The lodging/hospitality industry is one of the very few to have adapted to the digital marketing techniques early on. Earlier the only way people booked hotel rooms were either through physical agencies (brick and mortar) or through telephone. This trend has almost completely been wiped out of the industry. The only major way customers book their rooms today is through online Customer Reservation System (CRS) either directly on the hotel’s website or an online travel agent site. The lodging industry has seen a sea change in the way they have been advertising in the past two decades. From billboard ads, newspaper ads to television and to now majorly online ads. One such example of a Hotel that has continuously updated its marketing tools is The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower in Mumbai, India.

The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower is a monumental structure with historic value to the country. Located in the financial capital of India, it is frequently visited by business professionals and leisure tourists from across the globe.  The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel is generally at its peak occupancy rate throughout the year. More than a century old, the Taj Mahal Palace hotel is a symbol of pride to the city.

One thing very noticeable in the hotel/lodging industry is that when a customer goes back satisfied, apart from he/she being a repeat customer, he/she tends to spread the word across to friends and family and hence “word of mouth” marketing is usually considered to be the best marketing tool in this industry. With the age old heritage factor and the prime location of the hotel, usually change is difficult to be incorporated in the organization’s structure of marketing. But The Taj Mahal Palace has been one of the very first hotels to incorporate a website and indulge in online social marketing. With a distinct Facebook page, regular tweets of events and happenings, website interaction, etc. it has managed to keep the inflow of customers to a peak level. Even with many internationally well know hotel brands that have cropped up around the city, the Taj Mahal Palace has managed to remain the most dominant player in the market. The major reason has been the way it engages its customers regularly through various digital media tools.

With trends now towards social media, the hotel has taken a step forward to establish a social media marketing team that completely focuses on this medium of communication. With events being posted on the page and customer engagement through online interactions, it has managed to keep competitors at bay and continues to be the major player in the industry. 

At this point in time of my life, I really wonder what my existence would mean without internet being a part of it. Unsurprisingly… NOTHING! A decade and half ago, I was as happy and contended as I am today and really didn’t know what difference the internet could make to my life except that for sending emails (which I first thought of as the biggest breakthrough of the century). Similarly, I considered mobile phone, for calling and picking calls, as the most advanced gadget and thought of it as a hardware that has served its purpose of doing just that. I had no clue of how my life could ever get so overly dependent on these hardware and software innovations. Looking back through all these years, the moment in internet history that I believe to be pivotal for me is “Search” feature by “Yahoo”.

Back then when this feature was accessible, I remember using it almost every day. It certainly made my life a lot easier. My assignments at school started looking a lot more logical and oriented than before. On a more serious note, I think it to be critically important for my overall improvement in General Knowledge quotient. With access to literally any information on the web, it provoked my interest seeking new developments in the online industry. With Google entering into this industry later on, it brought a whole new dimension to the online search industry by including maps, navigation, Google earth, etc. 

I am not an experienced blogger, nevertheless, I think this is a very interesting platform to reach out and exhibit one’s understanding of a certain topic. In this blog I will share with you my take on the book “42 Rules for a Web Presence That Wins” by Philippa Gamse and how, according to me, Marketing has transformed from cost-center to profit-center in most organizations.

Being a part of the sales and marketing team for a multinational organization in India for the past four years before my MBA program, I had come to understand how marketing generally functions in respective industries. I was comfortable in my approach to tackle a marketing issue in my previous company and for some reason (I guess over-confidence!) started to think of it as something I had already mastered. I was aware of the changing trends and knew that I would have to keep abreast of all the new media hype that would be coming my way as a marketer in future, but to my astonishment, it arrived way too quickly. Within a couple of weeks here in the US, I realized that I was already behind in the game. And the main culprit for this was (or rather “is”) Social Media (a substantial chunk of the Digital Media network). The book “42 Rules for a Web Presence That Wins” reinforces my new knowledge in this area. With 42 straight forward rules in enhancing an organization’s marketing efficiency; it gives coherence to the general idea of marketing transforming from a cost center to a profit center. A decade ago, the Marketing department’s challenge was to deliver the right marketing mix within an “Allocated Budget”, and now it is to deliver the “Right” marketing mix within “No Budget” or sometimes “a very small budget”. Some would argue that this is not entirely true, and I would admit to that but with the whole scenario changing so rapidly, it is only a matter of time when companies will integrate marketing into the entire organization as a parallel process to keep consumers updated of new product releases, patents, development, research breakthroughs, etc. As David Packard once said, “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department alone”, I am sure there would soon be a similar quote saying, “Marketing is too innovative to be paid for”.

Coming back to what Philippa Gamse writes in her book, Rule 2: Appoint your Web Ambassador. By “web presence”, she generally refers to the organization’s interface with every stakeholder possible. This includes partners, customers, suppliers, investors, etc. Even companies that have a fixed number of B2B buyers and would not require a web presence to survive are making themselves stand out in the digital arena. This shows how virally the digital aspect of marketing is affecting every organization. Showcasing their might to be liked by their audience, companies have indulged in social media to embrace a newer dimension to their already mutli-layered approach. This completely justifies Philippa’s point of appointing a Web Ambassador to overview and control the organization’s web presence. We generally refer to the 4Ps as the foundation of Marketing, but with the changing dynamics in this area, we will see two Ps (Promotion and Place) being transformed into a single P, Presence (Digital). The Digital Presence of a particular offering will enable it to reach out to a maximum audience and promote it simultaneously. Although this has emerged in a big way already in the United States, it is spreading quickly to other developed and developing nations.

I earlier mentioned that companies are already involved in marketing their products and also their process, but to bring in the right balance and make a contrary view point Philippa mentions in her Rule 12: Consider the Competition. By this she means that when companies get used to being over informative to their customers, they generally tend to leak (unknowingly) their delicate information to their competitors. Getting over-indulged in making one’s presence felt on the Web could also have the above mentioned side-effects and thus create a dis-advantage to the company. So it is extremely important to publish content that is relevant to the customers and equally uninformative to its competitors. Another important aspect of online marketing is the use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Successful companies such as HubSpot are utilizing this to tap in to companies that have realized the use of SEO. Driving traffic towards them is rather more important and understanding the customer dynamics in online search that has increasingly become more relevant to promote sales. Google is one of the many companies that are also earning fortunes through online advertisement and CTR (Click Through Rate). This is clearly an indication of how the prospective audience is behaving in terms of online buying and content intake.

With changes happening so rapidly in the marketing sphere, only the companies that adapt and change their long term marketing plans to short term goals will have the ability to reach their overall marketing objective.