"If you're an independent hotel and relying on OTAs, try using Laasie to drive direct bookings. Guests are able to choose rewards that they will use on their trip and claim the rewards the day before arrival. Most OTA loyalty programs are point-based and these points can expire. Imagine guests accumulating a certain amount of points, ready for redemption, only to find out they can't redeem anything since the points are expired. With Laasie, guests no longer need to wait to receive their rewards."
HOTEL’S DIRECTOR OF REVENUE
The Challenge
Our client is a small independently branded 200-room hotel in the heart of Chicago. Like many independent hotels, they don’t have a lot of group brand recognition to attract direct bookings, so they often have to rely on OTAs to drive their revenue.
In early 2020, our client partnered with us with the goal of driving more direct revenue. Their existing strategy had been to entice direct bookers with exclusive rates and packages, but it was not as effective as they hoped. They saw an opportunity to differentiate their property from their comp set by using Laasie’s instantly gratifying incentives.
Converting through Personalization and Reward Marketing
We promoted tailored rewards through two main customer touchpoints: on the website and through their inbox. We embedded designs that showcased personalized incentives that persisted throughout the booking journey, making sure that the visuals were eye-catching but natively branded, and users were aware of the benefit of booking directly. We then collaborated with their marketing team to call out specific top performing rewards in their monthly email blasts. After a visitor made a reservation, Laasie led the online experience for the guest to select and redeem their rewards. With our help, our client was able to incorporate Laasie’s offerings seamlessly into their direct booking experience.
The hotel website design with Laasie rewards
A snippet of the hotel’s marketing email content
The Results
We saw great improvements to our client’s conversion rates once they started using Laasie. Users who engaged with Laasie’s incentives throughout their booking journey had a 10.45% booking conversion rate, which was 4.8x greater than the conversion rate for users who did not engage with the incentives. Additionally, guests loved the rewards offered – they were selecting rewards a whopping 80% of the time!
Despite the pandemic, reward messaging on the website and email communications were effective in converting users, and powered by artificial intelligence and big data, the hotel was able to delight direct bookers with a rewarding experience online.
