This is just a cool way to do a recruitment drive:

Hotel Chain Sites Powering Ahead

Compete.com, June 24, 2008

Compared to a year ago, consumer traffic to hotel chain websites is growing strongly with gains being made at every major provider. Despite concerns of a slowing economy impacting the lodging sector, there are more online hotel shoppers than ever before, providing a healthy and growing channel for the efficient distribution of inventory.

The average growth rate heading into the summer for hotel supplier websites versus a year ago was an impressive 26%. Aside from a few unusual months, such as a difficult February for Intercontinental, every chain is posting solid growth. Leading the pack in May was Hilton at +34% compared to a year ago, and lagging was Choice at +10%.

Many of the hotel websites are converting visitors more effectively than they were in early 2007. Indexed against that period, conversion rates in May 2008 are averaging 1.05x growth. While Starwood, Hilton and Intercontinental are posting the strongest gains, Best Western is consistently under indexed against its position a year earlier. At a 0.8 conversion rate index, Best Western is lagging each of its major competitors in improving the efficiency of its online channel.

Although economic uncertainty is thought to be weighing on the minds of consumers, signs of strength still remain in online hotel distribution. Website audiences at leading hotel chains are powering ahead and are up significantly from year ago levels. Additionally, select competitors have managed to improve their conversion rates despite the growing volume of visitors. Sites such as Best Western, however, have seen their conversion rates decline and must make it a priority to optimize their online channel performance. If not in place already, competitive benchmarking against key rivals will be critical to making this a success.

The Aim of Behavioral Targeting

Why isn’t behavioral targeting a hit with advertisers?

Behavioral targeting offers many potential benefits:

• For advertisers, effective behavioral targeting leads to ad campaigns that are more likely to sway their audience.
• For publishers, it can mean making more money from undersold or unsold ad inventory.
• For the public, it means the ad-supported Internet might become more relevant.

The promise of behavioral targeting is huge, but overdue.

eMarketer estimates that US spending for behaviorally targeted online advertising will reach only $775 million in 2008.

"The growth of behaviorally targeted online advertising has been delayed by incomplete development of technology, brand marketers that prefer to have their ads appear with relevant content and concerns over violating consumer privacy," says David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer and author of the new report, Behavioral Targeting: Marketing Trends. "But a number of things are changing."

In fact, eMarketer projects that behaviorally targeted ad spending will reach $4.4 billion by the end of 2012.

Behavioral targeting segments the audience based on observed and measured data, such as the pages or sites users visit, content viewed, search queries entered, ads clicked, information share on social networks and products placed in online shopping carts. This data is combined with the time, length and frequency of visits.

"Recency counts a lot, too," says Mr. Hallerman, "data from two weeks ago is far less accurate at predicting interest than that from two days ago."

Behavioral targeting is getting increasing attention from advertisers, publishers, the public, politicians and mainstream media. For now, though, it contributes little to total US Internet ad spending—only 3% for 2008.

"When pegged against the display online ad formats that are typically used for behavioral targeting, however," says Mr. Hallerman, "the importance of behavioral targeting to non-search advertising growth becomes clearer."

Nearly one in 10 content-site ad dollars will flow from behaviorally targeted advertising in 2008. That will rise to roughly one in four by the end of 2012.

"It is unclear how much display ad spending will increase behaviorally targeted ad spending, in contrast to how much behavioral targeting capabilities will increase display ad spending," says Mr. Hallerman.

Guests' videos star in hotels' online ads

By Roger Yu, USA TODAY

Aaron Schwartz, an executive recruiter in Fairfax, Va., wanted a nice memento of his vacation in Aruba.

Using his video camera, he filmed his stay at the Marriott Renaissance Ocean Suites last June — shots of the beautiful beach, flamingos along the water. He uploaded the video to his MySpace page and YouTube.

He then received a call from the resort's general manager, who liked the video so much that he offered Schwartz a free seven-day stay. He returned two months later and composed another video, even though the resort didn't ask him to.

Eager to capture the attention of Internet-savvy guests, hotels are becoming more serious about using online videos as a marketing tool. They're encouraging and monitoring guests' videos of their stays. They're creating their own YouTube channels and other video content to showcase their properties and to launch new brands.

It's a dramatic shift from traditional marketing, where communication flowed from hotels to customers. The new strategy aims to get customers to talk among themselves on sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, promoting word-of-mouth advertising.

"The center of gravity has shifted. We can't be seen as controlling the content. Now we have to participate in the conversation," says Kathleen Matthews, Marriott's communications chief.

Hotel videos fall broadly into two categories:

•Customers' input. Vacationers' videos posted online have been around for years. But hotel companies are more proactive in seeking more than room footage. Last year, Best Western asked customers to submit a 30-second video on why they're in "desperate need of a vacation." Holiday Inn Express invited popular YouTube comedian Kevin Nalty to help produce an online show about the chain. Sheraton also is urging guests to upload videos about their experiences to its website.

•Traveler information. Hotels also are producing their own content and inviting bloggers to link them on their sites. Starwood Hotels launched Spg.tv, a site with 50 hours of videos featuring the destinations where they have properties.

InterContinentalVideo.com is similar, with episodes of InterContinental concierges worldwide highlighting their hotels and points of interests in each city. This summer, Best Western will launch its YouTube channel, which will contain virtual tours, guest travelogues and classic company commercials.

To be sure, much of hotel-produced content involves commercials that are tailored for an online audience. Marriott hired David Elsewhere, an online personality known for his pop dancing, to film a YouTube commercial about TownePlace Suites.

"He has a following," Matthews says. "We can bring his following to our brand."

Guests' videos star in hotels' online ads

By Roger Yu, USA TODAY

Aaron Schwartz, an executive recruiter in Fairfax, Va., wanted a nice memento of his vacation in Aruba.

Using his video camera, he filmed his stay at the Marriott Renaissance Ocean Suites last June — shots of the beautiful beach, flamingos along the water. He uploaded the video to his MySpace page and YouTube.

He then received a call from the resort's general manager, who liked the video so much that he offered Schwartz a free seven-day stay. He returned two months later and composed another video, even though the resort didn't ask him to.

Eager to capture the attention of Internet-savvy guests, hotels are becoming more serious about using online videos as a marketing tool. They're encouraging and monitoring guests' videos of their stays. They're creating their own YouTube channels and other video content to showcase their properties and to launch new brands.

It's a dramatic shift from traditional marketing, where communication flowed from hotels to customers. The new strategy aims to get customers to talk among themselves on sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, promoting word-of-mouth advertising.

"The center of gravity has shifted. We can't be seen as controlling the content. Now we have to participate in the conversation," says Kathleen Matthews, Marriott's communications chief.

Hotel videos fall broadly into two categories:

•Customers' input. Vacationers' videos posted online have been around for years. But hotel companies are more proactive in seeking more than room footage. Last year, Best Western asked customers to submit a 30-second video on why they're in "desperate need of a vacation." Holiday Inn Express invited popular YouTube comedian Kevin Nalty to help produce an online show about the chain. Sheraton also is urging guests to upload videos about their experiences to its website.

•Traveler information. Hotels also are producing their own content and inviting bloggers to link them on their sites. Starwood Hotels launched Spg.tv, a site with 50 hours of videos featuring the destinations where they have properties.

InterContinentalVideo.com is similar, with episodes of InterContinental concierges worldwide highlighting their hotels and points of interests in each city. This summer, Best Western will launch its YouTube channel, which will contain virtual tours, guest travelogues and classic company commercials.

To be sure, much of hotel-produced content involves commercials that are tailored for an online audience. Marriott hired David Elsewhere, an online personality known for his pop dancing, to film a YouTube commercial about TownePlace Suites.

"He has a following," Matthews says. "We can bring his following to our brand."

Email Analytics Reveal Sweet Spots In Subject-Line Length

He says open rates climb when the subject lines are in the 50-character range or 80-character range. But, perhaps counterintuitively, they fall in the middle when the length is 60 or 70.

The magnetic Quist gave the keynote address Saturday at MediaPost's Email Insiders Summit conference: "Emailing People Not Lists: Using Customer Based Metrics to Drive Performance Improvement."

Research culled from 250 million messages sent over the past two years, with 660 different subject lines, has led him to believe that a 50-character subject line touting a "powerful" offer is appealing (30% off Spring Getaway flights to Florida on Delta).

And a longer 80-character-plus line describing a newsletter in enticing fashion works (Find out Secrets to Spice up your Barbecue this weekend and all Summer Long and enter to win a New Weber Grill.)

Somehow, in the 60- to-70-character middle, he says, the subject line is either too long or not long enough.

Quist has various theories, but one is that the longer the subject line, the better chance a marketer has of presenting different concepts that may appeal to different consumers and boosting open rates. So in the above example, some may be interested in the ways to improve their grilling, while others would seek the new grill, leading to higher open rates.

Quist's research--his clients include PayPal and Intercontinental Hotels in the U.S.--showing that "long subject lines work better" goes against conventional wisdom, he said.

"Our experience tended towards the belief that long subject lines work better," he said. (The longer the better goes against conventional wisdom.) A more descriptive subject line can also build goodwill with consumers, since it can provide enough info to easily either turn them on or turn them off.