App Masters · Nov 20Driving Demand for a New Service in a Mature Market
Sells 3, 6 or 12 hour stays in 3 to 5 star hotels, now over 3000 hotels across Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. It grows supply and demand together, starting with 15 to 20 hotels per city, then runs local TV and online marketing, and reports strong repeat use.
Tips
- Balance hotel supply with marketing spend in each new city▶ 8:01Hotels that get no bookings close their sales to the company, so supply has to be matched by demand spend.
- Hire local media experts in each country for TV campaigns▶ 30:27BYHOURS ran TV campaigns in Spain, Germany, Italy and France, each adapted locally, and says TV works very well for them.
- Use brand campaigns to attract supply as well as demand▶ 10:16Hotels and hospitality professionals see the brand and decide to join the platform.
- Spend on brand awareness first when nobody searches for your category▶ 8:45Nobody was looking for hotel by the hour on Google in the early days.
- Use your industry network to win the first supply partners▶ 4:11The first hotels were hard to convince in Barcelona, and his industry network made opening doors easier, including abroad.
- Pair an industry insider with an outside tech and marketing cofounder▶ 5:28Two cofounders: Guillermo from hospitality and Christian from tech and marketing.
- Sell hotels a new product, not a discount on room nights▶ 3:21Today hotels understand they get more sales and extra revenue from BYHOURS.
- Track offline and TV results with coupon codes and modern attribution tools▶ 13:44Someone may see a TV spot today and book a hotel in the next two months, which makes direct attribution hard.
- Treat retention and repeat bookings as the key metric▶ 13:51The company reports incredible KPIs on repeat use because once people know BYHOURS they want to repeat.
- Add outside investors to push expansion into new countries▶ 6:09More than 3000 hotels across main cities in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.
- Add a local office when time zones make support hard▶ 6:45An office in Mexico covers the Latin America time zone difference of seven to nine hours.
- Add offline placements such as airports and buses for awareness▶ 11:43Airport and bus placements were tried, with cost and measurability as the main problems.
