INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS
You work hard to fill your rooms. Then you may pay a third party to acquire the reservation. And when that guest wants to return, you may pay to acquire them all over again.
Market Edge 360's Direct Booking + Guest Loyalty Program helps hotels, resorts and vacation rental managers turn more existing guests into direct customers while building an owned audience that becomes more valuable over time.
OTAs provide valuable distribution.
But a reservation and a customer relationship are two different things.
Distribution helps fill a room today.
Marketing gives that guest a reason to return tomorrow.
Large hospitality companies have spent decades building loyalty systems because repeat customers and lower-cost direct channels can fundamentally change customer economics.
Independent hotels, resorts and vacation rental managers can apply the same fundamental principle.
The question is where the money goes.
Consider a two-night reservation at $350 per night: a $700 booking.
At an illustrative 20% OTA commission, the acquisition expense would be $140.
A $2,300 monthly direct-booking program only requires approximately 17 comparable converted bookings per month to equal that illustrative commission expense.
That's roughly one converted booking every two days.
Convert one comparable booking per night and the illustrative commission difference grows to approximately $4,200 per month.
The objective isn't to eliminate OTAs.
It's to stop buying back guests you already earned.
You don't need another person to recruit, train and manage.
You need the work done.
Market Edge 360 provides experienced hospitality marketing professionals to plan, create, coordinate and manage the program.
The program combines recurring guest communication, guest conversion and database growth into one managed direct-demand system.
We develop and manage four targeted guest communications each month.
$1,500/month — including platform management fees.
Strategy, messaging, copy, creative direction, offers, calls to action, timing, coordination, deployment and ongoing optimization are managed for you.
Campaigns can support past-guest offers, need periods, advance booking, seasonal opportunities, events, longer stays, loyalty benefits and other direct-revenue opportunities.
The relationship shouldn't begin after the guest leaves.
We help develop the on-property and online process for turning guests into an audience you can reach again.
This can include guest capture strategy, front-desk messaging, QR enrollment, return-guest invitations, direct-booking benefits, signage recommendations, database growth strategy and campaign coordination.
Don't let checkout end the relationship.
Direct booking should become part of your existing social conversation.
We provide two additional creative direct-booking and loyalty messages each month for placement into your existing social media calendar.
$300/month.
No separate social management program is required.
This isn't just about this month's bookings.
Every guest relationship added to a permission-based first-party audience can increase the value of the marketing system you own.
You're not simply funding another campaign. You're building an asset.
These individual client examples demonstrate the potential value of building and consistently communicating with an owned guest audience.
One client database we've helped build has grown to approximately 40,000 names.
The program now helps generate nearly 60% of annual business, approaching $4 million in annual revenue, against approximately $60,000 in annual program expense.
Another property generated more than one-third of approximately 1,000 monthly occupied room nights through a similar program while investing approximately $2,100 per month.
At a $120 ADR, one-third represents approximately $40,000 in monthly room revenue.
When margins tighten, there are only so many levers a hospitality business can pull.
Raise rates. Cut costs. Reduce service. Find more customers.
Or keep more of the revenue from the customers you already have.
We're not calling that a guarantee.
But when you compare program investment against third-party acquisition costs, repeat-guest value and the labor required to manage the process internally, the economics can become compelling.
Turn more existing guests into direct customers, build an audience you can reach again and create a direct-demand asset that becomes more valuable over time.
