ARTICLE OVERVIEW
1. What does it mean to sponsor a budget season buyer's guide?
Each budget season Hotel Tech Report partners with one company in each category to produce an annual buyers guide to help hoteliers learn the ins-and-outs the category to educate them during the buying journey to help them make a more informed decision.
Each year we offer one sponsorship opportunity per category to partner with HTR where we (a) collaborate on and develop thought leadership content to educate buyers and (b) promote our partners' brands to buyers interested in their respective category. The opportunity is part sponsored content and part advertising/promotion with optional add-ons for performance campaigns and guide localization:
Turnkey co-branded content for your lead gen: Turnkey content creation where HTR produces a polished co-branded report for you to use throughout your sales/marketing and lead gen initiatives (eg. lead gen on your website, sales/marketing collateral, digital advertising, social media promotion...etc).
A full year of exclusive promotion on Hotel Tech Report: Exclusive promotion of your buyers guide on Hotel Tech Report for a full year through next budget season. Your brand is featured in the following places for the full year through budget season next year (at no additional cost and no monthly): exclusive category placement, resources library, basic profiles, search+dedicated landing page
Optional add-ons: Sponsors can also elect to add performance marketing and localization add-ons
2. What are some of the benefits of sponsoring your category's budget season buyer's guide?
Easiest content you'll ever produce: Other than filling out a quick survey Hotel Tech Report handles the rest. We save your team the time and hassle of generating trustworthy lead gen content.
Establish your brand as the thought leader in your category: Your guide gets published front and center on both the HTR homepage and on your respective category alongside other top vendors (want to see which other vendors have underwritten their category buyers guide? Click here)
Leverage the Hotel Tech Report brand: Other than being complex and time consuming, developing your own content comes with inherent bias and thus loses trust with prospects. Partner with HTR to remove the inherent bias of self promotional content that is developed and promoted internally.
Lead generation: Sponsors get a 1-year license to leverage your guide for lead gen initiatives (ex. website downloads, digital marketing, social advertising, etc). Leads generated through the your marketing, advertising and promotion of the buyers guide that come through your dedicated landing pages are exclusively yours to keep and 100% free. Sponsors can also opt for performance marketing add-ons where HTR will run campaigns for you and generate cost effective high quality leads
3. Buyers Guide Key Dates & Deadlines
4. What is the process once you reserve your category's guide?
While underwriters contribute their thought leadership and insights to shape the document through their lens, Hotel Tech Report does all of the heavy lifting to ensure that this the easiest most turnkey content your team will ever produce.
Hotel Tech Report produces and designs each guide
Sponsors are sent a draft of the guide to share feedback and infuse their knowledge and expertise into the guides content
Hotel Tech Report implements sponsor feedback (2x rounds)
Guides are published live on Hotel Tech Report and each sponsor is sent a hard copy that includes a 1-year content license
5. How much does it cost to become the exclusive sponsor for your category's guide on Hotel Tech Report for a full year?
The cost it is a 1-time fee of $4,000 for basic members ($3,000 for premium members who reserve during member pre-sale period) to be the exclusive sponsor for that category and buyers guide for the full year through next budget season (aka no other vendors will be promoted/featured in the category). The registration fee includes:
Sponsored content for your lead gen: Turnkey content creation where you fill out a short category questionnaire and we produce a polished co-branded report for you to use for your own sales/marketing and lead gen initiatives (eg. lead gen on your website, sales/marketing collateral, digital advertising, social media promotion...etc).
A full year of exclusive promotion on Hotel Tech Report: Exclusive promotion of your buyers guide on Hotel Tech Report for a full year through next budget season. Your brand is featured in the following places for the full year through budget season next year (at no additional cost and no monthly): resources library, basic profiles, category page, search+dedicated landing page
Optional add-ons: Sponsors can also elect to add performance marketing and localization add-ons
6. Is there a performance marketing optional available to generate downloads?
The base sponsor fee is for content creation, exclusivity, co-branding, licensing and the 1-year on-site exclusive native ad on HotelTechReport and does not include downloads.
Performance marketing downloads packages are optional and can be purchased separately. To learn more about lead add-ons please head to the buyers guide reservations site.
7. Why does the base sponsorship package not include downloads?
The buyers guide sponsorship opportunity includes a base package for (a) the sponsored content and (b) 1-year exclusive on-site placement as HTR's official guide partner in your category. Downloads are an optional add-on that can be purchased on a CPA basis to allow companies who want to run their own lead gen campaigns with the content or who may not have budget for the full package to have the flexibility to just reserve the base package or to scale up to 250 downloads on a performance basis.
Here's a quick overview of the options for the base package without downloads and the optional performance add-ons:
📖 1-Year Exclusive Sponsorship (base package, $4,000): Reserve your category as the exclusive sponsor. The base sponsorship package includes: (1) high quality turnkey co-branded content, (2) 1-year content license to leverage the guide in your own marketing and lead gen (3) ability to give input/feedback to shape your category's guide and (4) 1-year exclusive placement on HTR in your category, basic profiles and the reports library as the official guide partner in your category. The base package does not include downloads but you can use the co-branded guide to run your own lead gen campaigns.
⚡️Performance add-ons (optional add-on): Instead of setting up and running your own lead gen campaigns to your co-branded buyers guide, the performance add-ons allow you to enlist HTR to generate fixed price downloads for you starting at 100 downloads and scaling up to 250 (pricing in media kit)
Some clients just want the co-branded turnkey sponsored content and 1-year exclusive brand placement in their category on HTR and prefer to use the guide to run their own lead gen campaigns while others want HTR to do the work and take on the risk to run the campaigns at fixed price per download which is why the base sponsorship package doesn't include downloads and then companies have the option to add-on and scale the amount of downloads they want from 0-250.
8. What happens if we purchased our sponsorship after the regular sponsor period?
As long as your category is still available for sponsorship, you may become a sponsor at any time even if it is after the regular reservation period. That said, please keep in mind that to ensure that all guides can be completed by budget season that deadlines are firm. If you purchase late and are not able to meet the revision deadlines, we will do our best to turn around your guide as quickly as possible but there will be delays if it is not within the normal production period. Please allow up to 45-days from time of purchase if you purchase late. Additionally please note that promotion period will not be extended beyond the normal promotion period and will last through the following year's budget season when a new guide is released each year.
Still have questions?
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