A Few Excel Basics...

Written by James Bland
Group Marketing Manager
The Sundial Group, Highgate House


I’m always wary of sentences that start with “I’m no expert…but”, but then that’s because I rarely use them. However, I’m going to make an exception and share a few pointers on Excel that make my life as a marketing manager easier. When I was studying for my CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) qualifications, a few of my classmates, all experienced marketing professionals, recoiled in horror at the sight of a number, fled for coffee when shown a spreadsheet and I’m pretty sure one lady fainted when talked through a simple DCF analysis, so I’m fairly confident that a good number of marketers won’t know their way around Excel. None of the below is any big secret, and Googling most Excel questions will give you plenty of really well-constructed guides, but the ones I list below have helped me out of many a hole in the past!

So, I’m no expert, but…

We’re Better Together

Let’s say you have a mailing list where First Names and Last Names are stored in different columns (A and B) but you really want one column to have people’s full names in. The formula that you type into column C is…

=CONCATENATE(A1,” “,B1) – where A1 represents whatever is in that cell, likewise B1, and whatever is inbetween the speech marks is inserted inbetween. You could put any text or number you want in there, but I wanted a space so that’s what I typed.

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Maybe though, you want to reverse that procedure, because cell A1 contains “Mr James Bland”, but what you want to do is address a letter “Dear James”. Slightly different process this one – first you have to make sure that the next three cells (B1, C1, D1) are empty, because otherwise you could overwrite something important. Then, highlight Cell A1 and go to “Data”, “Text to Columns”. For this example, you want to choose the “Delimited” option, and then choose “Space” as your delimiter. By doing this, you tell Excel that a space marks where the cell should be split. Then hit finish and the job is done. If you’re doing a big list, be careful with the number of specific words though. “Mr James Edward Bland” will spread into column E1, again potentially overwriting something important. For lists containing names like these, best make yourself plenty of empty columns and then go back over the list using CONCATENATE to re-attach the two bits of someone’s surname.

Don’t Lose Your Head

A word of caution here, Excel saves a Cell’s formula, not necessarily its text content. If you had CONCATENATE-d two bits of a name together and then wanted to delete the old individual columns, doing so will empty your combined column do, as Excel will be referencing empty cells. To get round this, save your file as type “*.csv” (comma separated variable), close the spreadsheet, and re-open the CSV file. The contents of the cell will be ‘banked’ and you can delete at will. A word of warning though, if you have made pretty patterns using bold type or coloured backgrounds, that information is not saved in a *.csv file, so it will have disappeared when you reopen the file.

Say What You Say…

And, of course, a personalised letter is so much more powerful than a generic one. But when I say “personalised”, please don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just putting my first name, or company name, into the middle of a sentence is going to cut it. People are generally savvy enough to see right through that gimmick. Thankfully, using Excel and Word to mail merge, you can customise whole paragraphs of text to fit what you need to say. There’s nothing particularly difficult about this either – all you need to do is put a longer string of text into your spreadsheet in a designated column for “Comments” or “Extras”, and then merge this field into your letter like it were a postcode. You can then add a line or two of customisation really quickly into Excel, and the mail merge process will guarantee it gets attached to the right letter! Pioneering schoolteachers have been using this technique for years when formulating school reports for classes of thirty kids or so. Much better than just noting “Could do better” each time.

Foursquare, Facebook Places, and the Future of Location-Based Social Media

Just last week, Facebook launched a new application called Facebook Places and entered the world of geo-location social media.  This type of social media has been growing in popularity in the past year, mostly due to another brand of this application called Foursquare.  The main idea behind this social medium is that app users can "check-in" at businesses using their cell phones, PDAs, and othe rmobile devices and thereby show to friends and family where they are at any given moment.

As described in this Open Forum article, Foursquare "...is part social tool, part game...mobile applications enable users to connect and compete with friends by updating their location (pinpointed via satellite) in real time. Members earn points and unlock badges by 'checking in' at places ranging from restaurants, museums and nightclubs to florists, grocers and gas stations — otherwise known as your business."

Now you may be thinking, "This can't benefit me as I'm at a professional conference center and market to specific clientele.  I don't get foot traffic like stores and restaurants do."

Not the case, in my opinion.  To me, this is a win-win for both conference centers and meeting planners.  Many meeting planners and site-specialists work remotely and are not on-site to greet participants when they arrive at their chosen conference center.  Imagine how easy it would be for that planner to know all of her participants had arrived safely if she just requested that they all check-in using Facebook Places or Foursquare.  On the other side of this, conference centers would receive free publicity on those sites once the meeting participants disclosed their location.  This could incite more business (or at least website traffic for your center) as the participants' contacts on Facebook and Foursquare would see where they were checked in and grow curious about the location.

Source

Before jumping onto this new train of social media, it's necessary to do your homework.  Facebook Places and Foursquare are not the only geo-location social media sites.  Google is a top leader in this technology with Google Places, as is Twitter and Gowalla also feature similar applications.  You need to do your research.  Facebook's websites is a great place to start.  There is a full page dedicated to Facebook Places that explains what this application is and how to use it in full detail.  You can access it by going to the Help Center when you are logged into your account.  You can also visit  http://www.foursquare.com/ to see what their application model is like.

Lastly, another blog posted about this trend last week in an article entitled "What Your Business Should Know About Facebook Places," which you can read by clicking here.


Written by Meghan Bollenback
Food & Beverage Manager
R. David Thomas Executive Hotel & Conference Center

The Importance of Meeting Planner Feedback in Today’s Economy

By Joan King

Although booking events continues to be a vital source of revenue for hotels and resorts, meeting planners today have increased bargaining power. So getting those bookings is more challenging—yet it’s only half the battle: since today’s discounted rates increase the cost of customer acquisition, keeping the business is now more critical than ever. As planners lock in attractive rates, exceeding their expectations becomes paramount.
The one common denominator among venues that deliver consistently successful events is having the ability to take the pulse of their customer at any time. Acquiring knowledge about the meeting planner’s experience is an ongoing process that enables critical issues to be identified at any point in the event timeline. This capability enables you to see where revenue is at risk and take action; otherwise, when customers are dissatisfied, few complain and the rest go elsewhere.

Behind the scenes of any great conference event are the savvy venue personnel that plan and host the event, and know how to properly execute from start to finish. Typically that process begins by capturing feedback prior to the event and taking immediate action that will positively impact the client’s perceptions. In fact, much can be learned by getting online feedback before, during and after an event, so that when the next group arrives for the pre-convention meeting, everyone has already stepped up their game.

If an event host does their part and keeps customers happy, that increases the probability that they will book repeat business, in spite of price wars. One way for a hotel or resort to equip their venue for ensured success is finding an advanced online feedback system that streamlines communication, analytically correlates all aspects of service delivery and provides historical data capture for trending and strategic planning—all of which cumulatively enhance relationships with meeting planners.

Bottom-line: Look for a system that can help your organization compete in the meetings business, capture market share, effectively deliver impeccable service and execute service recovery quickly if something isn’t just right. The more advanced systems available today are sophisticated and customizable technologies that are already in production. In addition, having such a system in place enables you to have a repository of valuable competitive intelligence.

Conclusion

Today meeting planners are under pressure to spend dollars wisely and will only patronize hotels or resorts that truly pay attention to their needs and requirements. Today’s more advanced online survey approaches capture continuous feedback and produce actionable information in the form of “hot button” reports—useful information about how venues can improve the service experience, from first contact to event delivery—even in first-time-business situations.

Remember, if you take care of meeting planners, you will be protecting a vital revenue stream that you can’t afford to be without, recovering possible lost revenue and getting an unmatched ROI.

Joan King is Managing Director, Loyalty, for UniFocus. She can be reached at jking@unifocus.com or by phone at 972-512-5169.

Benchmark Hospitality International's Top Ten Beverage Trends for 2010

Chief Sommelier Mary Watson One of Few Woman Wine Experts in US
The Woodlands (Houston), Texas, August 2010 ... Benchmark Hospitality International, a leading US-based hospitality management company, has just released its Top Ten Beverage Trends for 2010. The beverage trends were released in response to requests following the distribution of the company’s popular annual dining trends this past June.
“This is an exciting time for the beverage industry, with lots of positive changes occurring,” said Mary Watson-DeLauder, chief sommelier for Benchmark Hospitality International. “Some of the changes are economically driven, some taste oriented, and still others created out of necessity in response to changing palates and a new generation of consumers.”

To see the trends:
http://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2010_3rd/Aug10_BeverageTrends.html

Are Concierges Obsolete?

Now that travelers and conferees have instant access to mobile apps and mobile-compatible web sites packed with information normally dispensed by the capable concierge, is this position going the way of the dinasaur? Not so fast, says "Hotel Interactive:" http://www.hotelinteractive.com/article.aspx?articleid=18023.