Hospitality marketing: Help hotels get more direct bookings

How to turn yourself into a Direct Booking Strategist so you can work with hotels on a freelance fee or commission basis

Created by: Jeremiah Magone
Travel copywriter

What Will I Learn?

• This course will give you everything you need to know to set up a freelance relationship with hotels, on an upfront fee or commission basis. And it shows you how to automate a lot of the work so you can be working with more than 1 hotel at a time, thereby multiplying your income.
• Specifically, after you complete this course you’ll be able to: 1. Understand how the hospitality industry works and spot opportunities. 2. Sell your services to work with hotels as a freelancer, through up-front fees or on commission. 3. Set up a direct marketing system and automate distribution through affiliates. 4. Run financial reports to prove your Return on Investment (ROI). 5. Approach associations and offer your client/hotel as a venue to earn even more commissions and define yourself as a business partner. 6. Set up a 12-month road map that will allow you to manage more than 1 hotel at a time. 7. Earn the title of ‘direct booking strategist’.
• This includes step-by-step instruction on how to: Deploy the GuestCentric eCommerce platform for your direct booking campaigns • Create persuasive ads • Segment your email lists so you can launch niche marketing efforts • Write headlines that grab people’s attention • Create fun travel itineraries • Make package offers for different guest segments. This adds ancillary revenue to your client’s bottom line, and yours • Set up an affiliate marketing network so others are doing a lot of the ‘heavy lifting’ for you • Create an opt-in bait piece for your lead-generation strategy… automate delivery… write autoresponders… and create a free VIP club • Boost your bait piece on Facebook and set up PPC campaigns • Call associations and drum up big business • Set up a SendOutCards campaign for anniversary marketing efforts • Create a landing page that automatically sells your service • Set up a newsletter for even more reoccurring revenue • And more...

Requirements

• You should already have a fundamental understanding of WordPress
• You need to enjoy researching and writing
• You need to have a basic understanding of financials
• Bring your creativity, of course
• This system relies on the GuestCentric technology. I have a demo version for students to learn with – free of charge – but there are some upfront fees when working with clients. These fees typically range from $200 - $700, a month. (And you can collect a margin on these fees.) So I recommend getting your client to cover these fees with a setup fee. But, this depends on how you structure the overall agreement. This course also includes a detailed fee range, so you can have an accurate conversation with your clients on this when the time comes.

Target audience

• People that are already working in a hotel, even if it’s in the café. The concepts that you’re going to learn in this course will make your DOSM (Director of Sales and Marketing) sit up and take notice.
• People who have a lot of business connections in the community. This will make setting up your affiliate network an easy task.
• People who are good at creating fun, engaging content, on-line. Your portfolio will make it easy to sell the idea of ‘helping a prospective hotel with their marketing’.
• Anyone who is very ROI focused. Your skill of balancing earnings against spending will help you fine-tune your strategies over time.
• Copywriters. If you have a passion for writing enticing headlines and persuasive stories, you’ll enjoy a lot of the projects in this program.
• Direct marketers. You’ll take one look at this system and say, “Direct Response = Direct Bookings, Duh!” That means you will recognize this system like an old friend.