Conrad Indianapolis
Campaign Development
How We Helped This Luxury Hotel Attract Guests After A Global Pandemic
GOALS
- Create awareness for prospective guests of flexible bookings
- Engage past guests to return when they felt safe to the hotel
- Increase presence in the midst of new competitors
Company Profile
The Conrad Indianapolis offers discerning travelers unmatched accommodations in the heart of the Circle City. Ranked #1 hotel in Indianapolis and one of the top 12 hotels and resorts by Forbes, the Conrad offers guests luxurious service and accommodations. Located in the heart of Indianapolis, the hotel is steps away from hundreds of Indy’s top attractions and restaurants.
Besides offering top-of-the-line accommodations, the hotel also offers full-service event planning, banquets, and wedding receptions.
Objective
During our work together, our objective was to develop a campaign that specifically targeted the luxury demographic that frequented the hotel, in addition to refining the messaging to position themselves as an advocate during the pandemic. Additionally, knowing their internal marketing team would eventually maintain this campaign in-house, we cultivated a campaign that would easily be managed in-house.
Challenges & Opportunities
The greatest issue facing the Conrad Hotel was during the pandemic when many events and reservations were delayed due to health concerns. While the Conrad offered flexible cancellations, social distancing, and every precaution possible to allow guests to visit safely, spreading the word about these opportunities was no short feat.
The other great challenge at hand was to create messaging that informed prospective guests of the options available to them while being mindful of the world events at hand.
That’s where we came into the picture. The Conrad knew it was critical to drive targeted traffic to their website to inform guests of the flexible stays available, in addition to increasing awareness of their hotel in the midst of new competitors entering the luxury hotel industry in Indianapolis.
When our Team worked through our online marketing strategy for Conrad Indianapolis, we found that they have a lot of key strengths including an optimized landing page.
The Conrad name was already well-known, but we also observed that they could still take on opportunities like cohesive branding, influencer campaigns, advertising content, and compelling CTAs which they can leverage in order to attract more customers into booking with them.
We set out and created a brief marketing plan for them which included content strategy, marketing funnels, an advertising campaign, and a lifestyle shoot. All of these were defined with action steps that can help Conrad Indy to get more bookings, and increase online presence.
BENEFITS
- Engagement in ad creative
- Advertising presence competitors lacked
- Engaging qualified traffic
Solution & Strategy
To attract the luxury market, we layered demographic targeting to attract the upper middle and upper classes through income. We also layered in past guests and other Hilton and Marriott hotel frequent guests knowing they would likely be the best repeat guests.
We also opted to utilize more user-generated content when it came to visitors. The Conrad successfully utilized local influencers for campaigns to visit the property, so we ensured our campaign maximized that tactic.
In our creative, we leveraged one of the influencer’s shoots with a mask to attract some of the millennials that had been more recently moving to the hotel. The use of the mask in the photo with the flexible accommodations allowed guests to better understand the options available to them.
We also created a retargeting ad utilizing video views to decrease the cost per acquisition and remind those that were aware of flexible options of the luxurious accommodations available.
- Create organic first ads to increase engagement on social
- Showcase masks and safe stay options
- Refine messaging to alleviate pressure to visit during challenging times, but also inform on options available
- Narrow audience to drive traffic
Results
Clicks
12,226
Cost per Click
$1.33
Link Click-Through Rate
1.69% | Goal of 1%
Ultimately, the campaign generated 200,000 impressions, an above-average click-through rate, and a CPM of $6.78, significantly lower than most competitors experienced with the high inflation happening within ads. The campaign performed exceptionally well and led to additional projects working with Conrad frequently.
Our Approach
Assess
Create a baseline to evaluate and audit your current efforts to determine their effectiveness.
Build
Determine the gaps and create the strategic roadmap to measure and hit your goals.
Launch
Implement the strategy over a 180 day period to measure what works, and streamline those factors to increase effectiveness.
Scale
Invest more resources into what’s most effective, and ensure results are consistent.
Elevate
Determine an ascension plan as your organization continues to grow to improve these systems.
