Blog of POSH agency

Online strategy management for hotels and providing hotels with our online ecommerce expertise is where we began and where the heart of our online agency lies. We have lived and breathed hotel eCommerce our entire careers, running websites like Hilton and MacDonald Hotels know working with small and large UK independents and hotel chains such as Crieff Hydro, the Royal Garden Hotel in London, and Apex Hotels. Our online expertise, customer dedication and marketing quirkiness sets us out from the normal online delivery agencies, along with our track record for hard results!  We have never seen anything but exceptional growth for our clients from our efforts.

Online SEO Specialists We have a new seo specialist on board!  Our new seo guru has excelled for big names such as the Hilton Group and brings a plethora of experience, helping our clients make their content king and grow in search rank.  From keyword research, metadata, online optimisted copywriting, link building and so much more… Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.

PPC Specialists Poor PPC campaign set up and management was such a frequent bug bare of the POSH Agency that we decided tostart doing it ourselves in-house.  Running PPC campaigns is so often done so badly with agencies, cheating their clients out of organic growth and damaging hotel seo strategies, to simply increase the ‘perceived’ ROI.  What they don’t tell you is that a good chunk of that ROI would come for free and new markets could be brought in and conversion increased if they got their hands dirty and worked a little harder! What’s more is that we were so right about this, and are so good at PPC campaign management we recently received a Google endorsement for our PPC campaign set up, structure and management! Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.

Online Graphic Designer and Email Content Specialist Yes we finally have our very own in-house graphic designer and content layout master.  Coming from a backgroundof print and web design with bags of experience in online email campaign creation.  As from the outset, we still don’t aim to re-design clients websites from scratch (unless this is what their customers reports are telling us they need).  We do, however, recognise the need to have a website designer on hand to:

1. Ensure content updates are delivered with the best online customer journey in mind,
2. Email designs are kept fresh and inspiring, month in, month out, and
3. That online marketing campaigns are brought to life with inspiring call to actions.

Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.

Hotel Website Development The POSH Agency have a team of web developers who assist clients with delivering new social systems/tools,websites and web pages. We are loving having developers on hand to support our client websites with the slightly more technical updates and functionality improvements to keep their online strategies ahead of the competition. All work by our developers is defined by your online statistics and customer behavioural reports. Our developers also work at creating social systems and sign up tools to help keep your customers engaged and to encourage word of mouth marketing; and we even have a games developer for those who are really serious at ensuring interaction with their cusotmers. Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.

Google Analytics Specialist and Consumer Behavioural Reports Online reporting and statistical translation are the core focus of our business. There is no point in ploughing time and money in to growing your hotels online bookings if you don’t understand where your bookings are coming from, how your site is converting and what is compelling your customers to find your site and convert. At the POSH Agency our web developers will intricately tag your site with Google tracking tags (not just at a simple level as done by most web agencies) to every single page, link and button. We then set up detailed goals and funnels through your key customer journeys, enquiry forms and the full booking engine to ensure we know what your customers are responding to and why. Strong website statistics are crucial to online growth and long-term stability for your ecommerce strategy. There is, however, no point in all these figures if you don’t understand what they mean and what to do with them. This is where our Ecommerce experts come in. Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.

The Royal Garden Hotel in London Kensington, one of the most prestigious 5 star hotels in London, has launched its new hotel website to coincide with the launch of its exciting new image from its extensive hotel refurbishment. The Royal Garden Hotel creation and launch of the new hotel website was managed by the POSH Agency, a new age team of online experts who work exclusively with hotels. The POSH Agency help hotels to increase and maximise sales revenue from online marketing efforts. The new hotel website, launched on 1 April, offers exciting new ecommerce features and designated section offering hotel special offers in London to loyal guests and prospective customers. An important feature of the new website is the online photo gallery, complete with images of the recently renovated areas of the Kensington hotel, which is soon to be accompanied by a full interactive suite of online hotel videos and 360-degree tours of the hotel facilities. The Royal Garden Hotel overlooks Kensington Gardens and offers travellers a 5-star luxury hotel without the stuffiness expected of 5 star hotels in London. This well known UK hotel enjoys stylish rooms, a hotel spa, 10 London meeting rooms and modern function room and events venue, plus two award-winning restaurants – including the acclaimedMin Jiang Chinese Restaurant on the 10th floor. Jenny Arnold, founder of the P.O.S.H. Agency which is now working for the Royal Garden Hotel managing ecommerce activity and online growth, explains: “We love working with the Royal Garden Hotel in London and are very excited to be part of the launch of its luxurious new look. Imagery and interactivity are therefore at the forefront of this exciting new hotel website. We wanted to instantly show the comfort and quality of this fantastic newly refurbished hotel whilst offering great support and information to help customers find their perfect hotel stay.” The recently reopened hotel lobby ensures a memorable welcome upon arrival. The contemporary, modern feel can be seen on the 10th floor in the critically acclaimed Min Jiang restaurant and in the bedrooms and suites on the seventh, eighth and ninth floors which are now decorated in a palette of neutral calming shades, complimented with rich fabrics. New features include iPod docking stations and media hubs. Modernisation work is currently underway on the fifth and sixth floors to continue the phasing-in of the contemporary designed bedrooms. Visit the new website now at www.royalgardenhotel.co.uk and enjoy some of the fantastic hotel special offers.

Sales calls are the bane of my working life! I hate making sales calls so much that I decided to dedicate this P.O.S.H. Agency blog post, not only to create myself a little tick list of do’s and don’ts to refer back to, but to try and help anyone else who dreads sales calls to overcome the struggles I have .  Not to forget – I want your input, feedback and top sales tips too!! Starting up the P.O.S.H. Agency meant I had to face my nightmare and work out how to bring in new business.  I have been on client side before and loathed the endless cold sales calls I used to receive day in day out, and was very impatient to get off the line when a cold call came in… which I guess has installed in me a fear of making sales calls– I know 1^st hand how much the person I am calling doesn’t want to talk to me, and I know how hard I used to be on my sales callers…. hell mend me!  Karma has come back to haunt me!! Cold calling was such a fear factor for me that it encouraged me to hires the services of a sales mentor.  This has been such an incredibly positive and rewarding move for me and the P.O.S.H. Agency that we have now entered in to a working agreement with our mentor from the Suite Company, and founder Jill Chalmers has become my full force business mentor. Jill Chalmers, founder of the Suite Co., is an experienced hotelier herself, working with hotels as a consultant to increase their turnover and operations productivity: “we help hotels  find and set plans in place to gain the ‘biggest bang for their buck’….. quickly.”

Jill Chalmers, founder Suite Company

Since the P.O.S.H. Agency and Suite Co. began working together my confidence in cold calling and the processes of the sales funnel has increased dramatically.  Don’t get me wrong, I still find sales hard, I still don’t particularly enjoy it, but I am learning that I can do it and how I do it best. For example, I have to be standing up and pacing around a room to keep me calm and drive my confidence through the telephone receiver to the potential customer I am speaking to.  I can now roll off my sales script and even change it to suit the flow of the conversation without my prompter notes in front of me, and most importantly, I now know that I don’t function on my sales activities as well in the afternoon as I do in the morning.  This is my little book of rules for my sales planning and I know I still have so so much to learn.  But here are my top 10 sales tips telling you how I managed to get to this stage… and what I have learnt from the Suite Co.

The P.O.S.H. Agency’s Top 10 Tips to Sales Calls:

1. Who are you? Have a few very strong definitive bullet points of who/what you are. Then go back through them and ask yourself so what?  Does anyone else offer/do that?  Why are you different from your competitors – and don’t be fluffy about this.  Short, sharp and hard hitting. 2. What’s your offering? Be clear about exactly what it is that you are offering and how you are offering it – don’t confuse the conversation by getting too in depth. 3. Create your sales script! Prepare what you want to say to your potential customers from start to finish. Don’t go in blind and stumble through the conversation.  Use your script to guide you and give you confidence. 4. Know your target! Having a well structured and focused target group will make you far more confident and successful with your sales than going in with a scatter gun approach.  It’s ok to rule out groups of potential customers.  Go for the ones that are going to make you money with the least amount of effort to convert the sale into a customer. 5. Create a kiss list! Collate your potential targets in a sales kiss list, love list, hit list whatever you want to call it and prioritise it.  Use filters on your call list to help you plan who you are targeting and in what regions to help you manage your calls.  Never stop adding to this list. 6. Do a little research! Have a quick look at your potential customers site, take a few notes, google them, look them up on LinkedIn.  This will not only give you more confidence but will prepare you for any questions they may throw at you and make you more credible. 7. Get into the mindset! We all have good days and bad days, we all have time periods when we are on a roll, and other times when we just can’t seem to focus.  Know yourself!  Know when you are at your best and use this time constructively to make your calls and do your sales work.  And remove yourself from distractions whilst working on your sales! 8. Keep Smiling!   Keep yourself wound up, excited, motivated and smiling – don’t let yourself deflate.  The power and energy you have built up through your self planning and preparation will translate down the phone and increase your chance of hooking in your target customer. 9. Don’t let go easily! When on sales call if you get the feeling that your potential customer is losing interest or trying to brush you off try and probe them to find out why they aren’t interested.  Don’t just accept their first stock answer, keep asking more questions and get them talking.  Then take note of this!! 10. Never give up on yourself! Jill recently told me, “Remember you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince charming.” I now have this pinned on my wall to pick me up whenever I get knocked down.  She has told me it so often that I think the Suite Co. Strap-line should be: “remember you have to get 20 no’s to get 1 yes” And how that has helped me through my dreaded sales plan! If you want to fast track to get yourself out there and make sales quickly believe me, no matter how hard up you are, a good business mentor is worth every penny.  Jill’s other great strap line is “Getting the biggest Bang for your Buck!!” I cannot stress enough how important the Suit Co. has been to not only my personal development but to the growth and success of my business and how this strap line has changed the way I think and work. The P.O.S.H. agency is on a far stronger, safer and enjoyable road thanks to Jill’s sound guidance and support.  After all we can’t be perfect at everything, and life would be so boring if we had nothing more to learn from those willing to share it. And don’t just take my word for it: “Jill is a great sales & marketing strategist. She has a very engaging & direct style and knows how to maximise results. Jill is also an oracle on all things in the hospitality industry, and she knows more about sales & marketing in the hotel world than anybody else I have met.” May 14, 2009

Iain Mackay, Chief Technical Officer, All-Hotels.com

As you most likely already know, over 2010 Greg and I are aiming to raise £10,000 for the Scottish Epilepsy Initiative.  Half of this target we need to have raised by the end of this month and we are still a bit away and need your help!  Here’s how: Enter Our Raffle! We have been donated a fantastic prize from the prestigious Aveda Salon (based in Glasgow’s Merchant City) for a £50 gift voucher. Give yourself a professional makeover with an Aveda stylist, or give this fantastic gift to a loved one…. To enter simply go to our Just Giving page and donate a minimum of £5 and note your contact details before Friday 29^th January (2 weeks only).  If you would like to donate more than £5, not only will we love you so much more, but you will receive more entries into our exciting raffle (ie donate £20 for 4 raffle tickets, ordonate £50 for 10 raffle tickets… ingenious!!).   The Prize winner will be selected at random in 2 weeks time on Friday 29^th of January at our send off ceilidh. Please feel free to send this on to all your contacts so that they can enter too! J   It is for a very good cause! Other ways to help:

1. Greg and I will be trekking across the Sahara Desert from the 19^th to the 29^th of February to raise funds.  So please sponsor us!
2. Please join us at our fundraiser send off ceilidh on Friday 29^th Jan 7.30pm at the Glasgow City Chambers (email me or Greg for tickets – £10 per person)

P.S. Thank you so much to everyone so far for their support.  Those who have already donated via our Justgiving page will also be entered into our raffle. And once more, just in case you didn’t get the donate link from the email….http://www.justgiving.com/Jenny-Arnold THANK YOU!! J x

Well, what would you like to know?  …and where do I start?  Really I can talk alot, and get easily excited about things.  I can’t sit still, my brain is always running at full speed…I have to listen to music to stop my brain working overtime when I’m trying to sleep! I am doing my best to keep my POSH (Professional Online Services for Hotels) blogs short but sweet and hopefully interesting!   But I have a feeling this one might be a little longer because it’s all about me, me, me!!  I had some feedback on my previous blogs post and was asked if I could write a post about myself and give some background as to who I am, so here goes. Well I’m Jenny Arnold, or Jen to a lot of my friends and Jennifer to my mother when I’m in trouble!!  I am 27 years old, live with my seven year boyfriend and 3 kitties (Millie, Harvey & Izzy) in the West End of Glasgow. I live and breath to experience new things, meet new people and learn from everything.   My great passions in life are my horses (Tic-Tac – 28yr old pony who I have had since I was twelve & Aiden – 7yr old TBX who I bought when he was just 2), my work, my family and friends – All of these areas of my life I worry about consistently and can never be good enough at and always have to do more, achieve more, learn more, see more of!  I’m one of those do everything at 100 miles per hour, don’t stop and NEVER leave your Iphone behind kind of person! I went to Balfron High School – out in the sticks roughly half way between Glasgow and Stirling, where I loved art, Management and Information Studies, and PE.  Hated maths – can’t count to save myself, and was always told in my report cards ‘Jenny could do better if she would concentrate as much as she talks’… thank you Mr Kelly, needless to say I didn’t go on to study History!!  No I went on to do a degree in Business IT with Marketing at the University of Paisley – the so called Engineering and IT University in Scotland.  After Uni I gathered some work experience working for Hewlett Packard before moving on to work for the Hilton Group to discover where my skills truely lie. I was hooked by the online hotel industry and despite trying to move to different online sectors along the way I kept coming back to the online maketing of hotels.  After a number of years at Hilton running the www.hilton.co.uk website and then going on to manage the www.hilton.com website and web team I moved on to be the ecommerce manager for Macdonald Hotels & Resorts where it became increasingly apparent to me that the majority of hotel marketing teams don’t understand online.  Online marketing is so different from offline and to make the greatest returns needs a skilled ecommerce manager.  Further to this the ecommerce industry is a completely different kettle of fish to that of many other products and services. I therefore decided to take the plunge and start up my own online marketing agency and ecommerce specialists for hotels and I called it The POSH Agency.  POSH Agency stands for Professional Online Marketing for Hotels. So you have a brief history of Jenny Arnold, now for a brief update on what I am currently doing…  which involves my charity work with POSH!!  Currently, I am trying to raise £10,000  for the Scottish Epilepsy Initiative!!  I got talked in to this one by an incredible person I met through my online marketing business the POSH Agency (Professional Online Services for Hotels).  We were talking about helping her out with the SEI’s website and I am easily talked into things and think that everything is a good idea and can come up with a spin or an idea to make something work … or sell! So to cut a long story short somehow, through my sales pitch meeting I ended up deciding this challenge was a great idea and shortly after I signed up… and dragged my boyfriend along with me!! So I now have the dilemma of how to raise this £10k!! Well here’s some information for starters:

1. I am going to walk across the Sahara desert for 10 days of sleeping rough (I have never camped in my life before, let alone go one day without my strengtheners!!)  and walking 7 hours each day (I don’t do walking!! horse riding yes, swimming

1. yes, cycling… occasionally… if only I could attach my lappy and Iphone in front of me I would find more time for sport.  I used to be a sport maniac then I started up POSH!  Anyway more about the trek later.
2. I held a ladies night and handbag swap hopefully with some half naked rugby boys!  fantastic, now this I can do!!
3. Bonfire quiz night 1 – in our lovely office block Fifi & Ali baby
4. New Years Party – at mine!
5. Just Giving Page donations
6. We are having a trek send off Ceilidh on Friday 29^th January
7. OMG!! I’m Bag packing in ASDA!!  Not telling you where and when!!  It’s all for a good cause! It’s all for a good cause!….
8. I’m now planning an 8hr row-athon at my gym – joy
9. A gentleman’s night – whisky tasting evening

Can you give me any other ideas on how to raise money for charity quickly?  Please help!!  and maybe also sponsor me!!  :)

I came in to an interesting email this morning from a sports retailer (who shall remain nameless). It read: “It is Christmas week and as a retailer I should not be able to speak to anyone at all this week apart from customers! Sadly this is not the case.” Reading this email saddened me!  It’s Christmas and people still aren’t spending. I thought we were beginning to see signs of the credit crunch lifting. Certainly some of our hoteliers are beginning to see breaks in the ranks and their customers are beginning to step forward once again more freely, if only very slightly so. I agree, in a business capacity I am beginning to relax and look at how best to spend and invest in my business this year. Yet personally although I know I am going to spend, I am going to spend very differently. My outlooks upon material items and pampering myself have changed. This makes me feel that maybe I am not the only one? That although this is another financial recession we will in time recover from, it has not simply been another slump, or depression. It has genuinely changed us. It has changed the way we spend, the way we think and how we perceive our lives. Yes its Christmas, yes I have just as many presents under the tree and will be giving the same quantities and excitement to my giving this year… yet my presents are far more practical, environmental and thoughtful than they ever have been in the past. I remember not so long ago it was a great secret to shop in a Charity Shop. To actually admit that you had bought a stunning dress second hand from a charity shop would single handedly damage your esteem and confidence at the office Christmas party! Now however it is a proud statement to walk into a room looking gorgeous in a charity shop outfit. Instead of sneering at you and bitching behind your back, your friends are genuinely jealous that they didn’t find that amazing bargain first and that you look so stunning in such a steal of an outfit. I also remember a time when a hessian bag was for the back of a cupboard or for storing items in a loft. I wouldn’t have even taken my lunch and saddle soap to my stables in such an item. Now however my friends and I are picking them up left right and centre as important fashion items to add to our outfits. We even feel a proud sense of achievement when we remember to take them into the supermarket with us! A flourish of greatness passes over me when the cashier asks, ‘and how many bags have you brought with you today?’ And I can respond with a triumphant smile whilst handing over my nectar card in turn for my reward. It not only makes me feel like a better person, but gives me a sense of empowerment; eco warrior single handedly saving the planet. So what does this mean for our traditional retailers? Does it mean there no longer is a place for our ‘traditional’ shops? Do they need to adapt and become new age retailers? Yes we all know they need to adapt, but how? To what form should they take? And what how far do they need to change their practices of trading to be noticed again? Please email me your thoughts and feelings tojenny.arnold@poshagency.com for me to anonymously collate and share. I am going to pull together my thoughts and ideas on this topic, hopefully with the input of others – you included, and then I will post all on my blog. Let’s turn these small independents around and get them back in the race!! Maybe we can learn a thing or two about ourselves and what we want whilst achieving our goal ‘together’ rather than ‘single handedly’ saving the world. email me

Next week I am travelling to London from Scotland to see one of our 5 star London Hotels. Our clients are based in London, Kensington, overlooking theKensington Palace (where Princess Diana lived) and Hyde Park, just across from the Royal Albert Hall. A fantastic location! I love it! However delightful as the hotel and location are, with my business trip comes my usual business traveller questions: 1. What is the best method of travel to London? Or rather what London transport nightmares bother me least!! Well train takes 4.5 hours, as does flying when you add up the time sitting in the airport departure lounges, shuffling through security checks and then getting the Heathrow Express in to London only to be greeted with the London Underground. At least on the West Coast Virgin train line I can sit working uninterrupted and get through piles of to do lists! Also it means I can take any cosmetic liquid I wish without having to check in my bag, plus I won’t be charged on my way home for having too much shopping! OK so decision made, I travel to London by train. Next question… 2. Dining out in London – where is good for eating out in London… alone?! You would think that finding restaurants in London would be easy… But let me tell you, there are so many to choose from I have no idea where to start. Staying in the Royal Garden Hotel in London Kensington I have been lucky enough to eat on a number of occasions in the mouth watering Min Jiang Restaurant, which if you ever have the opportunity to visit is an absolute must! Min Jiang is the only Chinese restaurant in London, possibly even the UK, to have been awarded 3 AA Rosettes. Situated on the top floor of the hotel, overlooking Hyde Park, you are served with the most spectacular of views over London. In the distance you can see the London Eye, the Gherkin building, and many other London architecture spectaculars. I might just take this opportunity to mention that I would far rather experience the Min Jiang restaurant any day over the London Eye! But this restaurant is too good to enjoy alone on a business trip, and slightly out of my business trip budget, although they do fantastic lunches at great prices. Finding restaurants in London alone isn’t so much fun. So here is my question to you: Can you recommend a good restaurant in London for me to dine in on my next visit to London? My London dining requirements… 1. Must serve good vegetarian options – ie not risotto!! So boring and so unimaginative – I’d rather eat nut roast and sprouts! 2. Must be within a reasonable travelling budget – I am after all working in London; I’m not there on a jolly… although some wine will be expected… of course! 3. Must be easy to travel to from the Royal Garden Hotel. So answers on a postcard and the winning suggestion will win one of my exclusive P.O.S.H. Agency Crystal Keyrings! (so make sure you supply me with your contact details….) Place a comment, or email me at sales@poshagency.com I look forward to hearing from you! 

So who are we and where did we come from??   Well we are online hotel experts. P.O.S.H. means Professional Online Services for Hotels. We outsource ecommerce experts to hoteliers and the travel industry, helping them to increase their visibility and returns from their online activity. This allows our clients to have their very own ecommerce manager with years of experience, at a fraction of the cost. So where did we come from? The P.O.S.H. Agency was formally set up and branded over a year ago after many years of working together my business partner and I decided to merge our skills together and set up our own online agency. During my years of working as an ecommerce manager for various hotel chains it became apparent to me how many marketing and sales teams struggled day in day out to make online work for them with their offline marketing skills. The result? It doesn’t work!! Online and Offline marketing have to work as one, but that does not mean they are the same thing… It still shocks me day in day out how many online agencies and online experts I meet who proceed to tell me that Social media is not the right channel for their brand or their clients brand. Tell me if this is true then why is are the social sites taking over online?? Social Media is so mis-understood! Whether we like it or not people are going to talk about us online and share their experiences at our hotels online. Be it a comment on trip advisor, a holiday video on a blog or You Tube, a family snap on Flickr, or something as simple as an update to friends on Facebook. To see some examples of hotels that do it well take a look at: Facebook – Mandarin Oriental, Hong Konghttp://www.facebook.com/MandarinOrientalHongKong?v=app_2347471856 Twitter – Royal Garden Hotel, London Kensingtonhttp://twitter.com/royalgdnhotel Flickr – Riu Hotels http://www.flickr.com/photos/riuhotels/ Stay posted for more on social media and how to make it work for your business. J x