The fact that you are reading this article means that you want to develop your business within the hotel industry, Congratulations!
This is your guide to formulate your first approach in order to achieve best results whilst taking care of every detail and watching out for common mistakes.
Many articles and books give advice on the perfect approach, but there are no strict rules that work across industry sectors, for diverse organisations and customers.
This article, however, aims to provide a guideline to optimise your course of action and win considerably more new clients. On top of that, we are going to show you how TOPHOTELPROJECTS can help you to structure the process without getting lost in endless research.
What is a “cold call” and how is it defined?
Who is not keen on winning new clients and keeping them committed to the company to stimulate growth? As soon as your circle of existing contacts is exploited, new circles of potentials customers are waiting to be explored.
Approaching completely new contacts for the first time is certainly challenging, as they have to be convinced of your products and services without any previous touch point. A suitable comparison is speeddating: there is limited time for a good first impression. Consequently, it’s up to you to go all out for a fruitful future business relationship.
Why is it important to acquire new business?
New clients are the only way to grow your business. That’s the simple answer. However, quality beats quantity. So don’t send out mass mailings to your whole contact list as they will seem superficial and, in the worst case, even restrain future business. Find out who is a potential prospect first it will be worth the effort. If timing, quality and offer meet your client’s expectations, you can be virtually certain to seal the deal.
Some of the above mentioned points may seem trivial. However, these seemingly obvious details are often underestimated, but matter the most. We’ve seen it all in the field of customer acquisition! Don’t waste time to do it right!
Preparatory work:
A proper preparation is essential for good results, so aim to generate returning customers from your first encounter. To ensure this, start documenting your communication in order to nourish and deepen a relationship from that point onwards.
Keep an overview
Keep track of each client contact, note down who answered and who was interested. Also keep track of who did not even respond to the tenth “follow up email”. A simple excel tool will be enough to start with.
The database provided by www.tophotelprojects.com is a very helpful tool, providing not only the addresses of all current hotel projects, but also details such as number of rooms, stage of construction, classification, as well as all involved partner companies.
You can add notes to each established project, including your current status of communication. Feel free to share these notes with your team within the database.
Where do you find suitable clients?
If your research starts from scratch, Google can be of good assistance if you enter the right search items. Specifically in the hotel sector, use our extensive database to locate potential clients such as architects, interior designers and other relevant contacts.
Furthermore, good places to search for information may be business networks like LinkedIn or Xing, as well as traderelated news pages or blogs. Of course events and trade fairs have proven helpful as they allow for personal encounters which you can later refer to and build on.
Get to know your customers
This may seem obvious at first sight and it certainly may be. However, it is crucial to pay special attention to certain points. If you have previously gathered information on your future customers, you will know which contact will respond to which trigger at which time and in which tonality. As a result, the chance of an answer will rise exponentially.
Relevance of clients
If you sell largescale kitchens, selfcatering apartments will not be your first choice. So classify your list according to which hotels or hotel chains have high and low potential.
Timing of approach
Investigate the business stage of your potential client. If you market chairs, hotel buildings which are still in the planning process or under construction, or which received bad reviews for their seating, are more likely to require your product than newly opened hotels which are fully equipped. Wait for a better timing in that case. Our database provides a structure of different building stages ranging from ”vision”, ”preplanning”, ”planning” to ”under construction” and ”preopening”. This way you can easily assess the right timing for your approach.
How occupied are your contact persons?
A subdivision into three levels of occupation is absolutely sufficient (e.g. ”very occupied”, ”occupied” and ”less occupied”). This structure eases the phrasing and length of your first customer approach. ”Big players” and highly soughtafter decisionmakers usually receive several dozens of emails per day and are expected to react.
As everybody can imagine, they will neither feel the need nor have the time to read through longwinded superficialities. Your email will end up in the trash bin, like 99% of all sales emails, if it does not get to the point. A nice, long email with friendly words will rather please the owner of a small pension or family hotel in the mountains. He will be happier about a personal touch than a short information / sales email.
Your sales email needs to propose a clear value
It takes a benefit or the promise to solve one of his problems to win a new customer. Elaborate which specific value your product or service has to offer that your counterpart might desire or miss. The quicker a positive beforeafter effect is created the better! Your offer has to transfer your client from a negative (sad, seeking, overextended, etc.) to a positive state of mind (happy, satisfied, balanced etc.). Communicate this clearly in your email.
If your product is chairs and research has shown that the hotel you approach has too few or too many damaged chairs, relate to it. Review platforms for hotels usually provide enough information.
The beforeafter situation of the hotel manager would be:
- Before: broken chairs, shame, missing customers.
- After: new, classy chairs, pride, satisfied customers.
So, do your research properly and watch out how simple measures can create a positive before-after-effect.
Relate to common interests
There is nothing better than a common ground to start from. Maybe you have visited the same trade fair, you share a hobby, you know your counterpart through a common friend or you have followed the project’s development in our database.
Find something to quickly break the ice! The topic does not have to be the best friend " it can be a shared acquaintance, an incidental occurrence or the project. Just use it as a common ground to start your email.
What interests your potential new client?
Should you, nevertheless, not find a common ground, consider what the client might like. What would you respond to in his position? Look at the situation from his point of view.
Dealing with a familyrun accommodation in the Alps, the perfect topic could be winter sports or wooden chairs from the region. Research properly and go into depth. The more you know, the more accessible and familiar does the customer approach feel later.
The email
You are well prepared, you have selected potential customers and have collected plenty of information about them. It’s time to write the email. The fine art of approaching your prospect is to make it feel warm and familiar to provoke a positive reaction and, on top of that, a desire to establish a longterm collaboration.
Customise each email
There is nothing worse than generalised salutations such as ”Dear madam or sir”, ”Hello” or ”Hi”. You want to be heard and you desire to build a business relationship. Prove to your contact that you have done your homework. Your future client deserves to be addressed by name. It is wise, however, to find out who actually receives the email you send. In the first place, this will not be the decisionmaker, but an assistant or employee. Consider this in your approach.
Get to the point
Whether your contact persons are busy or bored, in both cases they will not like to fight their way through a pile of words to make sense of it. So get to the point " if you intend to sell chairs, write it down clearly and without ambiguity.
Be honest and straight with your intentions
Beating around the bush seems shady and unprofessional. If you contact someone in charge of furnishing a hotel, he needs to understand that you want to sell chairs to him. Avoid unnecessary sentences and fillers that blur your matter.
Use references
Your former customers are satisfied? Share this! New customers will do their research, too. Facilitate their work and provide a selection of highquality references and satisfied clients. Ideally they will confirm your excellent performance.
Arouse interest in your roundoff
The roundoff and signature are the last two chances to arouse interest with your email. Use this and provide a link to your homepage for further information or refer to clients with comparable problems which you were able to solve.
The ideal subject line
Defining the subject line only at this point is due to the mistake that most people write it before the actual email is composed. In fact, however, the subject line builds on the email and is supposed to summarise it shortly and catchy.
The ideal subject line should:
- create attention
- be real and straight, no marketing or highend language
- put the content in a nutshell
It is a widespread theory that the subject line is meant to awaken curiosity and provoke the reader to click further. However, this is not the case with serious B2B content. Transparency and a direct approach are usually appreciated and will avoid your email being classified as spam, a virus or similar by the receiver.
No go’s
Before finally getting started, let’s define a few no go’s:
Mass mailing or wrong name
Avoid mass mailings or mailings which seem like one. How? Customise each email by approaching your contact person by name and relating to individual details. Always prevent yourself from simply changing the name. It may happen far too quickly that a wrong name or salutation is entered. There’s nothing worse than receiving an email which is addressed to someone else, no matter how appealing the content is. Taking the addresses from our database counteracts mass mailings because they are simply not possible. In other cases, make sure to doublecheck if all relevant details have been adapted.
No attachments
Do not attach files! Apart from the fact that it is irritating to receive emails of large size, they will most probably end up as spam. If pictures say more than words or data files promise additional information, do not attach them but provide links. Thus your client is able to decide if and when he wants to access the information. Normally an email should not contain more than three links to make sure not to overburden the recipient or challenge the spam filter.
No experiments with format
Do not try to highlight parts of your email with different font size and style. An email is supposed to be formatted consistently in readable font and without too much variation of letter size. Of course headings can be accentuated within the text.
Focus on the client
Introducing oneself too extensively and trying to convince the client with a load of references are frequent mistakes. Instead, focus on the most important facts, keep it short and/or refer to a link for more information. During a speeddating nobody likes to constantly listen to his opposite talking. So switch to your counterpart quickly. Why do you address him, what do you have in common, how will he be able to benefit from you?
Do not beg
This might be a drastic way to put it, but don’t leave the impression to be a cadger. Focus your email on how you are able to help your client, not how he is supposed to help you by buying your products or services.
“Keep it real”
Do not pretend. If your contact has recently visited an exhibition and you pretend you have been there as well, this can easily go wrong. Instead, write that you had made plans to go there, but did not make it. Then ask about your client’s onsite experience to create a common ground.
Do not impose too much on your contact
Knocking on your potential customer’s door unquestioned, you have to make sure not to attack him. Videos, images and such may be helpful (as a link), but nobody wants to struggle through longlasting videos and sample images from the start before being able to reply. Keep it short and always provide a link for more detail.
Do not be shy
If you beat around the bush and do not state clearly why exactly this person receives your email, you will seem unprofessional and submissive. Get to the point " who are you, why do you contact him and how will you help this client?
Typos
Although it is not nice, a typo will slip in once in a while. Still, try to avoid emails with many spelling mistakes as they seem shady and reveal that you have not invested much thought and effort. Check your email, switch to another task, then control content again. To be sure, ask a second pair of eyes to doublecheck the text, or print it and read it from paper. This method will allow you to look at the text from a certain distance.
Methode of approach
A possible method of your initial customer approach by email can be the following:
- Write an introduction (precise and to the point)
- Describe your matter
- Refer to link(s) for further information and request to contact you
- Doublecheck your email and shorten 50% (or even up to 80% at the beginning)
- Reread your email again and make small adaptations
- Format the text
- Review the flow of content
- Change details again, if necessary
- Check the correct personal details (name, title, salutation…)
- Write the subject line
- Switch to another task to create distance to the text
- Read it one last time
- Send the email and start with the next one
Analysis and evaluation
As much focus we put on preparation, as much time do we need to invest in analysis and evaluation.
It is absolutely great if an addressee replies to the first email! Rank all emails according to levels of interest " ”not interested”, ”currently not interested” and ”interested”. The second group can be targeted again at a later stage with a reference to your first email. The third group which showed interest is clearly the one to focus your attention on and become active. Generally speaking, always nourish and develop your contacts in a sustainable way.
Follow up
Many companies often do not answer immediately. Your email have potentially been overlooked, or opened but not answered due to undefined reasons. Two or three follow up mailings are common to determine finally if there is no interest.
Follow up mailings are usually shorter than the original email. On the one hand they are supposed to serve as a reminder, on the other hand they are meant to provide new information, e.g. on a new client or project of yours. Keep your contact entertained.
The follow up email is supposed to:
- be shorter than the original
- relate to the original email
- provide new information or stimulation.
The more emails you write, the more you will get a feeling for how and when to approach interested clients. Stay in touch with your new contacts, even if they have not become customers yet. Once a connection is made, there is always a foundation to build on at a later stage. Extend your relationship to other channels such as LinkedIn or Twitter. The LinkedIn group of TOPHOTELPROJECTS comprises 20.000 members and constantly provides updated information on events and happenings in the hotel sector. Use this source and do not hesitate to get recommended by good contacts.
Conclusion:
Each customer acquisition has to be planned precisely in order to find and keep the new client. A proper documentation of all addresses is essential, including a thorough research. Only then the time has come to write your customised email short and to the point.
A common ground will help to make the first approach feel more familiar. Pay attention to the correct salutation and name and avoid to attach files instead use links to add further information. Always doublecheck the format and content for spelling and grammar before your finalise with a perfect subject heading!
As soon as your sales email has been sent out, ensure a proper documentation. Define who you intend to target again in three to four days, who you want to keep on the list for later and who is already interested after the first email. Keep records on everything to ensure you are prepared for progress.
You will find that a good initial customer approach is subject to intense preparation, time and effort. Above listed items are the perfect check list to effectively find and keep new clients!
Good luck!
TOPHOTELPROJECTS
We provide our subscribers with a comprehensive overview of all major hotel projects, refurbishments and extensions worldwide. Our online database currently holds over 5,000 live and confirmed projects and it changes every day.
Out-of-date information wastes time so we permanently check our data: completed projects leave the database immediately and new projects are constantly identified and added. It’s a highly dynamic industry and so our database is constantly changing!
Our datasets provide the information you need: construction timescales, investment figures and all relevant contacts including developers, project managers, architects, interior designers and more
www.tophotelprojects.com/en/company
