The letter you want to send to those “influencers” asking to stay at your hotel for free.

I work with a lot of truly wonderful boutique hotels, so, as you can imagine, people often ask, “Could you get me a special rate there?” I try not to look at them with a steely, cadaver-like stare. Even if I were related to the owner of that hotel through blood and marriage (although that combo’s never advisable), I'd need to demonstrate WHY on God’s round Earth that in-demand hotel should offer me a room at a reduced rate, let alone my pal. Because here’s the thing: hotels are BESIEGED with requests all day, every day – from the plausible to the truly, truly, truly ridiculous. It's simple: you need to be able to prove how it will help their future bookings.

It was one mirth-inducing spelling-error-riddled cut-and-pasted email from an Eastern European “princess” who promised an Instagram post in return for staying at a chic city hotel which inspired this post. Yes, she has a million followers (impressive!), but a quick glance at her feed revealed scantily clad Lolita-like images (no prizes for guessing her following's demography). A stiff-as-a-mannequin malnourished model wannabe standing outside a nightclub smoking a cigarette doth not a luxury hotel ambassador make.

PR & Marketing representatives are inundated with “Can we #collab?” emails plus respected editors of international glossies asking to do covershoots to the world’s top Instagrammers whose posts immediately convert into bookings from dream customers. But for every golden opportunity, there are 100 emails saying: “Dear Sir/Madam, I have a blog which is really big in [insert random geographical territory not known for its discerning luxury consumers] and I want to stay for [insert preposterous amount of time]. In return, I’ll tweet [to my 472 followers]. It’s not going to happen. Hotels have revenue targets they need to meet. Press trips cost them money. Staying in one of those fabulous beds, using those lovely amenities, giving housekeeping something to sweep up after, is not “free” to that hotel. Especially not in peak season. (Top tip: ask for a Sunday night in January, and you stand more chance).

This is what I'd want to write back…

Hi [name of Instagrammer/columnist for mag no-one's heard of],

Thanks for your email, and for showing such enthusiasm towards our hotel. (I'm interpreting all those exclamation points as enthusiasm.) As you can imagine, we get so, so, so many emails from journalists, bloggers, influencers, fashion movers and shakers – and more — asking us for special rates. Almost more emails than we have time to read, to be honest. Since we have such a huge volume of pitches for collaborations, we need to be ruthless in assessing who is right for us to work with and allocate one of our hotel’s limited number of bedrooms. 

If it's helpful to know, what makes us even consider an email seriously is…

—If it’s written in a way that demonstrates professionalism (NB journalist is not spelled with two 'o's) and an attention to detail that’s in line with our commitment to quality. (Text cut ’n’ pasted because the sender is blasting out the same message to a million different hotels is always a dealbreaker, I’m afraid). If an email is sloppily written, this suggests to us the sender may not be someone who takes great pride in their written work? Not a great start.

—An inspiring personalised email which details specifics that prove to us the sender has selected our particular property for a personal reason and not just any old hotel in our destination. It’s great to get a sense that someone who’s contacting us to host them at our expense has invested at least a little time getting to know why our hotel is special. (It’s not free for us to host; we have to turn down paying customers, and we incur running costs.) It’s always good to demonstrate an understanding of what makes our product distinct and stand out and how you really “get” us. Then we’re off to a good start. 

—If an “applicant” is really savvy, they will clearly outline exactly how we'd see a return on investment and how our business will benefit. e.g. As a result of them staying, we will earn lots of direct bookings, etc. Many of our paying guests kindly Instagram and tweet as it is.

—Perfect brand alignment… As you can imagine, our hotel attracts an audience which is quite grown-up and the room rates and the ambience would not necessarily appeal to a teen reader – which we *assume* is the audience of "Sweet Teen", the publication you mentioned you have a column in. We’re so grateful for the glowing press that we’ve received from some of the most respected titles in the world, but it reminds us that coverage really needs to be in front of exactly the right potential guests otherwise it’s not of much relevance or value. For exposure to be meaningful, and to benefit us short term and long term, it should convey exactly the right messaging.

Hope this helps you see things better from our perspective*.

Sifting through communications from chancers, ahem, I mean, potential collaborators, is time-consuming for hotels and PR & Marketing departments. They need clear, tangible evidence upfront about how a person’s following is 100% on-brand and relevant to their marketing strategy (if you don't know what that means, just give up now) and time to weigh up the opportunity. Think of it like this: it needs to be easy for them to explain in one sentence to their financial officer how this person staying will convert directly into bookings. They don’t have time to even THINK about it beyond that. Often the person making the decision about allocating free rooms isn’t someone who knows about tastemakers or microinfluencers, it’s someone whose job it is to keep the hotel’s REVENUE on track. That’s. Their. Job.

*[when really all you want to say is: "Oh, do jog on."]

Instagram: @julietkinsman