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Marketing Plan Weddings Charlemont Place Dublin 2
Marketing Plan
Weddings
Charlemont Place
Dublin 2
DCU Business SchoolAssignment Submission
Student Name: Shane Barry
Student Number: 58535191
Programme: MINT4 - BSc Marketing, Innovation & Technology
Project Title: Hilton Marketing Plan
Module code: MG328 Marketing Management & Planning
Lecturer: Joanne Lynch
Project Due: 17/05/2012
Declaration
I the undersigned declare that the project material, which I now submit, is my own work. Any assistance received by way of borrowing from the work of others has been cited and acknowledged within the work. I make this declaration in the knowledge that a breach of the rules pertaining to project submission may carry serious consequences.
I am aware that the project will not be accepted unless this form has been handed in along with the project.
Signed:_________________________
Executive Summary
The marketing plan is for the Hilton Charlemont Place and focuses on the weddings division.
The main aims of this plan are to create awareness and increase sales of weddings at the
Hilton. Increased sales of weddings can be lucrative as the average weddings reception spend
in 2011 was €9,751 and in the Hilton the average bar spend is €7,500. By May 2013 the
Hilton looks to of had twenty large weddings in the ballroom and twenty small weddings in
the restaurant. If these targets are met revenue of between €690,000 and €826,000 could be
achieved.
According to mrs2be.ie survey of 1,200 newlyweds and engaged couples, 9-10 weddings are
affected by the economic conditions and 1-3 had to make changes to their wedding plans. The
Hilton can only hold weddings on a Saturday when they have spare resources. The main
focus is still on corporate client sales. The Hilton should target engaged couples aged 30-60
as they are seen as the most valuable. They should position as a luxurious, high service
quality hotel in line with their brand name to best attract their target market. The Hilton
should also continue to focus on smaller wedding sales and civil ceremonies.
The strategy to reach these targets is to allocate an overall marketing spend of €2,000 for
weddings from now till May 2013. A €10,000 budget will also be done out to show what the
increased marketing spend could offer. The most important activity is to create a wedding
brochure which shows potential customers the Hilton’s offerings. This includes creating
wedding packages a different price points and putting all the Hilton’s weddings offerings into
a physical document. A wedding section on the website will also be created which will
include a PDF of the brochure and additional wedding information. To drive traffic to the
website the Hilton should look to engage in SEO and PPC ads. The Hilton should also engage
with customers on social media. Facebook and Twitter are already set up and should be
further used to talk to customers about weddings. A competition should be set up to help
increase Facebook likes and Twitter followers. I recommend a Facebook ad camping is ran to
help achieve this goal. A premium option would be to use display ads on popular weddings
websites like weddingsonline.ie and confetti.ie.
The reason for the shift to mainly online communications for this marketing plan is now
according to a mrs2be.ie survey again, 80% are using online wedding forums for research and
to get recommendations, 78% source suppliers with online wedding websites, and 37% are
using Facebook and Twitter to source suppliers. It’s important the Hilton are communicating
where couples are now getting information and booking suppliers. Online communications
also offer a very targeted option where a small budget can be more wisely spent.
Two packages should be created with different offerings, one priced at €75 per person and the
other at €95 per person. This is at the higher price end compared to other nearby 4 star hotels.
The two packages should differ in offerings and quality in line with the price paid. These
price points should position the Hilton towards their target market. The online marketing
communications are very targeted and will be used to create awareness of the new wedding
offerings. The marketing plan budget (Fig 17) comes to €1,974 or €9,267 for a premium
option.
Objectives
Mission Statement
To ensure every guest feels cared for, valued and respected at a level that’s simply unmatched
worldwide.
Organisation’s Objectives
The Hilton Charlemont Place has three main objectives in the weddings division of their
business.
1) To have weddings in the ballroom on only Saturdays for 100-150 guests and increase
from five to twenty weddings per year.
2) To also increase the number of smaller weddings in the restaurant for 40-60 guests
from nine to twenty per year.
3) To design and print a wedding brochure by the start of May 2012 which has different
packages and prices to distribute to potential clients.
These objectives have been made to create awareness of weddings at Hilton Charlemont
Place and to increase wedding sales. To achieve these objectives different marketing
communications will be used and the brochure will be created. We will look to increase
traffic to the website by 60% and likes on Facebook and followers on Twitter by 50%.
Business Unit Goals
The Hilton Charlemont Place has a list of main overall goals they want to achieve by the end
of 2012.
1) Increase overall profits by 10% by the end of this year.
2) To increase room hire by 5% by the end of the year.
3) To increase bookings in the restaurant and bar sales by 5% by the end of the year.
4) To increase bookings of conference and event rooms by 10% by the end of the year.
Product/Market Background
Product Range
The Hilton has a huge range of services that it offers. Here are a list of their three main
services.
Hotel Lettings
The Hilton’s main offering is a variety of rooms to stay in overnight. Room lettings during
the week are normally close to capacity due to the good relationships with a strong group of
corporate clients. On the weekends the hotel has spare capacity in its rooms.
Restaurant and Bar
Aqua is the name of the restaurant which delivers a high quality of food. They get
reservations from guests of the hotel and also anyone can make a booking off the street. They
serve breakfast, lunch and dinner 7 days a week. The residents bar is open to late hours and
11;30pm to non-residents 7 days a week, it also serves bar food and tea/coffee.
Conference/Event Rooms
The Hilton has a variety of rooms to rent. They have a selection of rooms for business
meetings and can also be booked for a variety of uses. They have larger rooms and a
ballroom for events. At the events they can serve food and drinks for up to 150 guests. Such
events include college balls, weddings, business nights out, awards, birthdays and any other
event clients want to hold.
Market Overview
Hotel Industry
The hotel industry was hard hit by the recession with 5% of Irish hotels in administration and
8% of overall rooms. The loans of 87 Irish hotels have been acquired by Nama. Recently
there has been some good news for Irish hotels in a PWC report it states Dublin is showing
the second highest growth rate in Europe in 2011 in terms of revenue per available room. A
6% increase in occupancy rate in 2011 and 2.8% in 2012 so far. That takes occupancy to
73.2% on average per night. The average rate per room is now at €84 per night at the peak in
2007 was at €109. It is also good news regarding tourism which is on the rise. In Q2 of 2011
it was up 15% on 2010. Ann O’Carroll from PWC does warn that room rates will continue to
be under pressure as long as the oversupply issue remains. Dublin is now one of the most
competitive places for tourism offering some of the lowest hotel room rates in Europe. We
can see in (Fig 1) the growth over the last few years in occupancy. It is looking better for the
hotel industry but is now a lot more competitive on price.
Weddings Industry
The Irish weddings industry is worth between €500 million and €1 billion annually
(mrs2be.ie 2012). We can see what couples are spending on their weddings in 2011
compared to 2010 (Fig 2). In the 2012 a survey by mrs2be.ie (results will be used throughout
the report) outlined some major trends emerging in the weddings industry. 9 out of 10
couple’s plans have been affected by tough economic conditions. 1-5 couples are now
engaged for more than two years and putting off having their weddings. The wedding venue
still gets the biggest spend with on average €9,751 in 2011. The average number of guests at
the full sit down weddings is 101-150. There are a notable number of weddings being held in
restaurants 3.4% in 2011 compared to 1% in 2010. Couples still but emphasis on quality but
now price is also a huge factor. We can see in (Fig 3) the number of weddings in Ireland over
the past few years. There were 21,541 weddings in 2009. 7 out of 10 people getting married
have been affected by the downturn by been made redundant or taking a pay cut. Couples are
now paying for weddings themselves with 50% paying the whole amount while only 1%
parents pay the whole bill. The average cost of a wedding is now €26,000 and €29,000
including the honeymoon. Couples are now spending less on weddings and putting pressure
on price but still wanting quality.
Sales Summary
I didn’t have access to sales reports for the purpose of this report. Weddings held in the
ballroom in 2010 were five and weddings in the restaurant there were nine. The Hotel is
profitably due to a strong group of corporate clients. Most of the room lettings are to
corporate clients during the week. The hotel is near capacity each weekday and relatively low
capacity on weekends. It is mainly a corporate sales hotel.
Key Marketing Analysis
Marketing Environment Trends and Market Drivers
To look into this area I used two models PESTLE analysis and Porters Five Forces. This will
help me look into the current external environment and we can see what affects it would
imply for the Hilton and spot emerging trends. We will also be able to see future market
drivers.
I will first look into a PESTLE analysis which looks into the external factors of political,
economic, social, technology, legal and environmental and see how they affected the Hiltons
wedding business.
Political/Legal
There recently had been a reduction in the VAT rate for the hospitality and tourism sector.
The rate decreased from 13.5% to 9%. This new rate applies to hotel lettings and food and
drink. It excludes alcohol and soft drinks. This reduction lowers the hotel costs, which in turn
they can reduce their price to attract more customers. The average cost of a wedding
reception at €9,905 the savings in VAT between 13.5% and 9% are €445. The hotel can
choose to keep their prices the same or can pass the reduction onto customers with the hope
of increasing customer numbers with lower prices. For weddings the new VAT rate will
apply to the rent of the room to hold the wedding in and any food and drink excluding alcohol
and soft drinks. Overall the cost for a hotel to hold a wedding is cheaper and they can supply
cheaper rates to customers.
The recent decrease in the minimum wage would again affect the cost of holding a wedding
to the Hilton. For every 10 people at a wedding they have 1 staff on the floor, and then they
have bar staff and kitchen workers. A lot of the workers at weddings are on minimum wage
so a reduction from €8.65 to €7.65 would help cut costs. An example of 15 staff at a
reduction in min wage by 1 euro over an eight hour shift at a wedding would save €120. If
there is a political change of power it could happen again in the near future. It’s an area to
look out for changes in the national minimum wage act.
The Hilton must comply with employment laws and look out for any changes that affect their
business. Some important laws to look out for, Terms of Employment (Information) Acts,
1994 and 2001 which states they have to give all employees certain info in writing. Under
the Payment of Wages Act, 1991 employers must give all employees wage slips. The
Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997 states that the maximum working week average
over 4 months is 48 hours. Some break time laws are 11 consecutive hours rest per 24 hour
period, one period of 24 hours rest per week, preceded by a daily rest period (11 hours), and
15 minutes when working four and a half hours or more; 30 minutes when working six hours
or more which may include the first break. For Sunday work employees are entitled to
premium payment. Minimum annual leave is 4 weeks paid and for part time 8% of hours
worked. Also entitled to 9 bank holidays. The Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977 to 2007 outline
rights and procedures in the event of dismissal from work which should be looked at closely.
An employee must have 12 months continuous service before being entitled to bring an unfair
dismissal case. A dismissal is deemed unfair unless the employer can justify it. These are
some of the main employment laws the Hilton need to look out for a summary can be found
at http://www.employmentrights.ie/en/media/Leaflet%20web.pdf.
There is also likely to be on increase in tax for alcohol, this is an area which will affect the
costs of serving alcohol for the Hilton. This is one of the areas where they make the most
money at weddings so it’s a big area to look into for any future legal changes that could be
made.
There are new Civil Ceremony laws in Ireland. They can now get married in approved place
not just a registry office. The Hilton can look into this law change not only to be able to hold
the receptions but also hold the ceremony aswell.
Economic
As stated above in the hotel/wedding industry we can see it is a hard time for hotels in this
economic downturn and see some the economic factors affecting the hotel. According to a
survey by mrs2be this are some economic recent trends in engaged and newlywed couples.
The average spend on a wedding is now €22,698 in 2011 down from €23,429 in 2010 and
down significantly since the boom years. 9-10 couples wedding plans are affected by the
economic downturn and 1-3 have made changes to their wedding plans due to this. 74% of
the people surveyed say that the wedding reception is still their top spend, at an average
spend of €9,905 in 2010 and €9,751 in 2011.
The number of people unemployed is at 434,100 for March 2012 14.3% of the population.
There is a rise of 55.9% in long term claimants since January 2011. High unemployment
decreases the number who can have a big spend on weddings affecting the Hilton’s business.
In a year to April 2011 76,400 people have emigrated from Ireland (CSO 2011), a record high
since 1989. With many people leaving the country there are less people to get married here
again affecting the Hiltons business opportunities.
Overall people are spending less, and are afraid to spend big as they are unsure of the future.
1-5 are now engaged for more than 2 years as they try to save for weddings. It’s a tough
economically time for hotels and weddings.
Social/Cultural
There have been social and cultural changes over the past few years some which fit in with
the economic changes stated above.
There has been a significant increase in separation over the past few years. In 2008 it reached
27.5% of marriages end in breakdown/separation. In 2008 there were 6,222 separations and
22,243 marriages. This is a 22% rise since 2002. There number of marriages ending is on the
rise, this is good new though for wedding venues as people now are getting married more
than once. 5.2% of wedding partners had being married before in 2008.
10% of couples are now putting pressure on price where before the downturn it was all about
quality. Couples are now more price concerned. Even for their big one day more couples are
worried about price but also concerned at what quality they get for the price they are paying.
There has also being a massive shift online for when couples are sourcing suppliers and
booking weddings online which I will talk about more in the technology section.
As stated before 1-5 are now engaged for more than 2 years. This is due to a number of
reasons over the last few years. Both partners now live busy lifestyles with work and don’t
have time to get married and put it off. There is also a feeling that they don’t need to rush to
get married due to the amount of separations. There are also couples saving over long periods
so they can have their dream wedding as over 50% of couples now pay for the wedding in
full themselves and only 1% of parents foot the whole bill.
People are now getting married older with the average age of a bride 30 and a groom 32.
People are putting off getting married till later in life. The Hilton should take this into
consideration when choosing their target market.
Technology
There has being a shift online in recent years to couples sourcing suppliers for their
weddings. In the mrs2be survey 74% of newlyweds are sourcing their suppliers online and
78% of engaged couples expect to. They are using popular websites like weddingsonline.ie
and mrs2be to look for suppliers opposed to glossy magazines.
Brides are now also talking to each other online. 80% are getting recommendations and doing
research on online forums. It’s important to look at what is being said about your business
online.
Social media is also now being used to source suppliers. 30% of future brides are using
Facebook as a resource while a small percentage of brides are using Twitter. This is still a
growing trend and will continue to grow into future years.
There is also a growing trend of couple having their own wedding websites which supply
guests with information, send digital invitations and RSVP.
The Hilton need to be communicating where brides are searching for suppliers to increase
business and there is now a shift online where the Hilton needs to be.
Environmental
Environmental factors don’t have that big of an impact at weddings in the Hilton. The Hilton
does have a number of sustainability and environmental measures in places. Where it looks to
cut costs and become more environmentally friendly. They have targets to reduce the carbon
output of the hotel and also targets to reduce the amount of energy the hotel uses. They are
moving all bulbs to energy efficient and sensor lights that turn off when no one is around in
certain areas and light diming in other areas. The hotel heat is also control by sensors to be at
the most efficient level. A number of different recyclable bins are in place for different types
of rubbish. The Hilton worldwide has set certain environmental goals for each hotel to reach.
These new measures will also need be run during weddings.
SWOT Implications
We can see in (Fig 4) the SWOT for weddings at the Hilton Charlemont Place. I will now go
through some of the implications of these factors.
Strengths
The Hilton need to capitalise on their strengths which follow.
Brand Name
The Hilton is the world’s best known hotel chain. They are known worldwide as a luxurious
hotel with great service quality. When customers think of the Hilton they think of a
worldwide chain of expensive hotels that offer great service and luxurious staying. Hilton has
to use their brand name to their advantage over other hotels. People can have their weddings
at a Hilton the best know hotel chain in the world. The name will give a perception of quality
and could be the competitive advantage over other hotels.
Location
The Hilton is located in Charlemont Place on the south side of Dublin City just far away from
the main hustle and bustle but still in a central location. It is easily accessible for anyone in
the greater Dublin area. They also have a canal across the road which is beautiful for wedding
pictures as well as St. Stephens Green a 10 minute walk away. The location is perfect for
couples who want a city wedding, and scenic areas to take pictures.
Corporate Client Base
The Hilton Charlemont Place is mainly a corporate hotel with a strong base of loyal clients.
The Hilton can use these clients to promote their new wedding offerings. Each time staff are
visiting clients they can bring along a wedding brochure to leave in the office for anyone to
look at, this can also create word of mouth to friends and family of these clients who see the
brochure. Because they have had long good relationships with their clients hopefully they
will be happy to spread the word to co-workers and friends and families.
External Support
Every Hilton hotel can get support from the Onqinsider system which can store information
from all guests who stay in the Hilton, it also has training courses and brand advice online.
Any Hilton hotel can take training courses and read about different strategies and brand
advice on the system. On the system is a huge customer database they can utilise. They can
also ask questions to a number of teams worldwide on advice in any area they want. The
Hilton Charlemont Place can also communicate with the other Hiltons and the Conrad in
Dublin to get any advice on any matter. When the Hilton is looking into setting up new
packages for weddings they can use all of these resources to get advice and help them make
the right choices.
Resources Already in Place for Weddings
The Hilton already has the resources in place to hold weddings. They currently don’t hold
that many but not much has to be invested in new materials to continue having weddings. The
main investment needs to be in marketing to create awareness and increase sales. They also
already have trained staff in place
Weaknesses
The Hilton need to look at their weaknesses and try to control and eliminate them, some of
them are as follows.
Marketing
The Hilton has little or no marketing budget to put into weddings and most of their marketing
is controlled by the head office in the UK. They need to try getting an allowance even a small
one to help them promote weddings. They also need to try getting control over some
marketing activities like SEO, PPC, Facebook ads and display ads online which are
inexpensive ways to help promote weddings. They need a budget and some control in order
to create awareness and increase sales of weddings.
Low Human Resources
There are low human resources on the sales/marketing team. They don’t have the time to
allocate to focusing on a marketing plan for weddings. They mainly focus on corporate
clients sales which make the hotel profitable. If they want wedding sales to increase they will
need to increase time spend promoting weddings and set a schedule to do so. They could also
look into hiring another person part time. They can make around € 20,000 gross per wedding
so the time and human invest could be warranted.
Reluctant to Disturb Profitable Business
The Hilton Charlemont Place is a profitable hotel even in these economic conditions which is
a great achievement for any hotel. Weddings can only be held on a Saturday as they don’t
want to disturb their loyal corporate customer’s business. Hilton also doesn’t want to risk
investing to much in marketing of weddings encase it doesn’t increase sales. Hilton should
invest a small amount in weddings just to drive enough traffic to have weddings on Saturdays
throughout the year.
Opportunities
Here are some opportunities the Hilton can look into to capitalise on.
Increase Marketing Spend for Weddings
There is an opportunity to increase their marketing spend to help promote weddings at the
Hilton. They already have all the resources in place to hold weddings. A marketing budget of
between €2,000 and €10,000 could drive enough traffic to increase sales of weddings just for
Saturdays as they want. Having weddings on a just a Saturday wouldn’t affect their corporate
clients who are mainly there weekday. It’s an opportunity to use resources already in place to
increase revenue.
Create Wedding Packages
At the minute each wedding that is held the price and package is made for each individual’s
request. The Hilton need to create packages and price points to show customers what they
offer. All their competitors have a brochure of all their packages. The opportunity is there for
the Hilton to create their own brochure with different packages to start competing with other
hotels in the Dublin City Centre. The Hilton need to be able to show potential clients what
they can offer and have something physical to give them.
Threats
These are the threats I see of moving into the wedding business. The Hilton need to be aware
of these threats while entering the wedding market and try to minimise them.
Losing Valuable Corporate Clients
The Hilton Charlemont Place is a corporate hotel. If the Hilton starts holding weddings it may
drive their loyal customers away to competing hotels. If they start trying to many new things
their loyal corporate clients may feel betrayed and there is a threat they will go to other
hotels. If weddings are only held on weekends the affect to corporate clients will be
minimum. A part time employee could be hired to deal with wedding customer’s queries so
communication during the week isn’t lost to corporate clients.
Competing Hotels
There are plenty of hotels in Dublin and even more nationwide who want to attract weddings.
There is a threat if the Hilton increases resources to hold more weddings they may fail and
lose money as there are so many competing hotels. In Dublin city alone there is a lot of hotels
competing for wedding customers and is a very crowded place. The Hilton must look where
to position carefully and be wary of the threats from other hotels.
Porter’s five forces can show us the competiveness of the wedding industry and the
attractiveness of the markets. We can see in (Fig 5) the fives forces.
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
For a venue to hold a wedding there are many suppliers needed. There are plenty of
competing firms who offer the same service looking to supply weddings. This is good for
wedding venues as the competition means they can normally get low prices as they buy a lot
for one wedding and there is repeat business. The wedding venue has the power to bargain
and the power of suppliers is low as if they don’t offer the service at the right price or quality
isn’t good enough there are plenty of alternatives. Some examples would be flowers and
food.
Bargaining Power of Customers
This is a day many people look forward to their whole life and want it to be perfect. The
customer has a great bargaining power as there are so many competing venues. Customers
are making a big once of purchase so venues do whatever they can to get a sale. Customers
have big bargaining power.
Threat of New Entrants
To hold a wedding you need a big venue. Most hotels already hold weddings so the threat of
new entrants would be relatively low. There is a threat from the increasing number of
weddings in restaurants. Also a small threat from hotels starting now to offer weddings.
Threat of Substitute Products
The threat of substitute products is low. A wedding reception is normally held in a wedding
venue there aren’t many substitutes. Couples may chose not to have a wedding reception and
have a small wedding in their house or holiday with a few friends.
Competitive Rivalry within the Industry
There are a lot of hotels nearby that offer weddings. Dublin city centre has the most hotels of
anywhere in Ireland and most of them offer wedding packages. Hilton would be mainly
competing with 4 start hotels, their main competitors all offer different packages and different
prices to attract different market segments. It is a very competitive industry for weddings.
Customer Issues
We can see in (Fig 3) the number of weddings over the past few years. The average is about
20,000 each year of marriages. The average age of a bride is 30 and groom 32. The recession
has affected weddings as well with 1 in 3 making changes to their wedding and 9 out of 10
couples affect by the recession. Customer are spending less, the average wedding spend in
2011 was €22,698 and average reception spend was €9,751. People are now getting married
later in life and are more price concerned spending less on weddings.
The population of Ireland is now 4,581,269 and there are 43,864 more females than males.
There is not a shortage of one sex for marriages. In Dublin there are 1,270,603 people with
618, 541 Males 652,062 Females again a good balance of sexes. 00-14 - 864,447, 15-24 -
632,723, 25-44 - 1,345,873, 45-64 - 928,869, 65+ - 467,926(CSO 2008). We can see the
breakdown of people in each age group. The median age is 34.3 which fit in well with the
average age of bride and groom when getting married.
As I have stated above in detail here are some of the main issues with customers. There are
now more separations than ever before, this leads to repeat marriages, 5.2% of marriages one
partner has been married before. 1 in 5 are now engaged for more than 2 years putting off
getting married. Couples are now using online means more to source suppliers and get ready
for their wedding. Couples are spending less on weddings and increasingly concerned over
price and value for money for the quality of the weddings. 7 out of 10 couples have been
affected economic conditions by being made redundant or a pay cut. These are the major
trends now for couples getting married. The Hilton has to look at the customers issues when
designing their prices and packages.
There are new laws for civil ceremonies which are one the rise and there is also a trend of
having smaller wedding which the Hilton can offer in their restaurant. To get an actual
market size for weddings in the Dublin, there were 21,541 marriages in 2009 and 39.2% of
the population lives in the greater Dublin area where most of the Hilton’s customers would
come from that gives a rough estimate of 8,444 marriages in the Dublin area. Civil
Ceremonies account for 23% of marriages in 2008.
Competitor’s Pressures
We can see all the competitor’s offerings in (Fig 6) which outlines, their prices, star rating,
capacity and location, the Hilton is also included. In (Fig 7) we can see all the hotels location
across Dublin. We can interact with the map in this link http://g.co/maps/6q35f and view all
competitor’s websites. In the appendices are all of the competitor’s brochures for weddings,
along with photos and any other additional information I collected about them.
As we can see there are a lot of competitors across Dublin City Centre. The prices of the
Hiltons main competitors range from €35-€120 per person and they can hold between 40 and
325 people. There are a range of hotels which offer different prices and can supply for
different amounts of people. All the hotels cover a wide range of segments and there are
offerings for every type of customer. Most hotels will tailor weddings to the customer’s
wishes. There are a lot of hotels fighting for the small number of weddings each year and
they will be very competitive to get each customer sale, competing on price and quality.
We can see in the brochures exactly what each hotel offers. Most hotels have three price
points ranging on average from about €50-€90 per person with different offerings in each.
The more expensive packages the better the offering and quality. These three price points
make it easy for the hotel to have a package which suits a lot of customer’s budgets. €50 per
person by 150 guests is €7,500 for the reception. The average wedding couple has between
101-150 guests and spends €9,751 on a reception. Hotels set price points above and below the
average spend to attract as many customers as possible with different offerings.
Here are some of the main offerings by competing Hotels. Wine/champagne receptions, chair
covers, linen, flowers, centerpieces, personalised menus and place cards, wedding planner,
pre menu tasting, choice of different menus, DJ band hire, cake stand and knife, extended bar,
complementary room for bride and groom, discounted rates for guests and red carpet arrival
were the main offering by competitors. The Hilton can look at what the competitors are
offering in there brochures and look were to position themselves. The Hilton need to make
price points and packages and can again look at competitors offering and see where they can
gain a competitive advantage.
Marketing Strategies
Priority Opportunities to Pursue
The priority for the Hilton to pursue is to try to attract more customers for weddings.
Year 1
In year 1 starting May 2012, the Hilton should create a wedding brochure which has different
price points and packages. They can then show to potential customers a physical brochure
which shows their offerings.
The Hilton should target larger weddings for between 100-150 guests which they can fit in
their ballroom. They should look to have weddings only on weekends not to disturb their
corporate clients.
They should also look to increase the number of smaller wedding which they can hold in their
restaurant for between 30-60 guests.
They can also look to target people getting married for the 2nd time and also civil ceremonies.
To pursue these opportunities a wedding brochure will need to be created. The Hilton will
also need to increase its marketing budget for weddings and choice which communications
they best think will attract more customers for the wedding opportunities above.
Year 2 and 3
The headlines for year 2 and 3 would be first to see how well the packages and price points
worked in year 1. They also need to look at how the marketing worked. In year 2 and 3 they
should still focus on the same opportunities as they can only hold weddings on weekends and
there aren’t much more options. In year 2 and 3 the Hilton should look to continue to increase
sales for large and small weddings on the weekend.
Core Target Markets
There were 21,541 marriages in 2009 as we see in (Fig 3). As I worked our above a rough
estimate of 8,444 in the greater Dublin area which would be the Hilton’s main target market.
Most people who have weddings in the Hilton are from the greater Dublin Area. The Hilton
have three core target markets they what to attract.
1) Couples aged between 30-60 first time weddings. People are now getting married
later, people aged between 30-60 will have advanced in their careers and now should
have enough disposable income to have the wedding they always wanted. For their
first time they will want a large wedding for between 101-150 which the Hilton can
offer in their ballroom. 54% of the population is between 25-65(CSO 2011) a huge
proportion of the country is in this age group.
2) 40-60 years olds who are getting married for the 2nd time. 2,464 marriages have one
partner who has being married before in 2008(CSO 2008). 489 where both have been.
People in this segment group normally look for a smaller low key wedding which the
Hilton can provide in the restaurant.
3) The Hilton can look to hold Civil Ceremonies in the Hotel. They can obtain a license
to marry couples on site and can also then hold the reception. Again they would target
30-60 years olds from the Dublin area. 23% of marriages in 2008 where civil
ceremonies. That’s 5,115 in 2008, 39.2% of the population in greater Dublin area
rough estimate of 2,005 Civil Ceremonies in Dublin.
They are the core target markets for year 1. They will also continue to target them for year 2
and 3. If they aren’t getting enough sales from these target markets that can evaluation and
change for years 2 and 3 after reviewing year 1.
Basis for Competing
The basis for the Hilton to compete in the wedding market comes down to several factors.
They have the best known hotel brand name in the world that is associated with luxury and
quality and a great competitive advantage. Customers feel there is less risk going with a
brand name especially one as well known as the Hilton and what it stands for. The Hilton
Charlemont Place is already a profitably hotel and have spare resources on a weekend. They
have all the necessary equipment in place to hold small and large weddings. They currently
have no strategy to actively promote weddings and attract customers. They have customers
coming to them asking can they have a wedding at their hotel and they don’t have a brochure
to give them. There is already demand there and everything is in place to hold weddings on
weekends. They need to create a brochure and increase marketing to drive up demand and
sales.
As we stated above there is a lot of competition in the market and with already customers
coming to the Hilton an increased marketing effort could further boost sales. They only want
weddings on Saturdays and maybe Sundays with a small marketing spend of €2,000- €10,000
they could fill these weekend slots with little risk of losing money or affect their corporate
clients. To rent the ballroom in the Hilton can cost up to €15,000 for a wedding and an
average extra spent of €7,500 on the bar. A little marketing spend could help them
dramatically increase revenue. If it doesn’t work out there is only a little lost and they can
still be profitably due to their existing business.
Desired Positioning
The Hilton wants to position to attract their core target markets and be as profitable as
possible. The Hilton should position at the higher end of the €35- €120 to attract the most
valuable customers. At this higher end is also where their target market of 30-60 year old
couples who would have advanced in their careers and have more disposable money are.
They can only hold one wedding each week on a Saturday and maybe one on a Sunday. They
want the wedding to be as profitable as possible. Their brand name already leads them
towards the higher end as well. They should position as luxury high quality hotel for
weddings which the brand stands for. I recommend price range from €70- €100 per person as
€120 per person is a five star range. The average wedding is for 101-150 guests, for 100
guests at €70 is €7,000 and for 150 is €10,500 and for 100 guests at €100 is €10,000 and for
150 is €15,000. With the average spend of a wedding at €9,751 this positions the Hilton
around and above that mark. The Hilton also has to look at what other hotels offer for the
same price to see who they are positioning against and the competition at those price marks.
They can also position for smaller weddings in their restaurant and for Civil Ceremonies.
They can tailor packages for smaller wedding to suit them, and for Civil Ceremonies have a
license to marry people on their premises and offer the same packages as for marriages and
also tailored ones.
To position at the points they need to create a brochure which explains all its offerings,
packages and prices. The packages and prices should position them at the higher price range
and a perception of better quality, this along with their brand name which perceives luxury
and quality. To position for smaller wedding they can have a section in the brochure
explaining they tailored any wedding to the customer’s needs. For Civil Ceremonies again
say what they offer in the brochure for them. Their marketing communications also need to
position them this way.
Statement of Expected Results/Forecasts
For this report I don’t have access to previous sales figures for the hotel. With the
information I know I have in co-ordination with help from the Hilton set sales forecasts for
weddings for the next three years.
The Hilton only wants to hold weddings on Saturdays and maybe on Sundays. There are 52
weeks in a year so 52 weekends. Sales for wedding in 2011 where five in the ballroom for
100-150 guests and 9 in the restaurant for 40-60 guests. Overall there were 14 weddings in
the Hilton in 2011 with no marketing activities or wedding brochure.
Year 1
Starting May 2012, the Hilton looks to have 20 weddings on a Saturday for 100-150 people
in the ballroom. With the two price points at €75 and €95 per person, we can see the income
for 100 and 150 guests at point price points.
Price Per Person 100 guests 150 guests Average Bar
Spend
Total income
one wedding
Total income for
20 weddings
€75 €7,500 €11,250 €7,500 €26,250 €525,000
€95 €9,500 €14,250 €7,500 €31,250 €625,000
I don’t have the costs per weddings but the income the Hilton can achieve from 20 weddings
for 100-150 guest at those two price points is between €525,000 and €625,000. These sales
would target the 1 and 3 target markets stated above.
For smaller weddings for between 30-60 guests which are held in the restaurant the Hilton
look to hold 20 of them throughout the year. This would be for the number 2 target market
stated above. Price for these wedding are tailored per request but normally fall around the
€75-€95 per person price range.
Price Per Person 30 guests 60 guests Average Bar
Spend
Total income
one wedding
Total income for
20 weddings
€75 €2,250 €4,500 €1,500 €8,250 €165,000
€95 €2,850 €5,700 €1,500 €10,050 €201,000
The income for 20 smaller weddings would be between €165,000 and €201,000. Over all
income for 40 weddings per year from large and small would be around €690,000-€826,000
for year 1 sales forecast. This would require the Hilton to have weddings on 40 out of the 52
Saturdays in a year. Currently they have 14 per year would no brochure or marketing so is a
fair estimate.
Year 2
If sales are projected as in year 1 I would recommend the Hilton starts having weddings on a
Sunday as well to increase capacity without disturbing their corporate clients. There are now
102 days they can hold weddings on.
Year 2 for larger weddings we would forecast 25 to be held on Saturdays and Sundays. A
slight increase from year 1, there will be more awareness after year 1 and an increased
marketing spend if year 1 sales are reached.
Price Per Person 100 guests 150 guests Average Bar
Spend
Total income
one wedding
Total income for
25 weddings
€75 €7,500 €11,250 €7,500 €26,250 €656,250
€95 €9,500 €14,250 €7,500 €31,250 €781,250
Year 2 for smaller weddings we would forecast 25 aswell. Again stated the same reason as
above. The hotel has limited capacity so sales can’t be targeted to high.
Price Per Person 30 guests 60 guests Average Bar
Spend
Total income
one wedding
Total income for
25 weddings
€75 €2,250 €4,500 €1,500 €8,250 €206,250
€95 €2,850 €5,700 €1,500 €10,050 €251,250
Sales in year 2 will be between €862,500- €1,032,500 for large and small weddings.
Year 3 we predict sales will again have a small rise to 30 for large weddings and 30 for small
weddings.
Price Per Person 100 guests 150 guests Average Bar
Spend
Total income
one wedding
Total income for
30 weddings
€75 €7,500 €11,250 €7,500 €26,250 €787,500
€95 €9,500 €14,250 €7,500 €31,250 €937,500
Price Per Person 30 guests 60 guests Average Bar
Spend
Total income
one wedding
Total income for
30 weddings
€75 €2,250 €4,500 €1,500 €8,250 €247,500
€95 €2,850 €5,700 €1,500 €10,050 €301,500
Sales for large and small wedding in year 3 are forecasted to bring in between 1,035,000 and
1,239,000.
All sales figures have being calculated in co-ordination with the Hilton. Year 1 we have
forecasted a rapid rise due to the introduction and marketing efforts. There isn’t much more
capacity to have more weddings unless the Hilton decide they want some on Sundays. The
forecast may change when in year 1 the Hilton see how may wedding sales they achieve and
how profitably they are. More focus may go towards weddings in years 2 and 3 depending on
how they do in year 1.
I think the forecasts are realistic with over 20,000 wedding each year and a rough estimate of
8,444 in the Dublin area calculated above. 60 weddings in the Hilton in year 3 would be 0.7%
of the estimated weddings in Dublin.
Marketing Programmes
I will now go through the recommendations I will give for the marketing mix with the main
focus on year 1 and a brief outline for years 2 and 3.
Product
The Hilton Charlemont Place needs to design packages and different options for customers to
create the product. At the minute each wedding is created to each customer’s request. The
Hilton has most of the resources in place to hold weddings both in the ballroom for large
weddings and restaurant for small ones. I would recommend the Hilton makes two packages
for weddings, but can also tailor weddings to the customer’s request. This would include
organising weddings in the restaurant for each individual customer to their request. They
should also have a packages to show they can register civil ceremony marriages on site and
hold the reception. They can choose from the two packages or have it tailor made how they
want.
The two packages will differ in offerings and quality, they will cost a different price per
person which I will talk about after. (Fig 8) shows an example of two packages they can
offer. The more expensive one will have extras and upgrades from the cheaper one, for
example the rose package has a wine reception, lily has a champagne, rose has standard food
the lily can have more advanced expensive food. We can see all the different offerings in (Fig
8) for the extra costs per person, there are better offerings. Creating the packages give a basic
list of your offerings, the customer can then decide if they would like one of the packages or
a tailored wedding. These packages can be for traditional weddings or civil ceremonies.
For smaller weddings they can be held in the restaurant or a conference room with DJ/band.
They can be made to the customer’s request. The Hilton can take requests in and be able to
give a price for the overall cost for what the customer wants.
In promotion I will talked about how the company can create awareness of their new product
offerings.
Some of the extras needed for the wedding packages can be bought at weddingstar.com.
Personalised place cards are .50c each and personalised napkins .20cent each. These are nice
inexpensive touches which personalises the packages. 100 personalised menus from
printing.ie are €75.00 and 150 for €150.00 which again is a nice touch and something people
can bring home to remember the day.
Price
As talked about before, the Hilton should position in the higher price range from competing
hotels. Most Hotels have 3 price points, I recommend the Hilton has two as they don’t want
to offer cheaper weddings. The two price points should coordinate with the two packages. As
we see in (Fig 8) I would recommend two price points of €75 per person and €95 per person.
As described in “Product” section the two package differences would be showed by the price.
Other hotels offer packages from €30-€60 but the Hilton can only hold weddings on
Saturdays and to attract the most valuable customers only want to offer in the higher range.
This higher range also fits it with their brand name and image. I have gone through in the
sales forecast how much revenue the hotel can achieve at these two price points in years 1-3
if they meet targets. Price is now a more concerning factor for engaged couples when
sourcing suppliers says the (mrs2be.ie 2012) survey. They are concerned about price but also
what quality they are getting of that price. Price for smaller wedding should be kept in line
with restaurant prices but also the wedding packages. Price should stand for the quality of
service they are getting. They should give a breakdown of what the costs are for each element
of the wedding to customers. The Hilton should help brides design their weddings and inform
them of all costs.
Place
The weddings can only take place in the Hilton Charlemont Place. We can see in (Fig 9) all
the different size rooms the Hilton can offer. They can be tailored to fit each weddings size.
The Weddings can also take part in the restaurant which can fit up to 60 people for a meal for
a wedding. These rooms can be done up for weddings with all the extras needed. Couples can
also request for any extras to be in place. The rooms can be done up as we see in the pictures
from competitor’s weddings in the appendices. There is also a canal across the road which is
a scenic area for wedding pictures and St. Stephens green is a 10 minute walk which is also a
beautiful place for pictures. As it is a service the wedding must take place in the Hotel and
can only happen on Saturdays.
People
For a wedding the hotel now has 1 floor staff for every 10 people, staff makes for a better
service quality and there is always someone around if a guest needs anything. They are
needed to bring out all the food and get drinks for customers. There also needs to be chefs,
kitchen workers and bar staff and mangers around to deal with any problems and supervises
the employees. The staff are one of the most important aspects of any service as they interact
with the customers. It’s vital all the staff are trained and everyone knows what to do. The
Hilton must get the number of staff for a wedding right to make sure the service runs
smoothly but too many staff will increase costs. It’s better to have more staff on then to be
short. It will be a trial and run error to see how many staff they need. They will also need
outside suppliers staff for flowers, food and photography and anything else they need to be
brought in externally. External supplier’s staff will also have an impact on service quality
delivered. It’s important to choose the right suppliers. Staff are vitally important to the
wedding and their performance has a huge impact on service quality.
Process
The process for holding a wedding will have to be worked out by the Hilton and then tested
with their staff. After each wedding if the process has any problems it can be evaluated and
changed. There should be a schedule set for each wedding and worked out with the wedding
couple to suit them. The process should have a timeline for each activity so everyone has a
rough idea of what to do when. The process for the wedding begins after the couple book,
they can then work out a schedule and organise suppliers and staff requirements. Everything
that is offered in the package and any extra that the couple ordered should be delivered in the
process. The Hilton should look at the process from when the couple started looking for a
venue to when they choose them to after to see how they rated it. Feedback in a survey form
should be sent after to see how they found their wedding and asked to rank certain elements.
They should also be asked why did they choose the Hilton to see which marketing
communications are working. The process incorporates the packages with the staff to create a
wedding.
Physical Evidence
As I explained before in the “product” with the personalised name cards, napkins and menus,
these also create physical evidence which is unique to each customer’s wedding. People can
bring them home and keep as a way to remember the day. The Hilton brand name should also
be printed on these as physical evidence for the brand. A photographer aswell will take
pictures which will be physical evidence of the day. Couples can chose their own
photographer or the Hilton can recommend one to get. It important anything physical used in
the wedding is high quality such as cutlery, plates, cake stand knife, linen, chair covers and
any decorations as they are a way for customers to judge quality. The Hilton already has most
of these items and they are high quality. If they are positioning at a high price the perceived
quality should be delivered if not the customer will not be satisfied.
Promotion
The promotion is where most of my recommendations are. The Hilton already has most of the
pieces in place to hold weddings it just need to create more awareness to increase sales. Here
are my promotional recommendations for the Hilton.
1) Create a Brochure
The Hilton after they created their packages and choosing their price points they need to
display all this information in a physical form. I recommend they design, print and distribute
a wedding brochure which has all their offerings in it. As well as the two packages and their
offerings with the price, there should also be additional information explaining what they
offer for smaller weddings and Civil Ceremonies. Everything the Hilton offers for weddings
should be included in the brochure for customers to see.
The first stage after deciding what to put in the brochure, is to design it. They should include
pictures of a wedding at the Hilton. They could either ask a wedding happening in the Hilton
could they take pictures of them from their wedding or else hire models and clothes. I would
recommend the first options as it’s a lot cheaper. For a photographer for the pictures they
could ask to do it for free and in return the Hilton will recommend him for future weddings.
They should include pictures of the room done up for a wedding with different shots, also
have pictures of the couple across the road at the canal and at St Stephens green. The cost to
use a customer’s pictures would be close to noting. In return you could offer them a free
photographer for their wedding which the Hilton has got for free anyway. They could also
take pictures when there is a wedding happening and get models to do other pictures. To hire
a male and female model can be got for free or low cost from Starnow.ie as they are new
models looking for experience. On covet.ie is a list of designer wedding dresses that can be
rented for 3 days for between €150- €600, and a male tux for between €100- €300 from
Black-tie
After the pictures are taken, the whole brochure needs to be designed, printing.ie will design
it for €149.00 a front and back A4 which will fit all the Hilton’s information. The Hilton can
work with printing.ie to have it designed as they want and all the appropriate information is
included and looks the way they want it.
After the designing, the brochure has to be printed. Printing.ie can print 5,000 A4 back and
front for €440.00 or 10,000 copies for €669.00. This includes delivery and Vat. Once the
Hilton has the brochure they can keep them around the hotel to hand out to any customer who
asks. The managers when they visit corporate clients can put them in the conference
packages. Then their corporate clients can tell their employees if they are looking for a
wedding venue and also have the brochure around the office which can lead to spread of
word of mouth to friends and family. The brochure can also be put online which I will talk
about next. A manger visits 8 corporate clients a week.
2) Website
My 2nd promotion recommendation would be to update the wedding section of their website.
At the minute there is just a small section which just tells you who to contact. It is very hard
to find on the website and also on Google. I would recommend that they upgrade their
website to have a better wedding section. On the website should be a description of what the
Hilton offers, pictures of weddings, a PDF of the brochure and contact info. The Hilton
already has someone in house with web design skills that can create this new section. It then
gets sent to the UK head office for any improvements and approval. All this can be done free
of cost, it will just take employees time.
Once the website is updated they will need to drive traffic towards it to create awareness and
help increase sales. They should engage in SEO and PPC ads to drive traffic towards the
website. For SEO a company called proseo.ie offers a range of packages. They have a starters
SEO pack which does the basics for SEO and then gives you a report about your website this
costs €199.00. They also offer maintenance service which each month will help maintain
your results in the top page of natural Google search. This will help when people search for
weddings, it will help the Hilton appear as high up as possible. The cost of the maintenance is
€69.00 per month. I would recommend setting SEO up with 3 months for maintenance which
would cost €406.00 or for a premium option set up with 12 months maintenance will cost
€1,027.00. We can see in (Fig 10) what the results look like when you search “Weddings
Ireland”. SEO will help improve the Hiltons search result and in turn make it easier for
customers to find. If a customer is searching for wedding or any related words, it is very
targeted. SEO will help drive traffic to the website.
The Hilton should also use PPC ads to drive traffic towards their website. Proseo.ie again do
PPC management. They can set up your PPC ads for €159.00 and maintain your account for
€55.00 a month. You will also need to allocate a budget for them to spend on targeted words.
They could target ads at words like “Weddings”, “Weddings Ireland”, “Wedding Venues”
which are very targeted because if someone is searching them they are looking for wedding
info. As we see in (Fig 10) these ads will be in the ads section on top and on the right.
Proseo.ie will control the account for you, to set up and 4 months maintenance with a €50.00
per month budget it will cost €579.00 and then you could follow on what they were doing
from there. A premium option for a set up with 12 months maintenance and €100.00 budget
per month would cost €2,019.00. These options would create ads on targeted Google searches
around weddings. People can then click the results and it will lead to the Hilton website
where the customers can look at all the information they have there.
SEO and PPC will help drive traffic to the new wedding section of the Hilton website and
will help increase sales.
3) Social Media
My next recommendation for promotion would be to engage in social media. The Hilton
should mainly use Facebook, and created targeted ads to drive traffic to their page. They
should also set up a Twitter account. These two social media forms are a great way to engage
with customers. They can interact with customers, get feedback and answer any questions
they may have.
There is already a Facebook page set up but isn’t kept up to date. The Facebook page should
be looked at everyday, and all customer questions should be answered. To help get more likes
on the page they should set up a competition and a Facebook ads campaign to help drive
traffic to their page. A campaign can be easily set up on the Facebook adverts app, all you
need to do is enter the information to create your ads, pick your target market and launch the
campaign. I recommend a member of the Hilton staff to do this. In (Fig 11) we can see an
example Facebook ad I created. It advertises a competition on the Hilton Facebook page so
when someone clicks it goes to the Hilton page and they can like the page and enter the
competition. An example prize would be a romantic meal for two with an overnight stay in
the Hilton as the cost would be minimal, it would also attract the target market of engaged
couples. We can see in (Fig 12) who the ad is targeted to and will only appear as ads on their
Facebooks, men and women ages 30-60 who are engaged which is directly targeted at our
target market and they are the only ones who will see it. The recommended bid Facebook
gave was .41 cent per click, so that will be the cost for everyone who clicks the ad. I
recommend a budget of €100.00 per month for 4 month to test it which will cost €400.00 and
for a premium option of €150.00 per month for 12 months which will cost €1,800.00. The ads
can be controlled internally by a member of staff and assistance can be got for free from
Facebook sales team. For a budget of €100 pm 243 people can click the ad, they will all be
people in our target market going directly going to the Hilton Facebook page. For 150.00 pm
365 people can click the ad. Once they like it all their friends can see they have like the
Hilton and a domino effect can begin. On the Facebook page should be a link to the website
where people can see the brochures and additional information. The Facebook page should
also have some brief information about weddings. It should be updated daily and used to
interact with customers.
A Twitter page should also be set up, they can again interact with customers and answer any
of their questions. There should be Facebook and Twitter icons on their webpage and
brochure to help drive fans towards the pages, Twitter and Facebook should also drive
followers to one another. The competition can be run on Twitter aswell.
Another free option would be to set up a YouTube account to put up videos of previous
weddings, and even interview guests while at weddings to get feedback, the video can then be
given to the wedding couple for their collection and also put up on the Hiltons YouTube
account with their permission. These videos can show potential customers what weddings at
the Hilton are like a give them a real feel for them. The YouTube video can be posted on the
website, Facebook and Twitter for people to see.
Other social media options would be to get guests to check in on foursquare at weddings and
set up a Pinterest account which allows you to pin pictures to your wall for others to see and
is mainly used by females. These are just two other options but wouldn’t have as many users
as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.
4) Display ads
I would recommend display ads on popular wedding websites as a premium option. Three
websites I looked at where weddingsonline.ie, confetti.ie and mrs2be.ie. These are some of
the most popular wedding websites future brides now visit. As we saw before more couples
are going online when sourcing suppliers.
Weddingsonline.ie has more traffic than all other Irish wedding websites combined, 22,000
registered users mostly brides and permission to market to them, 75% of the users haven’t
book a wedding venue yet and they can use targeted emails to brides who haven’t picked a
venue yet. We can see in the appendices the two forms which outline the different packages
on offer and what each provides. I would recommend going with the first two cheaper
packages as they fit more within the budget. We can see what the offerings are in the two
packages, mainly banner ads and targeted emails. I got a 25% discount on any package so the
cost including Vat for the first packages is €2,352 and for the 2nd €4,116.
Confetti.ie is a magazine gone online and is a smaller website, they had 30,147 unique
visitors in 2011. We can see in (Fig 14) there ad offerings, I would recommend a leaderboard
for 6 months or 12 months which costs €800 and €1,400 respectively. This gets a display ad
right on the top of the website which visitors can’t miss. This would be a cheaper option to
weddingsonline.ie.
Mrs2be.ie wouldn’t give me a direct quote without naming the Hotel which I didn’t want to
do. I have being in contact with them and the Hilton can follow up if they are interested. They
are another popular wedding website which is again very targeted at brides who are looking
to source weddings.
We can see in (Fig 15) a list of all the tasks that need to be carried out, who is responsible and
the timeframe they start and finish. All the proposed recommendations are in the schedule
and the Hilton can choice which once they wish to implement. The three main staff who will
carry out the tasks are Catherine the corporate sales manager, Silvia the events manager and
Natasha a sales assistant. Silvia is familiar with weddings and also has good web design
skills, Catherine is also familiar with organising weddings with previous experience and
Natasha has a good understanding of social media. These aspects were taking into account
when allocating tasks to match their skills. The schedule for these activities starts in May
2012 in the hope to catch some of the summer wedding business as they are the busiest
months. The maximum length of the schedule is to May 2013. At this stage there can be an
evaluation to see what is working and what to change. In year 2 and 3 they can look at the
results from year to help them improve the marketing mix.
Controls and Evaluations
All the tasks seen in (Fig 15) need to be controlled and have targets set to evaluated how they
achieved. Each task has an objective which it was created to help achieve. (Fig 16) shows us
how to control and evaluate each task. It should be looked at in relation to (Fig 15). We can
see how to measure each task, what objectives where set for the task, the targets being set for
the task and a contingency plan which can be put into action if the task isn’t performing as
desired. The website can see where views are coming from by using Google analytics which
is free to set up. This will show you where every view on your website came from, how long
time they spend on the site and what they did on the site. Facebook have a similar tool to
view your page views. If any task isn’t performing and doesn’t look like it will be close to
reaching its target the contingency plan should be bought in or else stop the task completely.
Most of the tasks are linked and all the tasks together have the main goal of increasing sales
and meeting sales forecasts set out in the forecasting section. A survey will also be issued to
each wedding couple who had their wedding at the Hilton to ask them several questions about
the wedding. From this the Hilton can see which parts of the wedding preformed best e.g
staff, food, decorations, value for money, quality. They can also ask the couple how they
found the Hilton to see what marketing communications are working best. The feedback from
this survey is vitally important to evaluate how weddings are going at the Hilton. This
feedback should also to taken on board in line with targets in (Fig 16). Any reoccurring issues
found should be evaluated, if customer don’t think it was good value for money, or there
wasn’t enough staff and changed. Targets should be set for satisfaction on each section of the
survey in line with the SALT system already in place in the Hilton. Weddings at the Hilton
should be evaluated at the end of May 2013 to see if they are fitting in with the overall
business goals of the organisation.
Financial Implications/Required Budgets
(Fig 17) shows the budget allocate for spending on weddings. I was given a budget of €2,000
for marketing spend, I also did up a budget for €10,000 to see what the extra spend could get
you. A few costs are imputed as €0.00 but some take up employee’s time and use resources
like the competition price of a meal and overnight stay. The cost will have to be worked out
for them. We can also see in the sales forecasting section the potential revenue earned per
wedding and the annual income if targets are reached. For this report I don’t have figures on
the cost of holding a wedding to the Hilton or a breakdown of wedding costs. I don’t have
figures to see how much profit can be made from each wedding. The income figures are in
place to work that out. We can then see the marketing spend in (Fig 17) and see is the spend
justified by the profit made from weddings and the increase in number of weddings from the
previous year. Staff cost for their time also need to be allocated for each task they are
carrying out, those cost aren’t accounted for in the budget. After year 1 the marketing
communications can be evaluated and a budget for year 2 can be made.
Operational Considerations
The Hilton hotel is mainly a corporate hotel, they have corporate clients for meetings in their
conference rooms, overnight stays, meals in the restaurant, and lunch/coffee in the bar. Most
of their revenue comes from corporate clients. Most of their sales/marketing team’s efforts
are focused on corporate sales. They have built up a strong base of loyal corporate clients and
this has made the hotel profitable. Not a lot of hotels manage to be profitable since the
economic downturn, so it is a risk moving into other sectors. It’s important the introduction
of more weddings doesn’t affect their corporate clients or the communication with them.
Having weddings just on a Saturday minimises the impact, they also have room for one on a
Sunday but this might affect their communication with corporate clients and be more focused
on wedding sales. It also important they don’t spend too much on marketing for weddings in
case of failure to increase sales. They should first test with a small budget as they only want a
few weddings to help increase revenues, they don’t have the capacity to have them during the
week. The Hilton should minimise the risk entering the wedding sector and still have their
main focus on corporate clients as they are their profitable business. The Hilton have €2,000
to test spend on marketing for weddings, and have the resources already in place to hold
weddings.
Appendices
Fig 1 PWC 2011
(Fig 2) mrs2be.ie survey 2012
Fig 3 CSO 2009
2009 2008 2007 2006 2005
Marriages 21,541 22,243 22,554 21,841 21,335
Fig 4 SWOT
(Fig 5) Porter’s Five Forces
(Fig 6) Competitors
Hotel Star Number of guests
Price Location
Hilton 4 40-150 € 50-€90 Charlemont Place
The Clarence 4 60-150 €35-€120 Wellington Quay
Radisson Golden
4 120-200 €50-€90 Golden Lane
The Maldron 4 40-60 On request Cardiff Lane
O’Callaghan Alexander
4 90-325 €49 Merrion Square
The Morrison 4 85-160 €75-€120 Ormond Quay
Burlington 4 40-120 €59-€89 Donnybrook
Fitzwilliam 5 12-80 €95 Stephens Green
O’Callaghan Davenport
4 90-360 €49 Lower Merrion Street
O’Callaghan Mont Clare
4 70-150 €45 Merrion Street Lower
O’Callaghan Stephens Green
4 Up to 30 On request Stephens Green
(Fig 10) “Weddings Ireland” Search Results
(Fig 11) Facebook Ad
(Fig 12) Facebook Ad Reach
(Fig 14)
(Fig 15) Tasks, Responsibilities and Schedule.
Programme or marketing mix task
Person or department responsible
Date(s) for activity
Anticipated cost Implications for the organisation
Create packages and prices
Silvia May 2012 €0.00 Target specific segments
Design and printing of wedding brochure
Printing.ie and photographer
May 2012 Photographer = €0.00
Design and printing 5000= €589.00, 10,000=€669.00
Create awareness and increase sales, an item to give to customer when they ask about weddings.
Website Design
Silvia May 2012 €0.00 Easy access for potential customer to information. Create awareness and increase sales
Distribute Brochures to corporate clients
Catherine May 2012 onwards
€0.00 Create awareness and increase sales
SEO Proseo.ie May 2012-July 2012
May 2012—April 2013
€406.00
€1027.00
Increase search engine results, drive traffic to website, increase awareness and sales
PPC Proseo.ie May 2012-August 2012
May 2012-April 2013
€579.00
€2,019.00
Target certain results words, drive traffic to website, increase awareness and sales
Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Natasha May 2012 onwards
€0.00 More information for customer, better understanding of the product
Facebook Ads Natasha May 2012-August 2012
May 2012-April 2013
€400.00
€1800.00
Target specific users on Facebook, increase awareness and sales
Display Ads Catherine with wedding websites
May 2012 onwards
€2,352-€4,116 weddingsonline.ie
€800-€1,400
Confetti.ie
Target engaged couples, drive traffic to website
(Fig 16)
Programme or marketing mix task
Task Objective
How to Measure
Targets Contingency Plan
Create packages and prices
To create packages at different prices to suit targeted customers
Number of bookings for each packages.
By May 2013 20 bookings from both packages
Re-do packages with different offerings and change price points.
Design and printing of wedding brochure
To show potential customers all the Hilton weddings offerings
By number of brochures distributed
1,000 brochures distributed by May 2013
Re-design brochure with new offerings as above, Increase marketing communication to increase awareness.
Website Design
Set up a wedding section on the Hilton website
Number of views on that section.
Increase views by 60% from May 2012-May 2013
Increase SEO and PPC to drive traffic to website
Distribute Brochures to corporate clients
Put wedding brochure in corporate client packages.
Number of weeing brochures distributed to corporate clients.
8 per week Stop issuing wedding brochure in corporate packages.
SEO Get the Hilton into top page on Google search for weddings
Position in Google search, number of visitors from Google search
Be on first page of Google search by May 2013
Switch company to so SEO, hire online marketing employee, A member of staff there now do SEO
PPC To have ads on target search in
How many views on the website are
50-100 each month in line with
Target new words, Switch PPC company, Hire
Google from PPC ads
budget. expert employee, do it yourself, increase bids per word.
Facebook and Twitter accounts.
To engage with customers on Social media
How many comments answered on each account
10 per day FB and 5 per day Twitter till May 2013
Increase spend on Facebook ads to drive traffic.
Facebook Ads To drive traffic to Facebook page
How many clicks on Facebook ad.
243-365 clicks per month depending on budget.
Stop using Facebook ads.
Display Ads To advertise the Hilton weddings on popular websites
Number of click on each display ad
Increase traffic to website by 60% by May 2013
Stop using display ads on these sites.
(Fig 17)
Budget€2,000.0
0€10,000.0
0
Create packages and prices €0.00 €0.00Design and printing 5,000 brochures €589.00Design and printing 10,000 brochures €669.00Distribution of brochure to corporate clients €0.00 €0.00Website design €0.00 €0.00Set up SEO and 3 months maintenance €406.00Set up SEO and 12 month maintenance €1,027.00Set up of PPC, 4 months maintenance with €50.00pm budget €579.00Set up PPC, 12 months maintenance with €100.00pm budget €2,019.00Facebook and Twitter maintenance and competition price €0.00 €0.00Facebook ads, € 100.00pm budget for 4 months €400.00Facebook ads, €150.00pm budget for 12 months €1,800.00Confetti.ie annual leader board €1,400.00Package 1 with weddingsonline.ie €2,352.00
Total€1,974.0
0 €9,267.00
Bibliography
PWC (2011), Dublin hotel industry turns the corner and will grow in 2011 and 2012 - Dublin showing second highest growth rate in Europe for 2011 in terms of revenue per available, Available From: http://www.pwc.ie/press-release/press-release-18-10-2011.jhtml, [Last accessed: 1st May 2012].
CBRE (2010), The Irish Hotel Market – 2010 Review & 2011 Outlook, Available From: http://www.cbre.ie/ie_en/news_events/news_detail?p_id=5927, [Last Accessed: 1st May 2012].
Mrs2be.ie (2012), Irish Wedding Survey 2012, Available From: http://www.mrs2be.ie/newsworthy/irish-wedding-survey-2012/, [Last Accessed: 1st May 2012].
NERA (2012), Guide to Employment Rights, Available From: http://www.employmentrights.ie/en/media/Leaflet%20web.pdf, [Last Accessed:1st May 2012].
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Websites for recommendations
Weddings Online (2012), Available From: www.weddingonline.ie , [Last Accessed: 2nd May 2012].
Confetti (2012), Available From: www.confetti.ie , [Last Accessed: 2nd May 2012].
Printing.ie (2012), Available From: www.printing.ie , [Last Accessed: 2nd May 2012].
Proseo (2012), Available From: www.proseo.ie , [Last Accessed: 2nd May 2012].
Starnow.ie (2012), Available From: www.starnow.ie, [Last Accessed: 2nd May 2012].
Covet.ie (2012), Available From: www.covet.ie, [Last Accessed: 2nd May 2012].
Blacktie (2012), Available From: www.blacktie.ie, [Last Accessed: 2nd May 2012].
