Put those cold calls on hold and instead, personalize the group sales process with intentional social selling.

For years hotel sales managers have leaned on old-school sales tactics to engage with meeting planners, primarily cold calls or cold emails that run the risk of annoying the planner or getting deleted.

However, today’s meeting planners are relying less on hotel sales teams to help find venues and more on their own online research and planner network.

How can your property’s sales managers tap into this trend?

Encourage your hotel sales team to embrace the digital for future relationship-based selling. Recent studies show that 82% of B2B buyers say vendor social media content has a sizeable impact on their buying decisions.

Also, LinkedIn research shares that B2B buyers are 5 times more likely to engage with sales representatives who offer new insights about their industry.

Through social selling, your hotel sales managers can effectively build relationships and nudge leads along the sales process with relevant, helpful and UNSELFISH social media interaction.

This includes:

• Offering solutions to problems that event planners divulge on social channels like LinkedIn or Facebook groups

• Answering event-related questions about your destination

• Interacting one-on-one with leads, either through direct messages or commenting on their posts

• Leveraging social channels to research clients’ background, such as college attended, volunteer work, and passions to further personalize your outreach

• Providing destination suggestions that are helpful for those planning group activities and on-site events

• Publishing thought-leadership articles or videos on your industry

• Keeping in touch with old sales leads for potential repeat business

Make sure your hotel’s personality and culture are embedded into every interaction. Spend some time with the group sales managers on how to best communicate that, while also allowing them to share their individual personalities.

About Tambourine
Tambourine uses technology and creativity to increase revenue for hotels and destinations worldwide. The firm, now in its 34th year, is located in New York City and Fort Lauderdale.
Please visit: www.Tambourine.com