Services Offered
PR and Communications
When booking platform Profitroom set out to elevate their profile and reclaim UK market share, they needed a B2B PR partner who could bring their proposition to life through a strategic campaign using creative storytelling.
Hoteliers were losing revenue and they weren’t aware of the solution to fix it. They were essentially asleep on the job, with revenue being lost as a result of an over-reliance on Online Travel Agents (OTAs).
Despite Profitroom’s expertise in driving independent hotels’ direct bookings with high-converting websites, its messaging wasn’t hitting the right note with its target audience.
Profitroom turned to Smoking Gun’s B2B team to help them gain stand-out coverage against the competition with a PR campaign and new value proposition that raised brand awareness and reaffirmed their key messages.
Objectives
- Increase brand awareness amongst outstanding resorts
- Build trust and credibility in the brand
- Create a distinctive voice for the brand
- Elevate share of voice above key UK competitors
- Reinforce key messages around market leading tech, supportive team and proven results
Armed with a deep understanding of the target market, our team sharpened Profitroom’s narrative and positioned Profitroom as the go-to tech provider for hotels ready to supercharge their success. Our strategists uncovered the barriers holding UK hoteliers back from capitalising on Profitroom’s offering. Enter the Wake Up campaign, aimed at jolting UK hoteliers into action by demonstrating the game-changing power of Profitroom’s tech solutions.
Smoking Gun is renowned for its creativity and proud to challenge the status quo with strategies that shift what target audiences think, feel and do. This was an essential part of building Profitroom’s creative strategy.
The team immersed themselves in Profitroom’s key target audience, their concerns, what keeps them up at night and what stops them from choosing Profitroom’s product. This included time pressures, cost pressure, bad past experiences and having no idea just how much they were losing to OTAs.
This insight-driven approach shaped messaging development and activities that addressed these barriers head-on.
The Wake Up campaign was the perfect fit.
It provided a call to action, for hoteliers to do things differently and wake up to poor industry practices.
Hoteliers needed to know there was a better, more efficient way of doing things. The key was to be bold and brave with any comms and focus on championing the benefits of Profitroom, rather than the product itself.
The campaign messages included:
- WAKE UP… to increased conversion
- WAKE UP… to a slicker site
- WAKE UP…to a liberated team
- WAKE UP… to a devoted support team
- WAKE UP… to increased revenue
Through this smart campaign, we were able to:
- Create a distinctive tone of voice: Crafted a fresh, relatable tone tailored to resonate with high-calibre independent hotels and resorts
- Break the mould: Developed creative campaigns that cut through the “sea of sameness”, highlighting Profitroom’s unique value proposition
- Boost Profitroom’s status as a key player: We hit the ground running with strategic business news coverage, including the high-profile management of a majority stake sale to global tech investors. This was joined by impactful thought leadership opportunities and bold, creative campaigns
Creative Campaigns
Industry-first insights: Launched the Stressed Hotelier Report, based on the findings of a survey we commissioned of 1,000 general managers from independent hotels throughout the UK. The report, which addressed the key concerns of decision-makers in the hospitality sector, saw widespread media attention, including placements in top trade publications including Hotel Owner and The Caterer, along with national coverage in The Times and Mail Online.
Bringing bold creative concepts to life: Sparked conversations at trade shows with Anti-OTA Sprays – a playful way to “spray away” the OTAs eating into profits and encourage direct bookings. Developed attention-grabbing OTA protests ideas and Mr Motivator-inspired trade show activations. Our creativity ensured Wake Up didn’t just turn heads – it inspired action.
Advised on creative newsmaking, thought leadership, profiling, activations, stunts and social content to ensure the Wake Up campaign cut through across all media.
Results and evaluation
- Achieved 50% media share-of-voice versus competitors – jumping from 14% and trumping the market leader after just nine months of working with Smoking Gun
- 82 pieces of high-impact coverage across tier one trade and business titles, alongside coveted spots in The Times and Daily Mail
- Reached an audience of more than 197 million readers with key messages featured in 96% of coverage
- Average domain authority of 60 across trade titles that usually require paid placements, including The Caterer, Hotel Owner, Hotel Management Network and Boutique Hotelier
- Secured industry recognition strongly resonating with peers and prospect clients
The client impact
“The impact that Smoking Gun has had on our salience with our target audience and peers has been remarkable. The Wake Up campaign effectively demonstrated that prioritising Profitroom drives hoteliers success across every metric.
“The results have far exceeded our expectations, but what we’ve valued most is the team’s unwavering commitment. They’ve embraced every opportunity to support us, consistently going above and beyond with strategic advice and insights.
“We have been on such a huge growth journey in the UK and none of this would have been possible without the impressive press coverage the team secured.
“Now, our demos and initial calls with prospective clients are much warmer, thanks to Smoking Gun’s clever communications that have given the market a clear view of us as a business.
“While we measured success through its impact on prospect clients, what surprised us most was the outstanding response from peers and potential employees, many of whom now want to join our company after seeing our work and brand personality.” – Jane Young, Regional Marketing Manager for UK, Africa and Enterprise at Profitroom.
