How Westin Abu Dhabi ran a Facebook Offers campaign to more than double its fan base and generate revenue at the same time:
Every hotel wants to increase occupancy and revenues with a slick marketing campaign that is simple, cost-effective and results driven and social media is fast-becoming the marketer’s favoured tool in achieving this goal.
The Westin Abu Dhabi grasped the online opportunities early and become one of the first in the region to use a viral Facebook Offers campaign to more than double its fan base, achieving a 150% ROI.
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Facebook Offers allows businesses to share discounts with their customers by posting an offer on their Facebook Page. When someone claims an offer, they will receive an email that they can show either at a physical location or redeem online to get the discount.
Rational and objective
The Facebook Offers campaign launched by The Westin Abu Dhabi had the following objectives:
- Boost fans, especially women
- Generate awareness within the local community
- Increase bookings to generate revenue
- Drive ROI while working within a limited budget
“Social media is incredibly important for us but it’s not all about creating tangible results,” says The Westin Abu Dhabi’s marketing manager, Jonathan Hallmark who launched the Facebook Offers promotion. “As a hotel we really used this campaign to activate and engage the local community, increasing revenue was a by-product of this.”
Hallmark explains: “The property has a huge residential area around it which, of course, was our target audience. Before we began the campaign, the hotel’s Facebook Page had a following of around 60% male and 40% female but we noticed that, generally speaking, the quality engagement came from the female audience.
Hence our aim was to increase this percentage and the female-to-male ratio on the site.The second element to this strategy was our aim of boosting the resort’s spa – the two very much went hand-in-hand”.
As this was an untested tool for the hotel, no revenue targets were formalised prior to the launch of the Facebook Offers campaign. “Breaking even was the original target,” Hallmark admits. “I don’t really think anyone knew what to expect from the promotion so it really was a case of testing the water bit-by-bit.”
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