Case Study: Campaign Yields 7,610% Return on Investment: The Wellington Hotel

Author: Kaitlyn Partington Category: Marketing Case Studies Date: November 12, 2018

Company Overview

New York’s historic Wellington Hotel has been welcoming guests from around the globe to the most exciting city in the world for more than 100 years. No other hotel puts visitors in such close proximity to everything there is to see and do in New York City like the Wellington Hotel. The hotel offers a truly guest-centered experience to make its guests feel completely at home.  Located in Midtown Manhattan on Seventh Avenue and 55th Street, it is situated right in the heart of Times Square. Within a short walk from the hotel, there is easy access to Broadway shows, the most famous museums in the world, fine dining, and high-end retail shopping – not to mention all forms of transportation to take you all around the city.

The Challenge

Eighty percent of guests were booking rooms at the Wellington Hotel through a third-party travel agency site (i.e. Expedia.com, Booking.com), and these sites were costing the Wellington Hotel up to 35% in fees each time a room was booked. The Hotel turned its focus toward driving users away from these third-party sites and toward its own website instead. The objective was to get the Hotel’s patrons to book online directly through its website so that it could retain the full charge of the room rate and maximize profitability.  The Hotel asked Paradigm to train internal staff in effectively managing a long-term digital marketing strategy that would drive direct bookings and capture guests’ information for future engagement that could maximize customer loyalty.

The business goals included:

• Increasing hotel room bookings overall
• Increasing the percentage of hotel rooms booked directly on the Wellington Hotel website (and not through a third-party travel site)
• Increasing customer loyalty and repeat business

The actions that would drive us to achieve these goals included:

• Social media advertising
• Social media marketing
• Email marketing

Taking Action: A Multi-Touch Approach

With the goal of capturing the email addresses of prospective guests who could then be cultivated into confirmed guests over time, Paradigm worked with the Wellington Hotel to create a “One Night Stay Giveaway” campaign.  This campaign offered prospects a chance to win a complimentary night stay in exchange for their email address. The goal of the campaign was to increase social media engagement, build brand awareness, and capture the email addresses of qualified prospects.

Paradigm created a social media advertising campaign on Facebook and Instagram with a $200 advertising budget.  Our team took careful consideration in the positioning of the campaign by:

• Writing, positioning, and designing the ads that were published to these two social media platforms
• Identifying the target audiences
• Generating a landing page specific to this giveaway that included a short form, descriptive but concise information marketing the Hotel, and important fine details about the sweepstakes

When the contest ended, the team created a three-email drip campaign that was automatically distributed to all contestants.

The content for the emails included:

• The winner’s information
• A discount offer to stay at the Wellington Hotel if booked directly on its website with a discount code
• A reminder to follow the Wellington Hotel on social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn)
• Links to the Hotel’s website with information about rooms, amenities, and rates
• NYC information such as upcoming events, Broadway shows, Halloween activities, and tips on traveling in and around the city
• Links to “Book Now” at a discounted rate

Results

The advertising campaign for the giveaway contest ran for three weeks, and the budget for the ads totaled $200. The three drip-campaign emails were all sent out within three weeks of the end of the contest. In this time frame, the campaign:

• Generated 404 new opt-in email addresses of qualified prospects
• Increased the Wellington Hotel’s Facebook post engagements by 47% over the previous month
• Increased the Wellington Hotel’s Facebook following by 9% in one month
• Averaged an above-industry-average open rate of 35.6% between the three emails
• Saw the winner of the contest not only accept and book their one-night free stay, but also book six additional nights at the Hotel
• Totaled 428 clicks to the website from the three emails
• Generated $15,220.37 in revenue from the campaign
• Resulted in a return on investment, within two months, of approximately 7,610%