ADVICE: How to elevate your customer relationships with audio

In the hotels market, the opportunity to engage the customer with your brand is greater than perhaps any other consumer market. Unlike a soft drinks brand for example – which engages with its customer for the duration of a drink – a hotel's customers are a captive audience for the duration of their stay, which could be weeks. Every modern consumer brand has a digital strategy to “own” every channel to its market. Most hospitality companies use everything from SMS marketing to YouTube channels in their quest to better engage the customer, build loyalty, and create new ways for their brand to communicate. One of the fastest-growing channels is online radio, and many UK hotel operators already broadcast to their customers in some way. They may have a music playlist that loops in the bar, or a TV channel that plays offers and information to guests in the room. But if done properly, it is possible to take the engagement between brand and customer to the next level – from the transactional to the emotional – and we are hearing from hotel operators that use our technology that this is already working in practice. For example, our client Andras Szabo of Encanta Musica talks compellingly about the power of music to create a customer experience that nothing else can match. Andras’ company Encanta is a music business that includes one of the world’s biggest resort operators among its client base of luxury brands. The in-house radio stations it has designed for clients such as AMResorts capitalise on the power of technology to create a user-friendly, single-distribution channel to broadcast live or pre-recorded music and content to an unlimited audience anywhere in the world – not just while they are inside your hotel. Here are some tips for how to make radio work for your hotel brand: Think big - One of Andras’ clients has 300 international resorts, and the technology allows them the unlimited potential to have as many streaming music stations as they like. You can play 24/7 music stations to customers with tailored playlists including gym, spa, lobby, chill-out, bar, club, restaurants by theme and so on. Think consistency - This is particularly important for bigger hotel chains – by creating a consistent audio brand across your entire portfolio, you will build familiarity that turns into loyalty. Remember the demand is already there - Today’s busy public still prefer curated media to on-demand. This is because they would rather trust a DJ or a brand they identify with to select music for them, rather than having to seek it out themselves. Know your customers and their tastes - Anywhere in the world, the one thing customers will never say no to is a free music download. It is critical that you pitch the music to their tastes, but if you get that right then you have made a powerful connection. You can also use data such as location and time of day to personalise your broadcasts to customers. Offer a downloadable app - Give customers the opportunity to re-live the experience of their holidays by accessing the same style of music at home. If customers choose to stream a hotel’s brand of playlist live at their own parties or when guests come to stay, this is clearly a major step in terms of loyalty between customer and brand. Create a digital destination - Stand out from the crowd and extend your audio brand to your online presence; integrate with your website and other digital and social channels to create shareability and engagement. Make it easy for customers to share content they like via their own social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter. Empower your staff - Centralise and manage user permissions to get staff enthused and involved in your audio brand. This will help them to give their customers the best experience possible. Be subtle - You don’t need to broadcast commercial offers, advertisements or sponsor messages to your listeners - they won’t want to listen to that. If you give them something they truly want, then you will create a lasting, meaningful emotional connection between hotel and customer. About the Author Advice from Mike Cunsolo, marketing manager at Manchester technology company Radio.co