Hospitality Marketing Masters #2: Solotel with Justin Wei

Welcome to Hospitality Marketing Masters, presented by Mr Yum. In this second edition, we chatted with Justin Wei, Digital Marketing Manager at Solotel. Justin shares his insights into the industry and ways that he has seen success as a hospitality marketer.  

Prior to Solotel, Justin was Head of Digital Marketing at Royal Wins, and Digital Marketing Specialist at Hello Molly before that - so he knows a bite or two about growing brands through digital channels.

Why did you choose the hospitality industry? What makes it unique/special?

Face-to-face human interaction is the foundation of society and hospitality facilitates countless business meetings, family gatherings, friendly catch-ups and everything in between. As long as our need for human interaction exists, so will hospitality.

What is the biggest challenge you face in your role today?

As the tech giants become more wary of privacy concerns (e.g. Apple), they will be less open with their databases and will make future targeting more difficult. The move to zero-party data collection will be difficult but necessary for any marketing strategy that wants to build itself on a solid foundation of good data.

What podcasts make you a better marketer?

Business Made Simple with Donald Miller (Spotify link here) and A Bit of Optimism from Simon Sinek (link here).

Which marketing metrics are most important to you?

1. Cost per Acquisition/Conversion (tracking the efficiency of your marketing channels)
2. ROAS (Return On Ad Spend: tracking the efficiency of your advertising(.
3. LTV (Lifetime Value: Average spend of customer x average frequency of customer)

Give us your favourite marketing tactic for creating loyal customers?

Creating brand advocates: People are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend. (Source: Nielsen)

Which channels are most effective for getting customers through the doors?

Given I’m a digital marketing manager, I’m biased toward digital channels but I can say hands down that Google Ads/GMB is the most effective way of converting customers as they only go on the platform if they are intent on making a purchasing decision or researching a purchasing decision.

How do you see marketing evolving in the future, and how do you plan to adapt to those changes?

I see the holy grail of marketing (personalised one-to-one marketing) coming closer to our grasp as technology becomes more pervasive and people become more comfortable with brands knowing more about them. The brands that can tread the fine line between the convenience of familiarity and privacy concerns will be the ones that dominate in the future.

Which marketing project are you most proud of?

Working on lots of projects at the moment that I can honestly say is making a huge impact on the way Solotel conducts its marketing efforts. Watch this space.

If you’re a hospitality marketer and would like to be profiled here, please get in touch!

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