A well conceived and executed marketing strategy can be the key success factor for small hotel owners, whether the property is privately owned or a small franchise within a large chain. In today's uncertain economy, many hotel owners are rethinking their marketing strategy and re-evaluating the magnitude of their financial investment as they can't afford to waste their limited funds allocated to marketing. But, they can't survive without a marketing investment either. Logic dictates that owners must get the biggest bang for their buck with their marketing spending.

Owners need to be smarter about their marketing programs and develop a resiliency that will allow them to quickly take unproductive marketing initiatives out of play and invest heavier into those programs delivering the highest ROI.

The key to achieving marketing resiliency is to make each marketing program measurable in some way over a realistic time period. Some marketing programs are an element of longer term strategic initiatives that may take more time to measure, but milestones can be assigned along the way and results measured against each milestone to see if the program is on the right track. The success of short term marketing initiatives, such as holiday getaway promotions, can be measured ...