[Case Study] How Daniel Pikl Used ManyChat To Get More Bookings for Bluesun Hotels

Daniel Pikl is the Head of Digital Marketing at Health Tourism Martinko. He is also a ManyChat Agency Partner and expert Messenger Marketer.

For Daniel, Messenger bots have continually reduced return on ad spend by two and a half times (or more) for tourism-centric companies. This brought the attention of Krešimir Drvar, a friend and Head of Marketing at Bluesun Hotels, who requested that Daniel create a similar Messenger bot experience for an upcoming remarketing campaign. 

Bluesun Hotels is one of the finest hotel chains in Croatia. They have 18 hotels, resorts, and camps located on the most beautiful beaches in Croatia. Each uniquely decorated with first-rate service and cuisine. The chain was the first registered tourism group in Croatia and continues to be the leading company to date. 

Bluesun Hotels, like many other luxury hotel chains, is focused on providing tailored experiences for prospective (and existing) customers.

The goal for their campaign was to retarget a list of cold leads built over multiple years.. Daniel’s goal was for Bluesun to find the best vacation package (at a discount!) for each audience segment — whether it be families, couples, or solo travelers. 

Using a similar chat marketing model for Health Tourism Martinko Daniel helped the hotel chain achieve a 17X return on ad spend, reduce price per lead by 300%, and create a personalized and engaging user experience — which in turn, brought in over 9,300 warm leads in 30 days. 

More expensive leads, less actual conversions

There’s a lead generation dilemma happening right now. Look at the latest marketing statistics and you’ll find most marketers have one similar challenge: getting successful leads.

Many companies similar to Bluesun Hotels rely on traditional channels like Google Adwords and Facebook conversions ads to fill up the pipeline with credit-card ready leads. But for Bluesun, these channels were resulting in more expensive yet lower quality leads, and fewer rooms being filled during the busy season.

Daniel knew, to counteract this, he had to do two things: One, create conversations that re-engaged Bluesuns list — some of who the company hadn’t interacted with in years; and two, ask potential travelers what kind of vacation they wanted and send relevant content based on their answers. 

He decided to recreate Bluesun’s funnel inside Messenger to help them qualify leads and talk with people who actually want to book rooms in real-time. At the same time, he rolled out a program that allowed Bluesun’s sales team to talk one on one with potential travelers by phone, email, or live chat. He knew that the more conversations the sales team had, the more conversions they’d also have. 

Why ManyChat?

Daniel has been a Messenger Marketer since 2016, and continues to use ManyChat for three main reasons: 

• Segmentation: The ability to qualify and segment leads inside ManyChat helps Daniel improve targeting and get more leads faster. 
• Testing: Daniel’s found that ManyChat’s simple tools make it easy to test different sequences and nurture leads in a more personal and casual way. 
• Integrations: ManyChat made it easy to connect his favorite tools, such as Zapier, Calendly, and Google Sheets, to automate repetitive tasks and free up time. 

Here’s look at the flow first-hand:

Improving occupancy rates through smarter remarketing

There are a lot of ways to use your subscriber list — you can send email newsletters, create custom audiences for Facebook ads, leverage data for Adwords. What was next for Bluesun was re-engaging cold leads using Messenger and qualifying them for sales. They used paid messages to reach Bluesun’s subscribers.

The reason to click? 30% off an exclusive, tailor-made vacation on the beautiful beaches of Croatia.  

As you can see in the video above, Daniel set up a sequence of qualifying questions for people who came into the bot from Sponsored Messages. His bot asked things such as where they wanted to stay, how many children were coming, and what meals they wanted to have included in the price. 

All this information was captured and used to help the sales team segment users based on their needs, allowing them to deliver relevant content. For example, if travelers were coming with children, the team would offer resources with tips on amazing family travel. If a couple was booking a trip, the team would send activities and attractions for a more intimate trip. 

The team could then follow up with a good idea of who they were talking to, and help them plan the trip of a lifetime — which ultimately helped seal the deal. 

Results Roundup

Using a ManyChat bot, Daniel Pikl was able to help the Croatian hotel chain achieve impressive results for their remarketing campaigns:

• 17x Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
• 300% decrease in cost per lead
• 9,300+ warm leads
• 14,000+ Messenger bot subscribers

Want to re-engage cold leads and drive sales like Daniel? Get a ManyChat Pro account today.