Today we rolled out a redesigned Automated Review Manager to make it even easier for Premium Members to collect feedback at scale and optimize their rankings and reputation.

The next time you login to the HTR vendor dashboard you'll notice that it has a new look and feel.  The majority of this redesign is aesthetic and simply to make the dashboard more intuitive and easier to navigate.  

TL;DR

• The vendor dashboard has a new look and feel
• The structure is the same, you can find everything in the same place as it was before
• A few updates to keep in mind
  • a) New layout for the profile editor
  • b) Redesigned membership portal with all new membership plans
  • c) Leads, PPC and Agency Campaigns tabs have been consolidated under the new Lead Gen tab

Today we rolled out a redesigned home screen to enable you to get a more holistic view of the opportunities to drive more visibility and leads on your account.

What's New?

1. Membership Status: See your current membership status and what tiers are available to upgrade your presence
   
2. Account Health Meter: Keep a pulse on your overall account health and drill down into detail to see a prioritized list of the most important things you can do to drive more visibility, leads and ROI
3. PPC Tracker: Monitor your PPC campaign performance with day-by-day click volume metrics and a trailing 30d click counter
4. Campaign Launcher: Get an overview of the campaign formats that are available to launch to HTR's audience and drill down into sample campaigns and live availability

HotelTechReport's membership pricing will be increasing on January 1, 2025 with the rollout of new membership plans.  Please read the below notice for more info about the price increase.

This is the first membership price increase in more than four and a half years since HTR rolled out the current Premium 3.0 Membership plans back in April 2020 which are still available today.

Since rolling out Premium 3.0 in 2020, HTR's Membership pricing has remained flat despite making substantial investments to grow the value of membership by: (1) growing traffic from 39k monthly users to 200k+ (2) redesigning the entire platform from the ground up and (3) adding tons of new features for members (more detail below) all without a single price increase.  During these same four and a half years without a price increase, costs of doing business also increased dramatically (22.34% inflation since March 2020).

To account for increased cost of doing business and substantial ongoing investments made into the platform, HTR will be rolling out its first price increase.

1️⃣ Will existing members be impacted?

Existing members on annual membership plans will be grandfathered into current pricing for up to 2-years.

2️⃣ How can I get grandfathered into current pricing?

Legacy pricing plans will be available via the membership portal in the vendor dashboard through December 31, 2024.  All companies who upgrade prior to December 31, 2024 on an annual plan will be grandfathered into legacy pricing plans for up to 2-years.

3️⃣ What benefits do Premium Members get?

• Overview of Silver Membership Benefits
• Compare Plan Benefits, Details and Pricing via the Membership Portal
  
• Premium Member References & Testimonials

4️⃣ What new benefits have been added for members since the current Premium Membership 3.0 plans launched in April 2020?

In addition to growing traffic by more than 5x (39k monthly users > 200k+ monthly users) since rolling out Premium v3 back in April 2020, HTR has also rolled out tons of new features and benefits for members (without a single price increase).  Some of these include: 

1. Visibility and Leads 👉 Premium Members now generate more than 3x more profile views and leads

• Redesigned Lead Inbox with Lead Targeting and native CRM integrations to bolster lead engagement
• Lead booster to drive more visibility throughout thousands of pages and UI elements site-wide 
• New ways to generate visibility and leads via: redesigned department hubs, redesigned sub-category pages, PMS App Finders, Partner Integration Pages and the AI Tech Stack Advisor

2. Cost Savings 👉 Premium Members on average save more than $4,300/year on leads and ad campaigns

• Premium Members now get 50% off leads to save thousands of dollars every year (for most members this new benefit alone covers the entire cost of membership)
• Premium Members now save thousands of dollars on HTR Agency ad campaigns with members only discounted pricing

3. Branding 👉 Premium Members benefit from enhanced branding and AI powered features

• Enhanced branding and customization through Redesigned Premium Profiles with new functionality including: Product Level Branding, Feature Groups, Review Search, Native translations into 10 languages and more
• AI powered buyer analysis tools including: AI Enhanced Company Descriptions and AI Review and Expert Recommendation Summaries
• New ways to syndicate content to generate visibility including: Case Study Builder, Redesigned Report Pages and newsletter content syndication to 60k+ monthly hoteliers

4. Reputation and Rankings  👉 Premium Members have dozens of new features to save time by automating time consuming processes

• Features to automate time consuming review collection processes including: Review Campaign Automations, Bulk Review Updating
• Features to boost conversion on review campaigns to optimize reputation including: Gmail and Outlook Integrations, Team and Language Specific Templates and Branded Footer
• Features to more effectively monitor and optimize rankings including: Redesigned Reputation Report Card and Partner recommendations inbox
• Features to showcase reviews and boost conversion including: Native Review Social Sharing and Customizable website widgets library

5. Misc 👉 

• Enhanced dashboard experience via: Dashboard Redesign, Ledger system to track transactions and Membership Portal
• More ways to get promoted via newsletter, Outbound Campaigns and HotelTechInsider podcast promotion
• Premium Member Support Bot & Coaching Checklists to maximize membership ROI
• App Store API to infuse HTR's data into your own product

Today we rolled out a full redesign of the hosted ebook landing pages to help elevate the promotion of Premium Member hosted reports and sponsored buyers guides and boost landing page conversion to generate more downloads.

• View Premium Member hosted reports library
• View Sponsored Buyer's Guide library

Today we rolled out two new features to allow Premium Members to add extra product-level branding for branded profile banners and logos.

• Custom Product Banners (available w/all Premium Plans): Make your profiles catch the attention of visitors faster to more effectively market your products and boost conversion by replacing your company's generic branded banner with custom product specific profile banners
• Custom Product Logos (available w/Gold & Platinum Plans): Additional branding to enable more precise marketing of subsidiaries or sub-brands that are housed under the same umbrella/parent company 

Many users who come to Hotel Tech Report are not looking to (or simply cannot) switch out their current PMS which means they start their journey with a fixed variable, their PMS.  That's why we're introducing a new tool and user flow on the site to guide users to be able to find the top products that integrate with their existing PMS.

What's New:

• New navigation option in the  site wide nav bar for PMS App Finders in the 'get advice' dropdown
• Users can quickly navigate to the top rated apps specifically for their PMS

Added Perks for Premium Members: 

• Boosted visibility in PMS App Stores (sorted by Premium then by review count)

Today we rolled out some updates to the vendor dashboard that bring a new look and feel, simplified navigation and some new functionality to launch outbound campaigns.

What's New:

• New home screen. Redesigned and simplified home screen with actionable tips to optimize your presence to drive more visibility and leads
• Nav UI updates.  New sidebar nav UI for simplified navigation along with some reorganization.  Report card is now under reputation and all self-serve posting options can be found under the new 'posting' tab.
• New agency tab.  We added a new tab to be able to order, track and manage outbound campaigns (advertising, demand gen, sponsored content) that you partner with HTR Agency on.

Added Perks for Premium Members: 

• Gold and Platinum Members now have easy access to their 12-month marketing execution plan and HTR success checklist for managing campaigns

TL;DR

• HTR will be rolling out fully redesigned profiles in April
• Premium Profiles will now be company profiles designed to showcase your company's entire suite of products and capabilities
• While most of the content is the same, there are some new fields and assets
• This guide includes 8-steps that take 10-15 minutes to complete to help you optimize your profiles and prepare for the update in advance of it going live

After lots of feedback from companies in the HTR ecosystem wanting to have a way to more effectively showcase their entire suite of products and capabilities (rather than each individual product/point solutions), the April 2023 profile redesign brings company-level information, content and data into product profiles to showcase a more holistic view of vendor capabilities while still maintaining product/category specific content and reviews.

I. New Profiles Launch Checklist

We've created a checklist of 8 things to prepare in advance of the new profile design rolling out in April that takes 15 minutes and will make sure your profiles are optimized for the new design.

👉 Download the checklist

II. What's New in the Profiles Redesign?

Want to learn more about all of the features, benefits & exclusive discounts that come with Premium Membership to drive you more visibility and leads year-round on HTR? 

👉 Learn more about Premium

What's New:

• Simplified Nav Bar. Simplified nav now guides users to qualify into their department to more effectively guide them to relevant content.
• New Department Hubs. New department hubs that serve as a  jumping off point for discovery & inspiration to introduce users to relevant categories and products.
• Goals-Based Collections. New goals-driven discovery via JTBD collections via a dynamic content series reorienting the site around objectives and goals (vs products and categories).
• Success Stories. Relevant success stories are now highlighted on the new department pages to encourage FOMO-driven discovery that inspires hoteliers to adopt new tech by showing what others are doing (and they aren’t…)

Added Perks for Premium Members: 

• Boosted Visibility.  Premium Members now get boosted visibility in the default sort on department hub pages in the products section as well as the 'users recommend' side bar as well as member success stories.