Currently, we are in an era of information explosion. With the increasing costs of purchasing mass media and producing advertisements, "Buzz Marketing" is challenging traditional marketing methods with its unique characteristics, becoming one of the hottest terms in the marketing world under the new economy. "Buzz Marketing" should increasingly attract the attention of hotel industry professionals. This article will make a brief analysis of the characteristics and strategies of buzz marketing, hoping to provide some inspiration to professionals in the industry.
Buzz marketing is a borrowed term, with its original English term being "Buzz Marketing". Literally, it means chattering or buzzing sounds, which implies the information transmission between consumer groups, i.e., the spread of information from those who know to those who don't. Marketing is the means and techniques adopted by enterprises, and Buzz Marketing can be defined as: an unconventional marketing method that mainly spreads information about hotel products or services to target audiences through consumers or the enterprise's marketing personnel. It differs from traditional advertising and sales promotion methods and is an independent marketing technique.
Buzz marketing has features different from traditional marketing methods:
Oral Promotion. Buzz marketing does not rely on media advertising but rather on word-of-mouth promotion among consumers, which is the transmission of information between consumers.
High Diffusion. This is reflected in both time and space dimensions. In terms of time, buzz marketing mainly uses word-of-mouth promotion by consumers, saving a large amount of production time for traditional advertising. Spatially, consumers pass on information about hotels, products, and service characteristics to more socially related masses, spreading quickly and widely.
Virus-like Infectiousness. Buzz marketing not only includes intentional information diffusion by consumers but also has virus-like infection characteristics. Consumers unconsciously obtain information as if they were infected with a cold and then instinctively spread it. The content being spread is not just the information itself but also something that easily attracts people's attention, influencing and changing consumer preferences.
Emotional Enhancement. Emmanuel Rosen, the founder of buzz marketing, believes that "consumers generally do not listen to manufacturers' pitches but heed their friends' words; they have all been deceived and are suspicious of sales pitches and tactics; they also all have their personal networks." Buzz marketing is no longer a simple, mechanical transaction process between hotels and consumers but integrates emotional factors such as family affection, friendship, and love among consumers. These factors are decisive in consumers' purchasing motives.
Cost-effectiveness. Buzz marketing is an advertising activity that actively reaches out to consumers, mainly based on people's direct experience of hotel products and services for autonomous promotional activities. Its cost is mainly focused on finding and incentivizing a small number of disseminators, greatly reducing the increasingly expensive media purchase and advertisement production costs. Therefore, it is sometimes called "no-cost marketing" or "micro-cost marketing."
Hotel Buzz Marketing Strategy Discussion
Impersonation Strategy. Traditional marketing methods are primarily enterprise-centered, with marketing personnel at the core, who conceptualize and promote hotel products and services. When using buzz marketing, hotel consumers are not just passive recipients of marketing information but active disseminators of hotel information, making them the center of the entire marketing process. One of the most commonly used methods in buzz marketing is hiring temporary actors to pretend to be shoppers or consumers for promotion. For example, hotels can hire a few good-looking young people who dress fashionably and appear in public places like airports and stores. These young people will proactively sit next to target customers and chat casually with them, introducing the hotel's service features, etc. At this point, if the information conveyed by the temporarily hired actors during marketing activities is inaccurate, it may make consumers feel deceived, leading to distrust of the hotel and negatively affecting the hotel's brand and corporate image. The use of this strategy involves marketing ethics issues, and adhering to marketing ethics is a prerequisite for hotel buzz marketing. Therefore, when using this strategy, hotels should first ensure the objectivity and authenticity of the information they promote, avoiding excessive exaggeration of their products and services. Otherwise, it may result in negative publicity consequences for the hotel.
Advertising Integration Strategy. Although buzz marketing has many advantages, it is not omnipotent. Traditional marketing methods remain an important aspect of hotel marketing. A hotel's buzz marketing should organically combine both. World-renowned marketing expert Michael Cafferky also pointed out: "Buzz is a low-tech method in the mind, but it appeals to all high-tech gimmicks in the market to achieve its goals." Therefore, hotels should carefully conduct buzz marketing through various media, such as live meetings, teleconferences, online events, audio tapes, video tapes, websites, and discussion groups.
Experiential Consumption Strategy. Buzz marketing mainly relies on people's direct experiences of hotel products and services for autonomous promotional activities. Therefore, enhancing consumers' experiential feelings is a direct and effective way for hotels to apply buzz marketing. Starbucks, currently the only global coffee brand with stores across four continents, has developed rapidly since its first store opened in Seattle, USA, in 1971. Starbucks' business model is: $25/cup of coffee = $5 coffee + $20 experience of a relaxed atmosphere. The most widely cited phrase is: "Starbucks doesn't sell coffee; it sells people's experience of coffee." Consumers not only feel the relaxed atmosphere here but also pass this feeling on to their friends and family. Starbucks people often say: "Our stores are the best advertisements."
Brand Reputation Strategy. McDonald's pioneered in integrating brand image into buzz marketing. Entering the 21st century, McDonald's changed its past slogans like "Happy Taste at McDonald's," "100% Customer Satisfaction," and later "McDonald's Is All for You," promoting the brand image of "Happy Laughter Every Moment." During different periods, it provides "targeted" services for different customer groups, creating an interactive joyful atmosphere, making customers feel fun and interesting, winning good reputations, thereby increasing repeat purchases, establishing a good brand image, and winning more loyal customers.
Event Attraction Strategy. Hotels can use events for buzz marketing to maximize the spread of corporate information in a short time, becoming a vanguard method for brand promotion. In recent years, this method has become increasingly popular, becoming a quite fashionable marketing tool.
Using events for buzz marketing mainly refers to hotels planning, organizing, hosting, and utilizing news-worthy activities systematically. By creating "hot news" effect events, they attract the attention and interest of media and the public, aiming to increase social recognition, shape a good image, and ultimately promote product or service sales. The focus lies in creating or amplifying a news-worthy event, allowing the media to compete in reporting, thus attracting public attention, achieving resonance among consumers with minimal investment for maximum impact.
Service Precision Strategy. Customer-centered precision management is a solid foundation for hotels to carry out buzz marketing. For example, Disney highly respects its customers, setting all cargo channels underground so tourists never see delivery trucks entering or leaving Disneyland. At Disney, you don't have to worry about getting lost because the employees are living maps of the vast park, happy to guide you. Disney employees are trained on how to hold babies, change diapers, smile at guests, pour wine, and serve dishes. Disney sincerely serves to make guests satisfied and even moved. Disney knows that individuals won't visit frequently, so it needs to inspire more friends and relatives of visitors to come to Disney; let children grow up and bring their friends or lovers to visit, which is the essence of Disney's service and exactly this precise service strategy that brings more tourists to Disney.
Internet Dissemination Strategy. In today's electronic age, buzz marketing is endowed with richer content. In the online environment, spontaneous discussions are quite active. For consumers, online discussions are channels for consumer exchanges; for hotels, they are effective marketing channels. Therefore, hotels can track and collect consumer opinions online, using automatic retrieval software to gather discussions about the hotel's products and services, converting them into standard formats by date, location, user ID, etc., and uploading them to a dedicated database to form a comprehensive view of the hotel. Meanwhile, marketers need to consider not only collecting consumer discussion information but also studying the impact of these discussions, such as how consumers will accept these views, whether they will influence the information receivers, and whether the receivers will further pass on these views, etc.