The Modern Hotelier #149: How a CDP Helps Hotels Drive Direct Revenue | with Heather Knutson
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Steve Carran: So now we are joined by Heather Knutson, senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Ascent 360. Thank you for sitting down with us. Heather. How are you doing today?
Heather Knutson: Doing well. Thanks guys. Thanks for having me.
Steve Carran: Absolutely. So this is your first BITAC
Heather Knutson: very
Steve Carran: What are your first impressions? Almost midway through.
Heather Knutson: Are we halfway through already?
Almost? Yeah,
David Millili: like it. Yeah.
Heather Knutson: it's been great. The one-on-one time and all of the planning, it's very easy. Although I've been at Table four a lot, I'm not sure why, but although one-on-one meetings so far have been excellent and a great group of people here so far.
Steve Carran: absolutely.
Heather Knutson: So
Steve Carran: So can you tell us a little bit about what the difference is, kind of what Ascent 360 focuses on? What is the difference between A CRM and A CDP?
Heather Knutson: It's a funny question 'cause it, it's one of those things, and I'll actually admit something to you guys in this interview. I started five years ago working for Ascent 360. I had to look up what A CDP was and I oversee sales and marketing. So, okay, yes, I'm putting this in a podcast. And that that tells you something because I've been a marketer for over 25 years and I didn't know.
But in a nutshell, I think the best way to describe it is a CRM is a customer relationship management platform. Really great for B2B direct to consumer B2C, like hotels and resorts. A CDP is perfect. A customer data platform, And the difference is a customer data platform is taking all of the guest transactions.
It's a living, breathing platform that allows for hypers segmentation and automation and a lot of efficiencies. So CDP is a little newer, that's why I didn't know what it was. And there's a lot of hotels from my conversation so far, that still don't know. And the other thing I'll tell you is a lot of our clients, longtime clients, probably call us a CRM.  
Because we serve as much of A CRM purpose as a resort or hotel would need. You can look up your guests. You can see the last time they were there, how much they've spent.
Steve Carran: Very cool. I didn't know what a CDP was either, so you're making me feel better now. Now I learned something new.
David Millili: didn't either. And so what, so what do you consider, maybe just outside of the acronyms, what do you consider a Ascent 360?
Heather Knutson: true proven CDP customer data platform. We've been around for over 12 years. We were built for the ski industry 12 years ago, and the ski industry has really complex data, so we've dovetailed into all of hospitality and I consider us a proven, genuine, real cutting edge CDP. But like I said, some of our clients plug us into their financials and we're probably as much of a CRM as they need as well.
So to me, it's. Even better than a CM. Okay. Very cool.
Steve Carran: So I'm a hotelier. How do I, well, not actually, but hypothetically, um, how do I know whether I need a CRM or a CDP? 
Heather Knutson: I would say all hotels should be or will be using a CDP in the next five years. anybody who wants to truly understand their guests in a real way. and Talk to them in a personal way and make sure they come back year after year, should be looking at a CDP. It's gonna give you different layers of understanding by pulling in all data, not just your PMS, your property management system, but anything in the restaurant, the food and beverage systems, the point of sale there.
maybe there's a point of sale at a golf course. All those layers, it's gonna give you all those layers of understanding about your guests. So I would recommend CDP always, 
Steve Carran: yeah.
More holistic view of what your guests are doing, spending time and money on.
Heather Knutson: A 360 degree view, we, like to call it a golden record. 
David Millili: Awesome. That's great. And so. What are the biggest challenges that a hotels and resorts are facing around really just not only managing, but utilizing their customer data efficiently?
Heather Knutson: When we sit down, one of the things I see is just disparate systems where the, I gave you the example, the golf course. The golf course is operating totally independently from the front desk, from the spa, from the restaurant. So I have a really fancy lodge down the street from me and it, it's. It almost offends me if they don't know, Hey, we spent a lot of money at the spa, and why do you not know that I'm a local and we've brought different guests in there.
So it's getting all of those systems integrated into one central spot, which is what A CDP does, allowing you to create those golden records. And the beautiful part of A CDP is. We don't just de-dupe all of that data so you don't get too annoying emails from the same spot, but we enrich it as well with a bunch of aggregates to tell you more things about your guests.
So a basic aggregate would be, Heather's gonna be a female, right? And then there's fancier aggregates from there telling you more things. But I'll start with the basic for that question.
Sure. 
Steve Carran: so one thing we talk about a lot on the podcast, and it's been a big topic of discussion here, is personalization. How can hotels use the data from these different systems to create a more personalized guest experience? 
Heather Knutson: so yeah, perfect question and using all of that, in my example of Heather, it's is much of using that token and the dynamic piece of pulling that in and personalizing to me so that if I get an email, my name is spelled correctly. I have a spa that I follow in your neck of the woods that sends me three emails.
'cause they've got my name, they've got my name spelled incorrectly, and then they've got my maiden name right. It's a high end spa, so it doesn't give a good brand impression. So really, if you're using a, a guest data platform, a customer data platform, you're cleansing that. You're bringing that in and you're taking that simple step to make sure it's addressed to me, to Heather in that case.
Or if I'm traveling with my husband to Heather and John. Um, and that's the segmentation that we allow within the CDP. 
David Millili: All right, so what are some examples of dynamic automated campaigns that hotels should be using to help drive more revenue?
Heather Knutson: A very basic example would be a pre-arrival campaign. So using that data coming in from your property management system to know who's checking in, right? And these can automatically be running. So it's personalized to me. Heather's checking in in seven days. So welcome and getting me to think about being excited and booking more stuff.
we do a lot of really complicated, we take different layers of data for passes, whether it's a waterpark, a ski resort, a golf course, and you can look and see who's traveling with the family, and maybe you've got different. Types of segmented emails going out where the family image looks different to Heather 'cause she's traveling with her family versus to Heather when she's traveling for business.
So those are some, some dynamic. Uh, you can also do some dynamic calls to action depending on past purchases or, oh, hey, looks like you, like the time massage. You haven't booked that yet. So reminding so some upsells and getting me excited for that stay and spending more money each time I arrive. Sure. 
David Millili: Can you share some examples of a hotel or resort that successfully are leveraging A CDP, specifically Ascent 360 and how they're improving the guest experience?
Heather Knutson: I'm thinking of one in particular. It's um, it's a high-end resort that has both a ski resort, a golf course, um, several restaurants, a very, very fancy spa. And in that case, without sharing the name, in this particular case, we're ingesting data from 16 different source systems. So you can imagine the complexity that you get in A CDP versus just A CRM, and that's that we're breaking down all those data silos, silos, pulling that in, and then feeding that all in.
So you can see who's a skier, who's a skier, and a golfer who travels with their husband and goes to the spa. How much do you spend? And those preferences, so. That's great. That's a long time client. That is a more complex example. A lot of examples are probably pulling in 2, 3, 4 sources where you're looking at the food and beverage, the point of sale, and the PMS.
Steve Carran: One thing we talk about a lot is staffing shortages. One way we can help with that is automation. So how can automation help hotels improve the guest experience?
Heather Knutson: That came up in one of my questions here at BITAC today. So I think that's a real, just everybody is understaffed with resources, and so what I'm hearing is a lot of, because the systems don't talk to each other, they're exporting data out and they're like, oh my gosh, I've got this sea of contacts. I don't know how to create these segments.
So they're just like, I just don't email at all, or I send everybody the same email, but they also have to actually make a request from the IT department to get. The list of guests and imagine the time that it takes. Then you go request and, okay, now time has passed and maybe you've already missed your opportunity to market.
So the CDP is a living, breathing system where you can have the audiences built, these segments, and then all of the emails are in there with the dynamic, dynamic images, and they're automatically set to go out. So the pre-arrival is gonna go out seven days before I arrive, three days before I arrive if I haven't booked a massage.
So. You're not manually creating emails, it's automatically doing that for you. And the same goes for SMS text, it's an omnichannel platform, so it's got email built in, it's got M-M-S-S-M-S built in, and we even have some hotels that use audiences and retarget what the website pixel, and even some old fashioned direct mail being done as well.
Cool.
David Millili: That's great. And so right along that train of thought, what are some innovative ways hotels are using customer debt or find their marketing strategies? 
Heather Knutson: Retargeting is one, um, that I can think of. So with these audiences built, you can take your best, your best audience and take that segment and then retarget and get some lookalikes, um, on meta on social. So that's a way to grow. I gave you a very basic example with pre-arrival is and upsells. One of the examples I like is a lot of independent hotels do weddings, right?
But how many look at. Who's attending the wedding, and if they've got vacancy, why not do a campaign that suggests you make it a staycation and you're in, you're, you're having fun, but stay and spend a few more days. Right? And if you personally ask me to do that, maybe I consider it, and why not? So those are more sophisticated
David Millili: That makes sense.
Steve Carran: with Belize happening right now. Like that's a perfect example when you can do that, you know, stay a little longer, you're own business, stay a little longer and enjoy yourself. Right. So I'm really interested in this because you know, we talk to a lot of, a lot more folks on the independent side.
So how can smaller boutique hotels compete with these larger chains when it comes to data-driven guest experiences?
Heather Knutson: If you're doing a personal campaign, you're inspiring your guests to come back, and they're gonna be inspired to book directly back with you if you treat them. That's my opinion. Yeah. If, if you, um, really let them know, Hey Steve, I saw that you came two years for the fall colors up in Lake Placid. You haven't booked yet.
It's, I may be more inspired to book directly even though, maybe it even costs a little bit more, but I know you're going to give me an extra benefit when I check in, and that little extra touch means something to me. Mm-hmm. So it's those small gestures.
Steve Carran: Absolutely.
David Millili: And if you can exp expand a little bit more on how A CDP is playing an increasing role in direct bookings and, and helping hotels get away from the, the reliance on OTAs
Heather Knutson: So one of the things that, it's a strategy we're testing is just asking some basic questions. Um, OTAs will probably be part of the equation, but you can get, you can unmask some of that and ask some basic questions. You can train your front desk to get yes. Some of the information that doesn't always work perfectly.
but asking them some basic questions like, do you prefer the first floor? Or, and if you can get them to respond directly, you can capture that email. you can also incentivize them to book direct the next time. So if you see that they came in on OTA, great, you enjoyed your stay, then maybe next time I'm gonna give you an incentive or a discount at the spa.
So little things like that. And we have a client success team that works with all of our hotels and resorts, and they're always looking at those strategies and how to optimize all the campaigns running in the CDP. So. That's another thing we like to take pride in, is we're not just gonna set you up and you're off to the races, but we're gonna ensure your success.
Steve Carran: You bet. So one thing we've talked about is data here, how important it is to ai, how important it is to personalization, but how can hotels use that data to strengthen loyalty programs and retain those high value guests?
Heather Knutson: We work with some resorts and hotels who use a loyalty program as well, so you can create segments to your loyalty guests and give them extra perks as well. we've actually had some resorts and hotels replace their program with the CDP. If you're treated in a more special way, In my opinion, who wants to track points anymore?
I'd rather have you just welcome me Personally, and maybe give me a glass of champagne at the front desk if I'm a high value guest versus trying to get my loyalty number on my phone and remember what that is. And, so in some cases we can compliment it, create those segments. And in other cases we actually do that in lieu of a loyalty program.
Steve Carran: Very 
David Millili: What metrics should hotels and resorts be tracking to maximize the guest lifetime value?
Heather Knutson: So I'll, I'll go into one and that comes with the Ascend 360 algorithm. So I gave you the basic, we have 50 aggregates. Heather is a female, is a basic aggregate. So one that is more sophisticated is RFM score. So recency, frequency monetary. We assign every guest in your CDPA score based on when's the last time they've been there, how recently have they been there, how.
Frequently, do they go to your hotel? How much do they spend? And it's based on Quintiles one through five. So 5, 5, 5 would be a high value guest, and you should absolutely be tracking that because probably they're spending 80% of the sales and you should be making sure if they haven't been there in two years that you see why they're labs.
But that's probably a good example of a more sophisticated item to track. Okay, great.
Steve Carran: That's great. Well, Heather, we appreciate you sitting down. On with us. Taking time outta your event, can you tell anybody who's listening how to get a hold of you, how to learn about Ascent 360.
Heather Knutson: Well, that sounds good, Heather Knutson, and you can email me personally, h knutson@ascentthreesixty.com.
We'd love to talk to all hotels, resorts, anybody in hospitality, and thanks for your time as well. 
David Millili: Thank you.
Steve Carran: Thank you so much