Your lodge visitor database isn’t going to let you know when it’s sick. However your advertising and marketing communications will present it. Whilst you received’t have the ability to take the literal temperature of your database, however there are a number of indicators and business benchmarks that may reveal the well being of your database and whether or not it’s spiking a fever.
Database well being is vital to the success of your lodge’s enterprise. It’s why 75% of organizations imagine information administration is vital to their digital transformation efforts. The way you handle your information impacts the way you talk to friends within the digital world and in-person.
In our 2024 Hospitality Benchmark Report, we took an in depth take a look at our clients’ lodge databases — together with xxx million visitor data — to deliver you insights that will help you perceive how your lodge stacks up subsequent to your friends. Learn on for key takeaways on database well being.
What you will notice right here
What’s database well being?
In brief, database well being describes the accuracy of your buyer information and the way effectively that information is being utilized in communication with clients. Database well being impacts advertising and marketing campaigns, reserving calls with reservation brokers, and even in-person interactions with friends at your lodge’s entrance desk.
Enhancing the standard of your information and the way it’s collected is step one in direction of making a actuality the place you may have the precise info precisely while you want it to make each visitor interplay private and significant.
Benchmarks for a wholesome database
If you happen to’re seeking to perceive whether or not you may have a wholesome database, we’ve compiled world and regional benchmarks for you in our 2024 Hospitality Benchmark Report.
Listed below are some regional benchmarks North American hoteliers can use on the subject of their database well being. Taken with exploring different areas? APAC and EMEA, we’ve obtained you coated.
Measurable database progress
A rising database is an effective signal. It means you’re including visitor profiles, rising your buyer base, and creating a extra detailed understanding of your friends. Securing a visitor’s identify and e mail is important, however first-party information has opened up much more alternatives to collect information out of your friends — revealing their preferences, reserving habits, and different traits that enable you to construct a relationship with them.
2023 was an enormous 12 months for North American hoteliers and rising your databases.
Not solely did North American hoteliers have the very best improve in visitor data (29%), however additionally they surpassed the worldwide progress charge.
What’s extra vital than rising your database? Rising it with correct, high-quality visitor information. As a result of extra doesn’t at all times imply higher.
Correct profile information: emails and cellphone numbers
It’s Jane Doe’s birthday! You’ve got a customized e mail, full with a particular birthday promotion for a free evening and a reduction on room service all scheduled and able to go. Besides, Jane by no means obtained the e-mail on her birthday. Why? Jane’s profile listed an OTA e mail tackle.
That’s simply one of many many causes that legitimate e mail addresses and cellphone numbers are an important piece of a visitor’s profile. If e mail communication is your main channel for getting in contact with and advertising and marketing to your friends, or if you wish to ship particular promos over textual content, you’ll be able to’t afford to have lacking or incomplete visitor information.
In 2023, North American hoteliers met or surpassed world benchmarks for together with legitimate e mail addresses and cellphone numbers. 56% of their database data have been full with cellphone numbers — greater than another area measured.
If you happen to’re monitoring metrics like bounce charges or supply charges to your e mail campaigns, not solely take into account that your emails might be going to spam, however take into account that invalid e mail addresses might be in charge. In reality, your friends’ e mail addresses might be masked by OTAs.
It’s no shock that friends are utilizing OTAs to plan and ebook their journeys, so if friends beforehand booked through an OTA, their e mail tackle subject in your database may nonetheless harbor that OTA identify. Consequently, not solely are these friends ineligible to obtain emails out of your lodge, however you would have a number of profiles of the identical friends — some with and a few with out a masked OTA e mail. So how do you make sense of all of the various profiles to search out the visitor’s true identification? You want the precise know-how to establish and merge these profiles collectively.
Merged profile capabilities
NAM hoteliers merged 9% of their visitor profiles of their database in 2023. However what does that imply, and why does it matter?
As we all know, the crux of your database well being lies in your visitor profiles. So in case you have 3 completely different profiles for a similar individual, Jane Doe, as a result of she booked with an OTA twice and along with her actual e mail tackle as soon as, then you definately don’t have an correct visitor profile of Jane Doe.
However in case you have a Buyer Information Platform, there’s a strategy to repair that with identification decision. Merely put, identification decision includes merging and de-duping visitor information — combining comparable profile info and correcting the errors to reconfigure an correct visitor profile. So in case you have the precise database know-how to merge profile information, the extra correct your database will turn out to be.
Advantages of sustaining database well being
Like with any behavior, you should keep constant for long-term rewards. Tending to your database well being follows the identical precept.
Seamless segmentation and personalization
Once you handle your database, it takes care of you. Oftentimes, you might be working a number of campaigns without delay, so nailing segmentation for each marketing campaign can really affect what presents your friends make the most of.
For instance, with full, detailed, and correct visitor information, you’ll be able to create a phase for a summer time household trip marketing campaign, focusing on previous friends who’ve booked in July with no less than two children. Or create a “powder alert” for previous friends inside driving distance who’ve an curiosity in snow sports activities the second the climate forecast hits. In reality, our benchmark information exhibits that including three phase filters can result in 2.6x extra income per e mail recipient. And that’s solely attainable with a wholesome visitor database.
Sustainable visitor loyalty
You’re seeing a whole lot and hundreds of friends a day, every week, a month, they usually’re leaving information breadcrumbs all through their total visitor journey. A wholesome database ought to be continually ingesting new information factors and including them to your wealthy visitor profiles, in order that while you want it, all that info is true at your fingertips.
From reserving to check-out, a database ought to routinely acquire visitor info, in order that when a visitor leaves, you’ve obtained correct info to maintain that relationship alive. A wholesome database makes it straightforward to reference a visitor’s birthday or earlier keep expertise so you’ll be able to attain out, re-ignite that connection, and maintain them coming again for future stays. Company discover that stage of personalization and a spotlight.
Database well being is the muse of your visitor communication
Don’t ignore the indicators and signs of an unhealthy database. Database well being isn’t nearly gathering information — it displays the general efficiency of your visitor communication and the way you’re sustaining visitor connections after check-out.
If you wish to see in case your database well being meets business requirements, entry the 2024 Hospitality Benchmark Report to start out enhancing your database administration.
