An established apartment hotel with two buildings in central London and around 250 serviced apartments. We’ve been working with the hotel’s parent company for many years but were yet to work with the hotel. Like many in hospitality, the start of the UK lockdown was devastating. Bookings had dried up and were replaced by cancellations and refund requests.
Both ourselves and the clients were quick to recognise a shift in customer types and needs. Existing customers were no longer looking to book hotels, but in such extreme circumstances, new opportunities were also created.
We decided on an unusual approach: Launch a temporary brand and website and promote the apartments for longer stays. Short lettings and temporary accommodation.
The new website would also ditch the use of a standard booking system and will focus on generating enquiries through forms, phone calls and website chats. An advantage of enquiries on direct bookings is that they open a conversation with prospects and shed light on their situation and needs. Because of Covid, we were all in unchartered waters, so listening to customers and understanding the market would mean we can tailor our offer, our marketing and our website content to meet their needs.
We used Google Ads to generate enquiries. We supplement this with Facebook Ads, mainly for remarketing campaigns.
We found the domain, got the green light from clients and had a website running within 48 hours. The website is basic but it does a good job at generating leads and rentals.
We connected the team with Hubspot's CRM and live chat to allow lead management and direct enquiries.
At the height of the first UK lockdown, we had generated an ROI of over x10 from booking revenue.
More recently, in May and June 2021, booking revenue passed record highs. This was achieved thanks to high conversion rates from ads, a competitive pricing strategy and strong in-house sales.
High conversion rates for rental leads with Google Ads.
