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Hospitality industry is service oriented and making sure a client or a guest has the most memorable time at the hotel is of paramount importance. Wouldn’t it be great if the experience can start way before the guests arrive at the hotel and outlast the duration of their stay?

Social Media provides an excellent platform for the hotel industry to reach out to their current and potential clients. With demographic targeted campaigns hotels can successfully reach out to their client base. Every year hotels in Cuba receive thousands of guests from Canada during vacations and holiday seasons. Through social media these hotels can lure potential guests with attractive deals and glimpse of what awaits for them in Cuba.  

Here is our take on running a successful campaign and some guidelines for the hotel industry to leverage social media effectively:

• Provide Relevant Information: The Facebook page should be like a brochure of the hotel with history of the hotel chain as milestones on the page’s timeline. Highlight the various facilities available at the hotel and provide information about short term promotions, Seasonal packages and discounts. Setup apps to provide option to book room right within Facebook and room service numbers and information as Facebook page tabs. Also include in-house restaurant menu and ordering information.

• Engage the audience: Include information and trivia about various places of interest and attractions worth visiting near the hotel and about various events happening in the venues around the hotel. Provide historic information and trivia about the city and suggested travel itineraries to nearby cites and info about hotel branches there.  Add general information and tips useful to travelers. Provide opportunity to win restaurant vouchers shopping vouchers at participating outlets, discount coupons to places of interest and attractions, car rentals, tickets to events at venues nearby etc.

• Add the Personal touch: The most important aspect of social media marketing is the personal touch that it provides. This is what sets it apart from more conventional marketing tools.  Interaction is vital, create forum to answer queries by potential customers. Be proactive about recommendations and reviews left by hotel guests.  Provide opportunity to win breakfast coupons, vouchers to use gym, swimming pool, other meal vouchers, laundry vouchers, and discounts for next visits etc. Use it as Custom relationship management tool to solve customer problems. 

Remember! It should be all about providing added value to your loyal clientele and reach out to potential customers.

*Image source: thesocialskinny.com

So you are planning to launch a mobile app on the app store. How do you plan to monetize it, to ensure the Return on Investment made on developing it? Here are some options to consider: 

Option 1: Free – Ad Revenue

Price: Free
Audience: Mass Market
Model: Advertisement Supported
Example: Facebook, Yelp, etc.

The main goal is to deliver content in multiple formats and extend reach.

Pros

• It is advantageous to have an established brand name and established sales team, as that can help package sponsors within the free application to generate incremental revenue.
• It is easy to build traffic initially for a free app, although may not be long lasting
• Ratio of downloads for free to paid apps is 400:1, or 95% of apps downloaded are free

Cons

• New companies looking to follow the straight advertising model may have a challenge as ad budgets are have been sliced across the board. eCPMs are very low, so to get profitability the traffic has to be extremely high.
• Companies in this category should have scaled back expectations as a profit center.

Advertisement Type:

1. Independent Ad PlatformAds and Revenue managed independantly
2. 3rd Party Ad Platform, e.g. iADs / Ad mob services
   • Ads are rendered through the 3rd Party.
   • Revenue based on impressions, clicks etc.
   • Better option if one doesn’t have big advertisers or own ads inventory
3. Ad Exchange
   • Hybrid option to use both of the above
   • Increase in development costs

Option 2: Free – Alternate Revenue

Price: Free
Audience: Mass Market
Model: Alternate revenue
Example: Urbanspoon, etc.

The main goal is to create a huge buzz around their product by offering it for free and getting it into as many hands as possible, in order to promote an alternate business or an alternate revenue model

Examples of alternate revenues:

• Data collection/business intelligence/analytics
• Re-direction to sales on another site (e-commerce)
• Ads/deals/ coupons can pushed using tools like www.appoxee.com

Option 3: Paid – Low Price

Price: Paid applications, at a low price point
Audience: Mass Market
Model: Direct Revenue
Examples: Sim City, etc.

• Range from 99 cents up to 4.99
• In the short term, getting hundreds of people to try it out for uniqueness factor, can lead to quick revenue.
• However, long term revenue is achieved by apps that provide clear value, amazing utility or function that the target market cannot live without.
• Important to have a very good growing traffic source.
• Potential to lose out on a lot of potential customers.

Option 4: Paid – Freemium

Price: Paid applications, at a low price point, with free trial version/in app purchases
Audience: Mass Market
Model: Ads on Free Trial Version, Direct revenue on paid version
Examples: StickTennis, Angry Birds etc.

Two options:

1. Separate App Freemium
   • Free trial provision for limited time or limited use
   • Can be upgraded by purchasing a separate paid app with all features
   • E.g. Only 3 sports are available in the free version, and users can pay for the full version
   • Need to develop and manage 2 separate apps
   • Free version can have ads, while premium version can be ad-free
2. In-App Freemium
   • Additional Features or Content can be purchased within the app
   • E.g. Only 3 sports are available in the free version, and users can pay per additional Sport
   • If a betting feature is created, it can work on a virtual currency model, which can be another source of revenue
   • In-App upsells usually convert better overall
   • In-App purchases are successful when the flow for purchasing feels natural to the App.

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d> r> body> able>                     Option 5: Brand Takeover Price: Free Audience: Mass Market Model: Free to Users, Brand buys or sponsors the app The entire App is essentially one big brand campaign. For this strategy to be successful, the audience for the application has to be segmented and have a well-defined niche in order to attract brands and marketers, who can then offer targeted, branded ad campaigns. The app can either be sold to a brand, or sponsored by the brand   Statistically, Option 4 has proved to be the most lucrative model.

Joshi Inc is proud to announce its association with the first Punjabi International Film Academy Awards – PIFAA as the Social Media and Mobile App Partner.

PIFAA was created to celebrate Punjabi history, and the growing Punjabi presence in Bollywood, Hollywood and on the International stage. The award ceremonies will bring hundreds of the world’s best and brightest Punjabi cinema stars to Toronto, making this the most star-studded event in Toronto.

The event coverage will be hosted on the social media platform of Black Diamond Entertainments, the Presenting Partner for the event. The Social Media Platforms will provide event information, opportunities to participate in Trivia Contests, Celebrity Pools and much more!

The PIFAA Mobile App brings you a unique experience. It gives you the ability to see the list of performers, the nominations, buy your tickets in advance, see the events schedules, map of the location, share the info using with social media integration, all at your fingertips. 

The PIFA Awards will take place on August 4, 2012 at Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

Stay tuned!

Follow the PIFAA on Twitter: @BDEntertainment and Facebook: fb.com/BlackDiamondEntertainments

Download the App!

Joshi Inc. was honoured to be appointed as the Social Media Partner for the International Fashion Festival in Toronto on behalf of the Festival Organizer – Black Diamond Entertainments. The International Fashion Festival or IFFT is a multicultural event combining the traditional and modern elements of South Asian Fashion, lifestyle and entertainment. IFFT brings audiences the best high end fashion, exhibitions and performances from South Asia, and serves as a multicultural hub for renowned designers and models from India, Pakistan, Srilanka, Dubai, Lebanon, Egypt, UK, US and Canada. Some of the prominent designers that have graced this year IFFT include: Vikram Phadnis, Walid Atallah, Aishwariya Design Studio and Nomi Ansari to name a few. The prominent models which had participated in this year’s IFFT were: Piya Trivedi, Aanchal Kumar, Candice Pinto and the recent 2012 Lux Award winner Cybil Chaudhry. This year IFFT was held in July and spread over 7 days featuring multiple fashion shows daily, and an ongoing trade and lifestyle exhibition. 

 Challenges

The first and perhaps most difficult challenge that Joshi Inc. faced, was taking into account the multiculturalism exhibited in Ontario. Since the event was taking place in Toronto, the campaign was targeting Ontario residences only. The challenge was to appeal to not only the South Asian community, which would naturally relate to IFFT but to all Ontario residents regardless of cultural background.  The next challenge was to not simply create awareness for IFFT, but to truly motivate audience to become active participants and to engage with the campaign.

Another challenge that Joshi Inc. had come across, is the nature of the Black Diamond Entertainments Facebook page. BDE promotes a different event each month, which becomes a challenge when attempting to keep a core audience. After acquiring a significant Facebook following it becomes a challenge to keep audiences who were interested in past BDE events interested in the current events being promoted. This creates a disconnect with viewers, inevitably alienating certain groups with every new event being promoted on the BDE Facebook page. 

Joshi Inc. Solutions

The tactic Joshi Inc. had used to appeal to all of Ontario, versus simply appealing to the South Asian community was to speak to audiences through a universal language, the language of fashion and style. Joshi Inc. had used the Black Diamond Entertainments Facebook page as a platform through which to entice audiences with images and videos of the upcoming festivities. This included photos of the designer’s dresses, jewellery and more. 

In order to encourage audiences to interact with the campaign and truly be engaged with IFFT, Joshi Inc. had employed several tactics. The first of which was to offer a 25% discount to all participants who have visited the Facebook page. The second was to give away tickets to the individuals who were deemed to be the most active participants. Participation was achieved through contests, quizzes and the simple ability to comment and share ones opinion about the festival on the Facebook page and through twitter. Another method through which Joshi Inc. truly engaged the audience was live tweeting. During the event Joshi Inc. had tweeted information about the festivals and its goings, every minute or so, so that individuals who were not in attendance could feel like they are a part of IFFT as well. 

Another valuable tactic that Joshi Inc. had employed for this social media campaign was to keep the audience informed with up to the minute news. The campaign was launched one month prior to the festival, throughout this month, Joshi Inc. ensured that the Facebook page and Twitter feed were active, informing audiences of any designers or models who have been scheduled to appear, news on their collections, information about IFFT and any other information Joshi Inc. felt would peak the readers interest and encourage them to get involved. 

 Benefits

This social media campaign had run for one month prior and during the International Fashion Festival. During this time there had been tremendous improvements in audience involvement. Prior to this campaign the Black Diamond Entertainments page had 864 likes, after the campaign the page reached 1,620 likes, essentially doubling audience likes. Similarly, the overall page reach had increased from 15,760 to 237,845 and the number of people talking about Black Diamond Entertainments increased from 94 to 540. 

Although these numbers are very impressive, the more impressive part of this campaigns success was the amount of audience participation. Audiences didn’t simply like the Facebook page they had actively given their positive feedback, participated in contests and even loaded photos and videos of their own IFFT experiences. Designers, models, audiences and BDE were all actively tweeting prior to and during the event creating a true IFFT community which translated to all avenues of this Social Media Campaign. Joshi Inc. is proud of the success that this campaign had seen, and they have noted all the valuable lessons produced by this experience, lessons they hope to carry to their future endeavours. 

The Creative Team at Joshi Inc. was instrumental in designing this year’s Annual Magazine 2012 for the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce. It was Joshi Inc.’s third consecutive year, for being chosen as the agency of choice for the complete design, development & execution of the Chamber’s annual publication. The magazine was launched at the Annual Awards & Gala Night for ICCC, held on June 09, 2012.

Challenges

Joshi Inc.’s first challenge was to convey the theme of the magazine visually, to be highlighted on the cover page. The central idea was to reflect the brand of ICCC and its related events in a visually appealing yet enticing way. We put our special efforts to make it simple yet alluring so as to capture the reader’s interest.

Since the cover is always the main attraction of any magazine, we first understood the values of the brand ICCC that were to be represented. ICCC is a synergy body that has facilitated trade and commerce between Indian and Canada over the last 36 years since its inception. ICCC has done so via holding a course of events, awards and conventions with the individuals, entrepreneurs and ministers of both the nations, thus bringing in the confluence of culture and business in a unique blend.

The challenge was to communicate the theme of partnership among the various members of ICCC by avoiding being too literal or abstract. We had narrowed down the idea of the cover to three concepts and eventually, after a lot of discussion and brain-storming, went with the chosen option.

Joshi Inc’s Solution

The Cover Design we employed had graphics used in a subtle way along with a montage of different events that were held by ICCC. Colored-arrows were used to manifest the implementation of strategies showing the progression of the brand. The theme of ‘Engaging Partners, Implementing Strategies’ was an apt representation of the essence of ICCC and through it we kept the message appealing yet simple. The montage along with other pictures of various events also included the pictures from the Gala event that commemorated 35^th anniversary of ICCC held in June last year.

Benefits

Joshi Inc was also responsible for designing all of the event collateral materials like - menus, banners, slide shows, e-tickets, flyer, signage etc. for the event. The complete project was managed by the Joshi Inc. team from the inception to it’s delivery. On the completion, the efforts & deliverable have been much appreciated by the Board of Directors at ICCC along with the guests & members of the Chamber. Here is one of the kudos received "Many Congratulations to the Joshi Inc team for such an amazing job on the ICCC magazine. It was the best one yet. A special applause to your team".

JI Team is proud to present the Annual Magazine 2012 in print & web form. Please feel free to come by our office to take a look at our other projects, as well as to talk about how we can help your company build a stronger brand.

To experience the ICCC Magazine, click here.