Flip.to Blog

Beyond one-to-one traveler journeys, we’ve built a platform that launches hoteliers on a marketing journey, too. A journey that infuses the tenets of good hospitality from beginning to end, and that’s simple to manage, yet incredibly impactful.

When Margaritaville Lake Resort, Lake Conroe | Houston opened its doors, the property brought an entirely new concept to the area. They had to build an audience, and inspire them to get “into a vacation state of mind.”

They tapped Flip.to to do just that—and when lake life called, this audience answered, to the tune of incredible impact:

So, how’d we get here? Let’s dive in. 🏊👇

Timing is everything, until it’s not

As you’d expect, mid-2020 was a challenging time to open a new resort—even for one with rock star branding and universal name appeal. But schedules are schedules, and a property sitting idle is guaranteed to earn zero returns.

On the edge of glimmering, boater-friendly Lake Conroe, the 335-room island outpost was fresh off a massive renovation and rebranding that made it unique to any other offering on or near the lake.

Changes in Latitudes

As it does, the Margaritaville brand brought a slice of boat-drink-inspired island life to the heart of land-locked Texas, where it created a new lakefront destination fit for the surrounding drive markets of Houston, Dallas, and Austin.

Caribbean-hued paint schemes and thatch-roofed palapas inspire a more southern latitude, while Jolly Mon Water Park, also tucked in a grove of swaying palm trees, kicks up a splash of fun. Of course, no Margaritaville property is complete without a signature LandShark Bar & Grill, which in Lake Conroe, is appropriately set waterside.

Flip.to leads the charge

To thwart the unfortunate debut timing, the resort needed to grow an audience ready to receive this fin-tastic new concept.

When we partnered with the lakeside property, Flip.to Customer Success standout, Joseph Meuse, quickly became an extension of their marketing team.

Joseph helped formulate a strategy to reach and inspire travelers, especially ones that would be most engaged with lake life. His input led the resort’s team to launch conversations with a new audience in an authentic way, and at the right time in their traveler journeys.

Advocacy in the dreaming phase

Joseph first helped to maximize the impact of the Advocacy platform. He and the property’s team launched a campaign around lakeside memories.

Stories began flooding in, filled with travelers’ best moments spent on or near the water—a positive connection which was now associated with a new resort.

This led the brand into conversation with these potential new guests, and created an ever-growing audience for the resort with a love of the lake. Once the property was fully open, Flip.to helped to win-over this new audience with the right messaging.

Discovery in the planning phase

Joseph then switched on the Discovery platform to win over planners visiting the resort’s website. This part of the platform starts conversations in a reimagined way, leads planners to unveil, and learns their intent.

Flip.to helps Margaritaville Lake Resort, Lake Conroe | Houston re-engage these planners around that intent when they’re ready to book. That effort increased conversion at the bottom of the funnel, and together with Advocacy humming along in the dreaming phase, fueled a successful opening year for the property.

A successful partnership

The platform sparks genuine conversations around travelers’ intent, comes fully charged to grow audiences, and converts planners into guests—all with only light lift from your team, and at a much lower cost than through traditional marketing channels.

We aim to tackle marketing that’s both good for travelers and good for business, and we partner with industry players who do the same to drive more impact for customers.

We teamed up with NAVIS and the Sunshine Gals to boost the bottom line for Alden Suites Beachfront Resort, a 143-room property in sunny St. Pete Beach, Florida. Here’s a closer look at how the partnership set Alden up for a post-2020 comeback.

A competitive market

Marketing duo Sunshine Woodyard and Trudy Anderson of the Sunshine Gals are the conductors of Alden’s marketing, together with Alden’s VP of Operations, Tony Satterfield. He explains,

“The challenge with an independent hotel is not having that big brother that can feed you anywhere from thirty to sixty percent of your business.”

Like other independent hotels, the property elbows its way into market share in many of the same crowded channels as its peers.

Alden and the Sunshine Gals knew they needed a different approach. They wanted to talk directly to their audience, segmenting based on their wants and needs, and knew focusing on the guest experience over promotions would be a better way to engage their community.

The approach was successful, but they quickly found the need to scale, leading them to tap Flip.to and NAVIS. The partnership would grow the audience faster, and build traveler relationships across the traveler journey, tackling their goals:

• Reach and inspire an audience of dreamers who are the perfect demographic
• Unveil planners on their site, sparking new conversations in more authentic ways
• Win over new and repeat guests, inspiring them to return again and again

Growth at every part of the traveler journey

Winning over planners and bookers

After 2020, Alden’s focus was to rebound more quickly and profitably by growing their direct channel. They turned to Flip.to, and we were excited to put to work the newest part of our marketing platform: Discovery.

Discovery unveils prospects on their site with a reimagined booking path, learning a planner’s intent and travel aspirations in a more authentic way. From there, the platform re-engages and nurtures prospects by sparking better conversations based on that newly discovered intent.

Switching on Discovery resulted in a leap in conversion, and a significant increase in direct revenue for Alden.

Letting won-over guests inspire a new audience of dreamers

After these guests have stayed, Flip.to steps in once again—this time with Advocacy. Alden turns their guests into storytellers, letting them share their experiences to grow a new audience.

They reach a highly-targeted, like-minded demographic who are dreaming about travel, before competitors even have the chance. Plus, these storytellers fuel other marketing. Woodyard shares,

“Flip.to lets us tell authentic guest stories throughout the traveler journey. People can see themselves at the property, living the vacation dream.”

The impact from Flip.to in the dreaming, planning & booking stages is massive:

Extending the traveler’s lifetime value

After working hard to grow and maintain this highly valuable audience, Alden Suites sought to maximize its impact, and that’s where NAVIS took the reins.

In order to build more fruitful, long-term relationships, NAVIS aims to increase its value, analyzing guest data, nurturing leads, and creating new or repeat direct bookings.

In doing so, NAVIS helps Alden Suites continue meaningful conversations with past guests, keeping their audience from going stale and ultimately priming guests to return.

This increases long-term revenue, creating growth that has been especially important after the challenges our industry has faced in the past year:

Teaming up for better marketing and better results

Marketing efforts with Flip.to and NAVIS proving effective through to revenue have helped the spirited team at Alden and the Sunshine Gals solidify their strategy:

“The partnership with NAVIS and Flip.to is a critical component of how we’ve been successful over the last several years,”

says Satterfield. And Anderson agrees:

“Our investment in building our own audience prior to COVID has made recovery work a lot better.”

Let’s talk

If you’re ready to hear how the Flip.to marketing platform can launch incredible impact for your property in weeks, get in touch. To keep up with more on what Alden Suites, NAVIS, and the Sunshine Gals are doing to reshape travel marketing, give them a follow:

We’ll share how you can reach, inspire and convert new audiences at a massive scale.