Marketing

🍔 Bojangles is fostering long-term loyalty by amplifying word-of-mouth and analyzing customer data to understand consumption patterns and preferences. Using its mobile app, third-party delivery services, and ezCater, the chain studies variations in weekday vs. weekend behavior and identifies popular "menu hacks." The company also values insights from employees and franchisees for new product development. Personalized offers, tested regularly, help segment audiences based on loyalty to products, offers, or meal times, informing targeted marketing strategies for new, lapsed, and current guests.

🏨 Wowcher partners with SiteMinder to offer more deals to travellers, targeting Wowcher's 20-million-plus subscribers. UK and Irish hotels using SiteMinder can now market a wider range of rooms, tapping into Wowcher's base where up to 80% are first-time guests at featured hotels. SiteMinder's Changing Traveller Report 2023 found nearly 50% of UK travellers opt for package deals or shorter stays due to increasing prices. This integration seeks to provide exceptional value and drive incremental bookings amidst rising living costs.

📌 A majority of travelers, 57%, use social media for trip planning and sharing, with 75% under 35 and 35% aged 55+ engaging in this behavior. Travelers aged 35-54 show a significant usage rate at 63%. Content sharing is popular, with 62% of social users posting about their trips. Travel content on social media influences 62% of users in their trip decisions. Cruise travelers exhibit the highest social media usage for planning, while lodging content is less viewed despite two-thirds of users researching it.

🍸 Restaurant experts Pat Cobe and Bret Thorn recognize national food holidays as potent marketing tools amid rising costs and lowering guest counts. La Palapa, a decades-old Mexican restaurant in New York City’s East Village, received praise from Pat for its Margaritas and churros. Bret explores Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, highlighting Wheeler’s for its longstanding service and good food. New York Restaurant Week extends to a month this year, with advice to restaurants to showcase their best. Trevin Hutchins, beverage director at Aphotic in San Francisco, distinguishes the seafood restaurant with a unique beverage program featuring house-distilled gin with seaweed and in-house non-alcoholic pairings for tasting menus.

🌍 "Scroll, Heart, Fly: Social Media’s Impact on Travel 2024" by Phocuswright addresses key aspects of social media's effectiveness in travel marketing and user-generated content (UGC) roles. It examines platform usage for different trip components, engagement preferences, transparency expectations, and demographic-specific interactions, including with influencers. The study reveals difficulties in measuring the impact of social strategies and capturing consumer interactions with content. Marketers harness social commerce, which continues to grow nearly 17 years after Facebook introduced advertising.