $ 10,000. The promotions will also be made in business magazines and on business channels for which the organization will pay $ 40,000. Pay- per- click advertising will also be included by Marriott International in its promotional campaign strategy. In this, other website owners will place the ads on their websites and when the ads will get clicked, the owners will be paid according to the planned rates. The estimated total cost for pay- per- click advertising is $ 5,000. Social media advertising will enhance the reach of the offers to wider audience and will cost $ 10,000 to the enterprise as it will involve appointment of professionals who will design perfect ads for the target market. At, the end, the website of Marriott International will be designed in order to include the latest offers and discounts on the home page. For this individuals will be appointed who are experts in this field. The cost for website redesigning is estimated to be $ 10,000. Therefore, the total estimated budget required for conducting this promotional campaign is $ 145,000.

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be concluded that Marriot International is already a leader of the hospitality industry but a promotional campaign strategy is required for the purpose of improving the customer loyalty and increasing brand awareness.  The existing customers will be offered exclusive offers which can be availed by them within the defined time period. Special discounts will be offered to the new customers during the campaign. The target market for the promotional campaign of Marriot International will comprise of the customers who do not mind paying premium for comfort and luxury. The campaign will aim at increasing the stays and visitation numbers of the enterprise. Moreover, the enterprise face immense competition from its competitors such as IHG- InterContinental Hotels Groups, Four Seasons Hotels Limited, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Hilton Hotels and Resorts, etc. The promotional campaign strategy will focus on the advertising through non- personal communication channel such as social media websites, press releases, Pay- per- click advertisements along with the traditional ways which include business channels and newspapers. The results of the campaign will be measured by comparing the actual performance with the planned objectives. The total estimated budget required for conducting this promotional campaign is $ 145,000.

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