The Vineyard Hotel & Spa is a four-star deluxe hotel situated in the luxurious suburb of Newlands, just 15 minutes away from the Cape Town city centre. It boasts three outstanding restaurants and a state of the art health and fitness centre.

The Goal

The goal of this campaign was to generate more bookings without a substantial increase in costs.

The Campaign

A bulkmail distribution was sent out to the hotel’s database advertising the businessman’s special. A insert was appended to the everyday emails being sent from the Company. No other advertising for this special was done.

The Result

The campaign generated 580 room nights booked giving the client R400,000 worth of revenue without any support from advertising.

On the 1st of June, we introduced a Businessman Special for 2 months through the website. Due to its success, we extended it for a further 2 months and sent out another Rocketseed campaign. This campaign was a huge success without any support from advertising and I would like to thank for their great input.

- Stewart Banner, Sales and Marketing Executive

Cape Grace is set on its own private quay on Cape Town’s vibrant Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. It is a member of the exclusive Leading Small Hotels of the World, a brand extension of the internationally recognised and respected organisation, The Leading Hotels of the World.

The Goal

The Method

Result

Over the three month period 01 December to 28 February, Cape Grace reached more than 16,000 email recipients with their branded messages. All of these communications were everyday company related email and allowed each and every email sender within the company to become, not only a marketer, but also an extension the company’s brand.

Client Comment

Rocketseed inserts have provided us the double functionality of branding our communications as well as communicating specific messages in an electronic format. It has also allowed us to focus on different areas within the hotel and tailor-make our communications accordingly – one waterfront restaurant, Bascule bar and The Spa at Cape Grace.

- Saskia Brown, Marketing Manager

QHotels was founded in March 2003 by a team of experienced hoteliers in collaboration with Alchemy Partners. Today, QHotels offer a prestigious selection of 22 highly individual properties throughout the UK welcoming leisure, conference and corporate guests. The company prides itself on investing in elegant, beautiful and sometimes historic hotels and their 2500 staff. In keeping with the company ethos of quality and innovation, QHotels selected and began using Rocketseed in October 2006 to brand all the company’s outgoing emails. As well as pushing the brand of the young company and driving traffic to the website, emails also feature promotional links to special offers and news items, such as hotel refurbishments.

Greater Interactivity Drives Above-Average Click-Through Rates and Enables Intelligent Marketing

Liz Howe, Director of Marketing for QHotels offers her opinions:

I had seen branded email before, but nothing as interactive or with the same level of reporting and analysis that Rocketseed provides.” The beauty of Rocketseed is that it enables people to go from an email directly to information of interest to them. From our branded emails, customers can click straight through to any of the different areas of our website, or can click on links to specific promotions or special offers. As a result, we have been consistently getting click-through rates of over 10% compared to average industry rates of around 3%. The level of insight and detail available through Rocketseed reporting is also generating a raft of new marketing opportunities. We are now looking at how we can hone our marketing activities to tailor the communications our customers receive from us to their specific needs and interests.

In addition to being able to see the specific interest areas of an individual customer, QHotels are using these insights to ensure that key messages and promotions now feature prominently in those sections of the email that customers most frequently click on.

Simplifying event administration

Another Rocketseed success at QHotels revolved around an internal Senior Management Conference, for which a branded email was issued to 130 people internally, containing links for accessing further information on the event and additional links to either accept or decline the invitation.

Using Rocketseed made the whole process much quicker and easier. It was simple to put together the email template and distribute it to our senior managers in 23 locations. All the invitees had to do was click on one of two links for us to know almost immediately who could or could not attend – all the details were obtained in a report generated by Rocketseed. We got a 100% response within days, without having to send out a single reminder, and we also got lots of positive feedback from our managers, who found the email invitation really distinctive and innovative.

- Liz Howe, Director of Marketing for QHotels

Driving growth and increasing margins

Operating in a highly-competitive, but fast-growing industry, QHotels has invested significantly in e-commerce and is keen to increase the number of bookings made via the company’s website in order to further drive growth and increase margins.

Today some of our online bookings come through web-sites of third parties, to whom we pay a commission. Within the next couple of years, we aim to take 20% of all our hotel accommodation bookings directly via our own website and Rocketseed will be a key vehicle to help us achieve this goal, thereby contributing directly to our growth and profitability.

- Liz Howe, Director of Marketing for QHotels

The Villa Via is a four star luxury hotel situated in the Gordon’s Bay Waterfront just 25 minutes from Cape Town International Airport.

The Goal

The goal of this campaign was to engage with clients and entice them to win prizes associated with the Hotel. All prizes were designed to entice customers to the Hotel.

The Campaign

A Rocketseed bulkmail distribution was sent out to the hotel’s database advertising the Win with Villa Via competition.

The Result

Within minutes of the campaign being sent out, entries started to be received. The mailer was sent to 5,680 email recipients and 928 competition entries were received. This equated to a 16% response.

Client Comments

The response generated in such a short period of time was phenomenal. We are extremely happy with the result and Rocketseed. It is always good to see positive results generated from the work we all do. We would like to thank Rocketseed – especially the support team – for all the assistance they endlessly supply.

- Richard Toms, MD Electric Fire

The Mount Nelson Hotel is one of the oldest and most prestigious luxury hotels in South Africa. It boasts many international awards and five star facilities for all types of visitors.

Goal

The Mount Nelson’s goal is multi-faceted; however a key aspect of the marketing strategy it to cross sells new offerings to known clients. In order to assist this, the Mount Nelson wishes to build a community of people interested in what the hotel has to offer.

Method

To build a community, Rocketseed uses two approaches; firstly enhanced day-to-day email, and secondly a monthly newsletter. These work in tandem to communicate the latest news for the upcoming month, which includes restaurant specials and guest chefs, special events, off-season specials and last minute offers. Both the enhanced email and the newsletter are designed to enable receivers to click on particular information, which will take them directly to more detail. This in return drives more traffic to the rest of the Mount Nelson website and provides the option for receivers to browse further.

Result

Rocketseed exposes The Mount Nelson to a targeted community of 2,764 people per month and achieves an engagement of 32%. From this, repeat business is generated as well as deep customer loyalty.

Client Comment

This is an effective way for us to interact with our client database – through a simple click we are able to drive them to the relevant pages on our website reflecting news and offers from the hotel and we receive numerous enquiries as a result of the newsletter being distributed electronically.

- Marketing Services, Mount Nelson Hotel

Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve is situated in the world-renowned 65,000 hectare Sabi Sand Wildtuin in the southern section of the Kruger National Park. They offer specially-trained, armed game rangers and trackers who take guests on safaris in open land rovers. They also provide walking trails where guests can learn about some 300 bird species and 200 animal species, including lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo, elephant and cheetah, tracked and followed off-road, deep into the African bushveld – a Nature Wonderland.

The Goal

An e-based campaign was set up with a specific goal of generating interest in their 3 night package and free flight specials.

The Campaign

This was a web based campaign only; email inserts promoting the specials were attached and sent on all of the Sabi Sabi’s outgoing electronic communication with a click through for more information.

Result

In a three month period, using only the Rocketseed inserts, Sabi Sabi have managed to communicate their specials to more than 15,000 individuals and have managed to actively engage with 872 email recipients.

Client Comment

By using Rocketseed in conjunction with our emails, we were able to market our specials to a large selection of potential clients, specifically to those abroad. This simple concept required no effort from our side yet created an awareness of our company and marketed our specials. It has been fantastic.

- Ann Lingard, Marketing Sabi Sabi