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The HotelTechInsider podcast interviews the top leaders at the convergence of hotels, travel and technology. Guests include founders, executives, top hoteliers and industry organization leadership. Find all of the episodes at hoteltechreport.com
I don't think that using technology takes away from hospitality. I think it only enhances it. I also think that the definition of hospitality is changing as we continue to evolve and that the definition of hospitality is also gonna be different depending on who uses it.
Speaker 2:From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider, a show about the future of hotels and the technology that powers them.
Speaker 3:Today, we have Greg Naraki on the podcast for a really insightful crash course in digital marketing. Greg is the director of online marketing for Lin Chris, a hotel management company with over 30 hotels and a mix of brands and independents in both urban and resort destinations. We discuss his social media strategy, whether billboards have positive ROI, and how to find influencers that are the right fit for your unique hotel. Thanks so much for being on the podcast today, Greg. Really looking forward to speaking with you.
Speaker 3:To kick things off, I would love for you to introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about your role and your business.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I appreciate you having me. So my name is Greg Naraki. I work for Lindqress Hotel Corporation. We're based in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1:We're a hotel management company, and I'm the director of online marketing. So I oversee pretty much anything digital, anything from our websites to social media to some of the different technologies that we use across our portfolio of both independent and branded properties. And then my role also consists of some of those, I call them old fashioned marketing techniques. So depending on the hotel, we're even looking at print radio and all that kind of stuff. It's interesting, though, as kind of my career has progressed, how even, like I said, old fashioned stuff has some sort of technology associated with it.
Speaker 1:So I think everything is connected nowadays.
Speaker 3:So from your perspective, what would you consider the most critical piece of technology that you use in your role?
Speaker 1:I would say, you know, I think a lot about how I've been in this position coming up on five years. I've been with Lencris for eleven. And I think even thinking back three or four years ago, it's pretty incredible how much technology has evolved. And I would say the most critical pieces of technology for us are the ones where that allow us to communicate directly with the guests. Of course, websites are important.
Speaker 1:Of course, our booking engines are important. Channel managers are important. All of those things. But really, whatever we can do that opens up that line of communication with the guests where they're communicating directly with us. And though they're using technology, they're actually communicating with actual humans.
Speaker 1:So two for us that have been really important have been the use of SMS technology. We use Canary Technologies for that. And email technology, which we use a company called Ascent360. But both of those have been pretty instrumental for us.
Speaker 3:Could you walk me through your guest journey from someone lands on your website all the way through check-in or maybe through checkout and post booking? What does that communication flow look like?
Speaker 1:We have a great guest journey in place. But one thing that I definitely wanna highlight is our guest journey constantly evolves. And though we kinda have something set up and we have it in place, we're constantly looking at what are the ways that we can improve that. What are the things that are missing from that guest journey? So I almost think that our guest journey, the way that we set it up, starts at the end.
Speaker 1:And by the end, I mean that guest feedback, those surveys, those comments, those online reviews. And we kind of start from there, and then that's what makes us reevaluate and say, okay, how can we better communicate with our guests throughout that initial contact on the website and all the way to the end? Right now, of course, we start with our basic website into a booking engine confirmation email. But where it really kicks into high gear is starting about thirty days out, where our email marketing kind of kicks in and our emails will go out welcoming the guests and kind of preparing them for their stay with us, whether that's going to be restaurant reservations, whether that's going to be spa appointments. We are also trying to really narrow down.
Speaker 1:At some of our properties, we use technology through Flip two where we're able to send targeted emails based on that guest type. Are they a couple? Are they a family? Is it just a solo traveler? Where it really kicks into high gear is starting anywhere from forty eight hours to seventy two hours prior to arrival.
Speaker 1:That's when our text relationship opens with the guests where they get a message welcoming them. And offering them to start the check-in process even two or three days prior to check-in. What I love about that is we acknowledge right from the beginning like hey. You can communicate with us now through text messages. One thing you mentioned was the hospitality of it.
Speaker 1:We're a hospitality company and as much as times are changing and generations are changing and they're expecting this technology, the one thing we never wanna lose is that personal hospitality touch. So when that text goes out and we're communicating with the guests to let them know, hey, we're excited for your arrival. Here's some things that you can do to get ready. Also, how can we assist you? Reply to this message.
Speaker 1:And it starts that conversation with them. So they'll get a series of texts reminding them of check-in. They can start that process. They can add on any upsells, amenities, things like that to their rooms. And then once they check-in, that guest journey continues, checking in.
Speaker 1:How is your room going? And because we've opened up that line of communication, it allows the guest to text the front desk if they have a question, if they need towels brought to their room. And then subsequently, that keeps going even after checkout, offering some sort of bounce back offer, offering some sort of incentive to get them to come back and stay with us. And we do that both through text and through email. So it really is a full journey that we're kind of holding that guest's hand as we go along.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you for walking me through that. It sounds very comprehensive. Like, you've thought of all these various touch points throughout the journey where it makes sense to connect with the guest. I am curious on SMS. What do you see in terms of adoption?
Speaker 3:Like, do you find most guests are are interacting with you via text, or is it a small percentage?
Speaker 1:I would say, you know, we based on some of our reports, and it varies based on the hotel, anywhere from 50 up to upwards of 80% of our guests are actually using that text communication with us. It is really big for us and it's interesting when you see kind of. When you look at our portfolio of hotels- and their locations we have everything from. Beachfront properties to city center convention hotels. And really the adoption of this technology by the guests it really depends on who's staying at that hotel.
Speaker 1:I have one hotel on Cape Cod where- the clientele tends to skew a little bit older. So we'll see a lower adoption rate there not anything like super low but then we have those guests where again city center. You know business convention style hotels where it's exponentially higher so it really does definitely depends on the hotel and- to the point that I made earlier where I was saying that we're constantly adapting and changing that that guest journey, even the words and messaging that we use changes depending on the hotel because we'll say, you know what? For this hotel, we feel like we can get better engagement if we phrase it phrase these messages this way as opposed to how we originally had it. So we're always changing things like that.
Speaker 3:Are you using SMS and WhatsApp or purely SMS?
Speaker 1:Just SMS. We haven't jumped into WhatsApp yet, but I think we see that actually a lot of the European travelers specifically are looking for WhatsApp usage. Based on our destinations, we don't get as many European travelers traveling over to where we're located.
Speaker 3:Thinking about email then, what's that handoff like? Do guests typically reply to your email, or do they text you? Or, like, could they do both and someone will get back to them?
Speaker 1:They can do both. And the email thing has actually been really interesting to me. So the Sent three sixty provider that we're using for our email marketing and guest journey It started out really as email marketing for us that we're doing with them, where we're really focusing on getting out those marketing messages to our previous guests and upcoming guests, whatever, you know, types of messaging that we need to get out there. And when I started really jumping into email marketing, it was amazing to me to see how many people reply to those marketing emails. And I didn't think, because I would never be the type of person that would ever reply to a marketing email, but it's pretty incredible how many people do.
Speaker 1:And again, I think that speaks to demographics. I think that speaks to the types of hotels. It doesn't happen at every property, but there's certainly properties that we see where people will reply to that email and say, I see that you have this offer, that you're offering these add ons, that this is a new experience that you're offering. And they reply to the email to get more information about it.
Speaker 3:And then what happens after the guest responds? Does a human reply, or are you using any sort of AI to help in drafting or triaging those responses?
Speaker 1:So right now, we still have that human touch, whether that's the hotel manager or, you know, a front desk manager or something along those lines. But that's where we're kind of trying to keep the hospitality in there. We wanna use technology as our partner, not as our leader. And so we're using it to that point, and then that's when the human interaction jumps in.
Speaker 3:How does Ascend three sixty plug into your PMS, if it does at all? And can it pull from your PMS or vice versa?
Speaker 1:It does. And that has been kind of a game changer for us because it allows us to be really targeted with our messaging. It allows us to target even down to ZIP code, even down to geographical area, state. It allows us to target our highest spending customers, but also our lowest spending customers. That's been a lot of fun, actually.
Speaker 1:I am admittedly a report geek. I love looking at reporting and manipulating data and, you know, seeing how we can use this data. And I'm working on something now where we want to acknowledge our top customers. Thank you so much for staying with us. You've been identified as one of our top 10 customers that stays with us.
Speaker 1:And that's been a lot of fun to see that and to figure out fun ways of rewarding those guests. But then also those guests that are our lowest spending customers. How can we entice you to come back and stay with us? And also targeted to geographical areas has been a lot of fun. And because it's pulling all of that data, whatever fields exist in the PMS, we're able to pull and target through those fields.
Speaker 1:And that's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:Just thinking higher level, are you communicating with guests who book through every channel in the same way? Like, would a guest who booked through Expedia or booking.com receive the same type of communication? And is there ever a situation where you don't have the guests' contact info, and how does that affect the guest journey?
Speaker 1:And that does happen. The nice thing is with OTAs, though they're using alias email addresses, we still have a window where we can communicate, and those numbers are being transferred over. So, yes, if somebody does book through an OTA, it does give them the opportunity to receive all of those same messages. However the one thing that I like about this is I can then isolate those OTA guests and send them separate messaging that says would you like to book direct next time and explain the benefits of booking direct so we're trying to convert those OTA guests into direct bookers.
Speaker 3:Well, we've talked quite a bit about email. I am curious to hear some of your strategies and best practices on the social side. Can you walk me through your high level social strategy? Which channels are you using? What's your main focus and messaging that you're trying to deliver?
Speaker 1:Social media and our social strategy in general has been very fluid, especially over this past year. Because I realized we have there's so much that we can promote. And one thing that I'll remind my teams is you can promote stuff, but you can't promote everything to everyone, everywhere, all at once. It's not possible. And it's not good practice to do that, to be quite honest.
Speaker 1:My focus on our social strategy is more so staying true to our brand. And like I mentioned, we have branded hotels, and we follow those brand guidelines. But one fun thing that we're trying to do is implement more of a branded strategy at our independent hotels and identify what their voice is and make sure that we're communicating on our independent social channels in those established brand voices for each hotel. And I did this by doing a vibe check. And I sent out this survey to all of my independent hotels.
Speaker 1:And I said, let's talk about your vibe. And I asked them questions. If your hotel went to a restaurant, what restaurant would it go to? If your hotel wore clothes, what type of clothes would it wear? If your hotel wore a cologne or a perfume, what would it smell like?
Speaker 1:And those are really random questions, but it helped us almost build this character for our hotels. And that's the strategy that we went into social media with, to make sure that when we are posting, that we're speaking in that voice that we have created for our property. That also shows up in other elements of the hotel, whether it's the scent of the lobby and things like that, the retail products that we offer. So there's a lot more that's connected to it. But really, it starts on social.
Speaker 1:The interesting thing that we're seeing is, especially with social now being connected to Google Business Profiles, is that the number of non followers that we have coming onto our social channels and then subsequently clicking through to our websites is more so than I ever imagined. And some of our properties, our organic posts are seeing anywhere from 85% and above of people viewing those posts are non followers. And so I I tell my hotels, don't get discouraged when the likes and the comments and the shares aren't super high. Your message is being seen. It's just that people aren't following.
Speaker 1:That brings up kind of this other strategy of what can we do to stay more engaging with our guests to get them to follow us. That's a whole other conversation. But through organic and especially paid, paid has really been a huge strategy for us, putting out paid ads and really being specific with what we target. There's this meme that's out there that shows a bunch of ping pong balls falling down the stairs, and there's a single cup at the bottom. And, of course, when you release a thousand ping pong balls, only one or two are gonna go in the cup.
Speaker 1:And the caption on that is this is what happens when you try to market to everyone. And that really sticks in me. Every time I'm doing a paid ad on social, that really sticks with me. Like, what can I do to make this targeted? I can put an ad out there showing weddings.
Speaker 1:But if I'm not targeting the right people, am I targeting people who are recently engaged? When I'm doing any sort of hotel advertising, am I targeting people that have an intent to travel and not just, you know, everyone in this specific target market? Are they in that target market, and do they have an intent to travel? So utilizing those specific detailed targeting features within Meta, really Facebook and Instagram are the focus for our company, is really what is driving my strategy behind my paid social media.
Speaker 3:Are you doing any influencer marketing?
Speaker 1:Yes. Yeah. I'm a big fan of influencer marketing. And I put a little asterisk next to that, and I say this to my teams all the time, the right type of influencer marketing. We get requests for influencers, content creators, things like that to stay with us at pretty much every one of our properties.
Speaker 1:And I love having them. And I love finding the right person to stay with us who just gets it, who gets what our brand or brands are. And I always give this one example to my teams where we had a hotel once where an influencer contacted us. It was one of those where I was like, I think they're just kinda looking for a free stay, but let's kinda see what their content is. And their content really focused on fitness and healthy lifestyle and things like And that's great.
Speaker 1:However, I knew the hotel that they were staying at didn't have this amazing gym. They had a gym on-site, but it wasn't something that was, like, the greatest thing. And I said, you know what? This isn't gonna be really a good fit for us. Conversely, I have a resort, very family friendly resort with a water park on-site.
Speaker 1:And I had this kind of mom type influencer who her content really focuses on her kids and experiences and things like that and brought her in to do some content with us focusing on family friendly stays. And she knocked it out of the park. So I like to find the right ones for us. Another fun example was we have that same resort where a person who contacted us and their whole platform is based on finding the best gluten free items. And I looked at the restaurant menu, and I was like, wow, It's got a lot of gluten here.
Speaker 1:Though there's gluten free items, I don't know if this is necessarily the best. So, again, that wasn't really the best fit. So I think that we've kind of learned as a company what the best way to handle those inquiries are because I'd love to have everyone stay there. But, again, I love influencer marketing as long as we're doing it right by our brand.
Speaker 3:I also wanted to touch on digital in general. So we talk through email, social. Curious to learn what you're doing on, I guess, the more traditional marketing side if you're doing Google Ads, other pay per click channels.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's funny to hear websites and digital kind of being lumped in with traditional marketing because that's kind of what it is now. It's kind of you have to have it, but it's kind of just part of what we do every day. So, thankfully, with our branded properties, we have the backing of the brand. But, again, 50% of our portfolio is independent.
Speaker 1:We work with one company for all of our independent websites, Milestone Internet, And they're amazing. They're truly the best of the best. But we do all of our paid media through them. So Google Ads and retargeting and things like that, all through Milestone. And again, I talk about partnerships.
Speaker 1:Would say that, really, we look at them as the original partner in our business and what we base all of our other decisions on if we're gonna work with somebody like her. Are they gonna work with us the same way that Milestone does? So, yeah, they handle all of our paid media. And what I love about it is it's very collaborative. Like, here's the keywords we're gonna target, and I can kinda jump in and say, listen.
Speaker 1:I really wanna target these keywords. And so they've been instrumental with that. And, subsequently, they also do a lot of retargeting for us, cart abandonment, site abandonment, all of those things where we try to follow people, you know, as they try to leave our website or abandon their booking, and what we can do to get them back, which we've had amazing success with. And then again, as as things have gone on and we've looked to even more traditional marketing methods, But how can we tie that digital component, that trackable component into it? So look at newspaper advertising.
Speaker 1:We have a resort where we realized that based on the destination that we were in, we were gonna have to do a little bit of newspaper advertising. But how can we track that? That's where, of course, those QR codes come into place. How many scans are we getting that are leading people to our menu? We have a property where and I never thought this would be ever something that came across my desk where we did billboard marketing.
Speaker 1:We're continuing to do billboard marketing. And I never thought I would learn so much about billboards. It was something that I had never done before. And here I was learning all about how billboard advertising works and the pricing. And that was incredibly interesting.
Speaker 1:And I kept saying, how am I gonna track this? How can I track this? And then I realized we have that ability to track this based on or to an extent, our Google Analytics. So we were really strategic with where we placed billboards. You know, this resort located on Cape Cod, huge drive market from, obviously, the New England area, from the New York area, the tri state down into Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Speaker 1:And what I can do is I can isolate in my Google Analytics when that billboard was live. And did I see an uptick in visits to our direct website? Because that's the focus from those particular areas. And we did see that, which was pretty cool to see, So much so that we're considering it again for next year. And I didn't think that would be the case.
Speaker 1:But that was kind of a really neat way, I think, of taking something old and bringing it into this century and saying, like, yes, we can track this in some way. Can't necessarily track the revenue from it, but we can see, oh, there was an uptick coming in during those four weeks from the state of New Jersey. So we can only assume that and it was direct because we know that they were typing specifically our URL in. So we know that that had some sort of impact on us.
Speaker 3:I'm curious to talk about the future a little bit. I'm curious if there's a vendor or a product on the market that is on your wish list? Like something you've seen that you think is really cool and innovative, haven't implemented it yet, but maybe it's something on your roadmap for 2026.
Speaker 1:So what really is on our roadmap for 2026 and beyond is we know that a lot of these vendors work together. Here and there, we've kind of pieced them together. So for example, I'll use Canary and Stay In Touch. We're using Canary as the conduit for Stay In Touch to start the pre check-in and upsell process with our guests. So we know that that exists.
Speaker 1:But how can we take it one step further? How can we get email marketing to work in conjunction? So that's really our plan. And we, at Linkris have this goal. Someday we would love to develop our own brand.
Speaker 1:And what can we do with the people that we have existing to develop a brand and eventually have them all work together from our website to our booking engine to our communication skills to the locks on the doors. Literally, how can we get every vendor to work together? And that's kind of on our wish list. And it's happening, you know, with OpenAPI and things like that, where we're really starting to see that cohesion start to take place. And we've already started conversations with our existing vendors to say like, hey, how can we make this work?
Speaker 1:But that's what's on my roadmap, is building ourselves as a brand and using this technology all at once. And I think that's what's gonna make us successful as we continue to move on. We look at COVID as kind of there is I feel like in the hotel world, there was before COVID and after COVID. And if you're trying to run a hotel the same way that you did in 2019, you're not going to be successful. And not saying that we still need to have plexiglass up and things like that, but we need to offer that seamless technology experience for our guests, whether they're staying at a branded property that has the backing of a multinational brand or a small independent boutique hotel located on Cape Cod.
Speaker 1:You need to have the same experience at both. And so utilizing our vendors to work together is going to be key in that.
Speaker 3:Before we wrap up, question that is always a favorite. I'm curious if there is something you believe about technology in the hotel space that your peers or competitors might disagree with.
Speaker 1:I don't think that using technology takes away from hospitality. I think it only enhances it. And I also think that the definition of hospitality is changing as we continue to evolve, and that the definition of hospitality is also going to be different depending on who uses it. And upcoming generations' version of hospitality is gonna be different than the past twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years. So the use of technology, and specifically the use of AI, is not going to take away from hospitality.
Speaker 1:It's important that we use it responsibly. It's important that we use it to stay true to our brand. And I just think it's important that there's always a human touch to it, but I don't think it takes away from hospitality. I think it does nothing but enhance it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. For sure. I agree completely. Thank you so much for sharing, and it was really great having you. I loved our conversation, and I wish you all the best for the future.
Speaker 1:Likewise. Thank you.
Speaker 2:That's all for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Hotel Tech Insider produced by hotel tech report dot com. Our goal with this podcast is to show you how the best in the business are leveraging technology to grow their properties and outperform the concept by using innovative digital tools and strategies. I encourage all of our listeners to go try at least one of these strategies or tools that you learned from today's episode. Successful digital transformation is all about consistent small experiments over a long period of time, so don't wait until tomorrow to try something new.
Speaker 2:Do you know a hotelier who would be great to feature on this show, or do you think that your story would bring a lot of value to our audience? Reach out to me directly on LinkedIn by searching for Jordan Hollander. For more episodes like this, follow Hotel Tech Insider on all major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.