Premier Inn: Promotional Strategy Evaluation and Idea Proposal

This report evaluates Premier Inn's existing promotional strategies, service elements, and target markets, proposing a new promotional idea to enhance their marketing efforts. It analyzes the suitability of current promotional tools, such as social media and television advertising, and suggests improvements to increase market reach and customer engagement. The proposed promotional idea aligns with Premier Inn's values, marketing communication mix, and target market, aiming to boost sales revenue, customer retention, and overall profitability. The report also provides recommendations for optimizing resource allocation and leveraging social media marketing to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar solved assignments and past papers.

3. INDIVIDUAL REPORT

Table of Contents
1.
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
1.1 Aim and Objectives...............................................................................................................3
1.2 Overview of Premier Inn Hotel.............................................................................................3
2. SERVICE ELEMENT AND TARGET MARKETS..................................................................4
2.1 Service Elements...................................................................................................................4
2.2 Target market.........................................................................................................................5
3. EVALUATION OF PROMOTION............................................................................................6
3.1 Promotion strategy.................................................................................................................6
3.2 Evaluation of promotional tools............................................................................................6
3.3 Suitability for target market...................................................................................................7
4.PROMOTIONAL IDEA...............................................................................................................7
4.1 Outline of Proposed promotional idea...................................................................................7
4.2. Alignment with values of the organization...........................................................................8
4.3. Alignment with marketing communication mix...................................................................8
4.4 Alignment with target market................................................................................................9
5. CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................10
6. RECOMMENDATIONS...........................................................................................................10
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Aim and Objectives
Aim:
 The aim of the current report is to propose a new promotional idea to Premier Inn. Hotel
of UK.
Objectives:
 Specific: To increase the sales revenue of the organization by 20% with the proposal of
new promotional idea.
 Measurable: To increase the customer retention rate by 15% and reduce overhead cost
by 10% this financial year.
 Achievable: To properly allocate human and finance resources within the organization to
achieve these targets.
 Relevant: To engage Premier Inn in social media marketing contest and giveaways to
increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
 Time-Bound: To increase the profitability of Premier Inn by 12% within the next one
year.
1.2 Overview of Premier Inn Hotel
Premier Inn is a British limited service hotel chain operates in the hospitality industry and
is one of the UK’s largest hotel brand. The organization was founded in the year 1987 and have
headquarter in Dunstable, England, UK. Premier Inn organization have more than 800 hotels in
UK with more than 72000 rooms which indicate that the demand of this hotel brand is always on
peak in the UK. The various location where the company have its operation or hotel is United
Kingdom, Ireland, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Germany. Also, Premier Inn operates its
hotel in a variety of locations of UK such as city centres, suburbs and airports. Premier Inn is
basically a subsidiary of Whitbread Plc as in the year 2004, Whitbread organization has acquired
Premier Lodge for the value of £536 million and merged the business under the name “Premier
Travel Inn” which was further shortened to Premier Inn in the year 2007 (Othman and et.al.,
2019). The hotel was one of the major budget hotel chain that invest their money in the television
advertising in order to promote its service to the ultimate target market.

The organization has also launch a television marketing campaign to spread the
information about its merger with Whitbread plc in the year 2007 where the popular comedian
Lenny Henry has become the face of that campaign and every television advertisement. The total
UK revenue of Premier Inn as per the report of year 2020/21 is £577.4 million with an adjusting
operating loss of £415.7 million in the same year. It is because of the Covid-19 and pandemic
situation where all the performance of hospitality, travel sectors are highly affected in negative
way. On the other hand, the direct booking from the online platform has enhance to 99% from
97% in the year 2020/21 as compared to previous year.
SERVICE ELEMENT AND TARGET MARKETS
2.1 Service Elements
The eight element of service marketing which is understand and used by Premier Inn to
successfully market its service business in the local as well as international market are as
follows:
Service and Place: This is the first element of service marketing which state the service
provided by business and who are the target market of organization. For example, the common
hotel services offer by Premier Inn to their customers are staying in a hotel room, meals, clothing
& footwear repairing, dry cleaner, currency exchange, sale of souvenirs and recreational
services. The target customer of Premier Inn hotel is all age group people such as families, solo
travellers, couples, free independent traveller etc. Also, the business travellers, adventures,
retirees etc. are also the target market of Premier Inn hotel. The place where Premier Inn
promotes its services is television, social media platform as well as own websites in order to
enhance revenue opportunity (Jain and Jain, 2021).
The Right people: This element indicate the workforce of service business that
contributes to business success. For example, in the year 2021 the total number of employee of
Premier Inn is around 48000. In order to keep the existing employee motivated and attracting
new talent, the HR of Premier Inn uses talent management strategies such as training, rewards,
policies, law etc.
Knowledge in Service Marketing: This the another element of service marketing which
state that service firms should have knowledge of service marketing. For example, Premier Inn
hotel hire marketing consultation on the basis of their knowledge of marketing tools in order to

make service into experience where they know how to share their expertise, opinions and
information about foods, beverages and its other services on social media platforms.
Value over price: This is a service element which state that price is more important than
value as a marketing message. For example, Premier Inn hotel provides high quality service at
reasonable price to its customer in order to enhance its customer’s experiences. The hotel focus
is towards value increment rather than price.
Relationship in service: This element state the relationship of the service firms to its
employee, clients and business partners. For example, in order to gain the competitive advantage
in UK market and became the largest hotel brand, Premier Inn hotel has high level of
commitment to customer’s relationship with the implementation of Customer Relationship
Management system (Mihailović and Popović, 2018).
Problem solving: The successful service business should offer its services in which solve
the customer’s problem rather than creating a one-size-fits all service. For example, the service
offer by Premier Inn is mainly categorised as the solutions to customer problem such as if any
customer wants separate bad than hotel will provide them with the same to keep the customer
satisfied and stand above the competition.
Specialization: Providing specialized service to customer as per there comport is another
element of service marketing. For example, the specialisation of Premier Inn is that its provides
the background and stricture of room as per the demand of its customer in order to keep them
satisfied. Premier Inn at the time of online booking ask their customer about the personalized
service they want to make their special day more special in order to solve its customer problem.
Products: This is the another element which defined as industry customers. On that basis,
the product of Premier Inn focus on tourist, travellers and other people. For example, Premier
Inn uses the service to advertise its products such as souvenirs, local show pieces etc. They also
use its services to enhance its products such as food and beverages sales (Othman and et.al.,
2020).
2.2 Target market
Target market refers to a group of people having shared characteristics and are the one
identified by a company as their potential customer base to whom they are going to offer their
product or service. With the help of segmentation principle, the overall market is broken down or
segmented into smaller group where these groups are having similar needs and wants. After

segmenting the market into smaller groups, one of the group is being selected to whom the
product or service is offered to, and accordingly known as targeting. Targeting is done on the
basis of establishing match between target's need and want and the ability of company's product
or service in satisfying the target's need (Ekawati and Yasa, 2018).
In case of Premier Inn, they have segmented the overall customers of the hospitality sector into
two categories on the basis of their occupational status that is, businesses and the second one is
families who are looking of budget accommodation. Accordingly, the target market of Premier
Inn is backpackers and travellers. It cater to the needs of those belonging from middle class
family whose aim is to enjoy leisure and comforts in hotels offering services at low budget.
3. EVALUATION OF PROMOTION
3.1 Promotion strategy
Promotion has a crucial role to play in the marketing efforts made by Premier Inn. Accordingly,
a huge amount of investment is being done by the hotel marketing management on promotional
platforms such as print media, digital and social media, radio and outdoor. For the year 2022, the
company aims to invest 20 million towards their marketing efforts by placing special focus on
broadening their digital reach. Promotion through social media platforms is an opportunity for
the company towards enhancing their market reach (Jermsittiparsert, 2019).
By segmenting the overall market into two categories that is, businesses and families,
Premier Inn targets the family segment of the market. They conduct campaigns and use social
media platforms to promote new hotels and destinations. In addition to this, Premier Inn ensures
strong brand presence across the geographical region it operates in through utilizing those
channels having good effect on the target audience such as mailing newsletters, seasonal
promotions, excellent website and offers for their target audience.
3.2 Evaluation of promotional tools
Promotional tools refers to such activities and tactics by planning and executing which
companies are able encourage their target audience to make purchase of their products or
services. These tools are helpful for businesses in terms of setting themselves apart from
competition because the main purpose for which promotion is done to facilitate being ahead of
competitors by ensuring that customers will continuously do business with the company.
With regard to Premier Inn, it is widely using social media platforms for promoting its
services among the target audience. The company is having approximately 325 thousand

followers of its Facebook page but the followers of its Instagram page is quite low and amounted
to just 22 thousand which indicates that there is a need for hotel's marketing management to
work upon increasing their presence on social media platforms (Umer and Razi, 2018). One of
the sales promotion technique that Premier Inn uses is that they carry out marketing campaigns
for targeting and attracting potential customers towards their services. The hotel has recently
held a competition known as “Dad of the year” over their social media platform in an attempt to
promote their hotel's services and new destinations offered by them.
Also, company uses weekend promotion advertisements to target middle class families to
promote their low budget hotel services. Moreover, the advertisement involve a well - known
and most liked comedian and film star Lenny Henry who seems enjoying his leisure time at
Premier Inn in the advertisement. Due to this advertisement placed by Premier Inn on weekends,
they are successful in positioning themselves as one of the top hotel brand of UK.
3.3 Suitability for target market
Promotional tools must be selected after conduct thorough assessment of the target
audience because if the promotional tools are such which could not be able to reach the target for
whom it is meant, them the whole promotional idea would definitely go in vain.
In case of Premier Inn, the television advertisement done for promoting Premier weekend is
meant for targeting middle class families who are deemed to have well accessibility in terms of
watching television (Grönroos, 2020). Accordingly, Premier weekend, a campaign advertised on
television within UK is found out to be a good choice for families having low budget and desires
for spending good time at lowest possible costs. Promotional tools such as television, social
media and newsletters are considered to be highly reachable to all target audience whether
belonging from high or low income group and accordingly are regarded as suitable for the target
audience. Owned media such as website and Facebook page allow for creating and controlling
the content to be advertised and thus is considered to be the cheapest tool for promotion and
therefore is suitable for placing advertisement for middle class audience.
PROMOTIONAL IDEA
4.1 Outline of Proposed promotional idea
After analysing promotional strategies of Premier Inn and its current promotional tools
used for promoting its leisure and travelling services, it has been identified that the hotel has

huge scope in enhancing its reach towards social media platforms for further promotional
activities (Othman and et.al., 2019). Accordingly, the proposed promotional idea for Premier Inn
is “Social media contests & giveaways” where through giveaway or contest on Instagram,
Facebook or many more social platforms that are widely used by hotel's target audience such as
Twitter and Snapchat. This idea has been chosen for promotion because it is considered as a
great way for attracting new customers by gaining quality followers. It provides with the
guaranteed exposure if a business is successful in creating excitement among target audience in a
considerable manner through contests and giveaways. For instance, Premier Inn could offer
discount coupons and vouchers for referring a Friend, commenting to posts and submitting a
video or photo contest. Premier Inn could encourage their customers to use their services and
during experiencing the pleasure of service they need to take a photograph or create a video to be
posted on hotel's website, Facebook or any other social media page. For doing so, the customer
will receive discounts on their bills and other payments at hotel. This idea would be helpful in
attracting more customers.
4.2. Alignment with values of the organization
The organizational values are the guiding principles that provide an organization with the
direction or purpose for which they are working. For example, the value of Premier Inn is to
provide high quality and personalized service to its target audience with the help of social media
promotion. With the help of new promotional idea of social media contest and giveaways, the
company can easily attract the customers towards its service. Here, with the help of launching
contest on social media, the marketing team of Premier Inn can provide the information about the
characteristics and benefits of its service (CHITR and Kalaiselvi, 2021). Also, this will help the
marketing management of Premier Inn to enhance its customer base which ultimately leads to
alignment with the organizational value.
4.3. Alignment with marketing communication mix
The proposed promotional idea of for Premier Inn organization is “Social Media Contest
and giveaways”. For this, the organization will launch contest on the social media platform to
reach large customer base and also they will provide free service as a giveaway to attract the
customer towards organization. The marketing communication mix of Premier Inn involve

advertising, sales & promotion and direct marketing. The alignment of proposed promotional
idea of Premier Inn with its marketing communication mix are as follows:
Advertising: Premier Inn uses various advertisement such as TV advertising, social media
advertising to keep their customer engaged with all the current news of the company. In order to
make its new promotional idea more successful, the management of Premier Inn will advertise
its contest and giveaways information on social media as well as television so that more and
more customers can attract with the service of hotels (Annamalai and et.al., 2021). For
advertising its new promotional idea, Premier Inn will also use prints and digital media. In this
way, the new promotional idea of Premier Inn is aligned with the advertising marketing
communication mix.
Sales and Promotion: The proposed promotional idea of social media contest and
giveaways will enhance the current sales and promotion strategy of Premier Inn. Currently,
Premier Inn have only 22000 followers on Instagram and 32500 followers on Facebook. This
indicate that the company do not have large followers as well as there is no proof that such
followers are their target audience. So, it is proposed to Premier Inn that they should allow
discounts on its products and services to the followers who share their social media posts and
videos to their friends (Nguyen, 2021). This will not only enhance the followers of company
online page but also enhance the customer base and sales of the business. Further, Premier Inn
will also provide the free travel service to its customer from airport to hotel. This is also one of
the ways through which Premier Inn can enhance its sales and promotion marketing
communication.
4.4 Alignment with target market
The target market of Premier Inn comprises families and businesses who are belonging
from middle class group of the market. Their services are deemed to be of high quality and low
budget services. The proposed idea could be aligned with the needs and wants of the target
audience like those belonging from middle class generally prefer to have more discounts and
vouchers to reduce their balance to be paid against the bill (Rather, 2019). The target audience of
the hotel is having such as low budget for their travelling and leisure needs and accordingly, such
contests and giveaways would work well in attracting towards the services of hotel. Furthermore,
business class need hotel services for travelling across UK for business purposes. They need
hotel services for their short stay on frequently basis and accordingly, they demand for low

budget hotel for satisfying their frequent needs. Therefore, discounts, vouchers given as a result
of contests and giveaways are deemed to be worked well for Premier Inn's target audience.
5. CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that service marketing is the way through
which hospitality organization such as Premier Inn can enhance their brand awareness and
accordingly could generate higher sales by attracting more customers at their doors. In this
report, service elements and target market of Premier Inn has been evaluated along with the
analysis of hotel's promotional strategy and tools. Also, how current promotional activities of the
hotel is suitable for its target audience has been evaluated. At last, a new promotional idea has
been proposed by keeping in mind its alignment with the Premier's organizational values,
marketing communication mix and nature of target market.
6. RECOMMENDATIONS
The following are the suggestions for Premier Inn based on their promotional strategy and tools:
 The marketing management of Premier Inn should concentrate on its social media
marketing strategy by including more platforms where it could get more potential
customers such as Twitter and Instagram (Hole, Pawar and Bhaskar, 2018).
 Influencer marketing is another best promotional strategy because if a well-known
personality is assigned for promoting a brand or service, then all of their fans and
followers could be attracted towards the company very easily. All the followers of
influencing personality could be included in hotel's potential customer base.
 Paid digital campaigns facilitates identification of consumers by their income,
consumption patterns and browsing and accordingly, offers and mails could be sent to
them depending upon their needs and wants. This is considered as a best and customized
promotion for the service organizations such as Premier Inn.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Othman, B. and et.al., 2019. The influences of service marketing mix on customer loyalty
towards Umrah travel agents: Evidence from Malaysia. Management Science
Letters. 9(6). pp.865-876.
Jain, M. R. and Jain, S., 2021. Analyzing and Exploring the Effectiveness of Each Element of
7Ps of Marketing Mix.
Mihailović, B. and Popović, V., 2018. Management of service marketing: a perspective of
modern tourism sector.
Othman, B. A. and et.al., 2020. The effects on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty by
integrating marketing communication and after sale service into the traditional marketing
mix model of Umrah travel services in Malaysia. Journal of islamic marketing.
CHITRA, C. and Kalaiselvi, K., 2021. AN OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS,
STRATEGIES, PROS AND CONS AS A MARKETING TOOL. Ilkogretim
Online. 20(1).
Annamalai, B. and et.al., 2021. Social media content strategy for sport clubs to drive fan
engagement. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 62. p.102648.
Nguyen, G., 2021. Social Media Impacts on Customer Satisfaction in Food and Beverage
Business: Case of Juicy Rolly.
Hole, Y., Pawar, S. and Bhaskar, M. P., 2018. Service marketing and quality
strategies. Periodicals of engineering and natural sciences, 6(1), pp.182-196.
Rather, R. A., 2019. Consequences of consumer engagement in service marketing: An empirical
exploration. Journal of Global Marketing, 32(2), pp.116-135.
Othman, B., and et.al., 2019. The influences of service marketing mix on customer loyalty
towards Umrah travel agents: Evidence from Malaysia. Management Science
Letters, 9(6), pp.865-876.
Grönroos, C., 2020. Service marketing research priorities: service and marketing. Journal of
Services Marketing, 34(3), pp.291-298.
Umer, M. and Razi, S., 2018. Analyzing research methodologies and publication trends in
service marketing literature. Cogent Business & Management, 5(1), p.1446265.
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