As independent hoteliers, our independence is our competitive advantage, independence grants us freedom from rigid rules and protocols, which means we can be more creative and flexible with our websites and marketing tactics.

Our independence allows us to move fast. When we see great return on ad spend from Metasearch for one of our properties, we’re able to lean into that. We can reallocate funds, increase our spend, tweak our message, and take full advantage of the opportunity. Most of our competitors simply can’t move that fast.

Here’s another example– We recently had to decide on a property name. The property is a beautiful hotel on the Tampa Riverwalk. When discussing names, we realized that our naming convention for this particular property could help us beat our competition in SEO.

So, we decided to go with what we felt was not only a cool and interesting name but a name that would help us rise above the rest on search engines, and Hotel Tampa Riverwalk was born. Now, guess who comes up first in organic when searching for hotels in Tampa near the Riverwalk?

It’s that kind of speed and flexibility that I’m talking about. We want to be smart and flexible in our marketing, but that comes from being smart and flexible as an organization.

One of the most important things we’ve done is unite marketing and revenue management. The digital marketing team attends all revenue strategy calls for each hotel, collaborating with revenue managers, general managers, and operations managers. In these meetings, we discuss packages, forecasts, sales, and marketing strategies. And honestly, this is where our best ideas come from.

And we don’t sit tight on those great ideas. As a united team, we agree on a way forward and we action strategies immediately.

This close collaboration between marketing, sales, and revenue as a commercial team and our ability to be a flexible organization has proven essential in allowing us to compete against hotels with bigger brand names and budgets. It’s our superpower.

Michelle Klein
Corporate Director of Marketing & E-Commerce, Schulte Boutique & Lifestyle

This article first appeared at www.tambourine.com

Tambourine continues to shake up the hospitality industry with custom-integrated marketing solutions for hotels, resorts, and destinations worldwide. The company’s emergence as the market leader for both branded and independent hotels is a testament to its core values: putting customer service center stage, setting the standards for hotel website design, and making performance digital marketing easier and more profitable for its valued partners.