It’s not often that I find myself supporting a group sales team beyond the normal marketing support – collateral development, digital support, etc – but that’s exactly how my last project shook out.
MakeReady is new on the hotel management scene. With a tidy collection of US-based hotels, they’re small, but growing rapidly. So when they needed DOSM support at their Savannah-based property, The Alida, I was happy to step in for a bit.
The hotel was newly opened in the fall of 2018. Heading into low season, we had prime opportunity to:
- Provide structure to the sales team in terms of regular meetings and check ins, formalized contract language, etc
- Better understand/Identify key group targets and implement targeted prospecting
- Develop offers and collateral for the sales and catering teams
- Hone in on the travel schedule (where was the team going to get the biggest bang for the buck?)
- Develop packages for leisure stays and work with the revenue manager for the property to drive more weekend leisure business
- Provide for additional photography of the hotel’s penthouse to better sell the accommodation as well as private dining rooms
- Create and start to promote initiatives around holidays, including Savannah’s biggest weekend – St. Patrick’s Day – as well as in-the-year-for-the-year weddings
- Develop a plan to help launch pool programming and activities for the upcoming season
- Provide additional marketing support to the Food and Beverage team – signage, collateral, social media promotion, etc
- Begin to develop new initiatives to drive a longer booking window for group
That was the gig in a nutshell. It was only six weeks, but we got loads knocked off a long to-do list. More importantly, the team made great in-roads moving into busy season.
