How The Belfry ‘elevated’ its brand identity to broaden its appeal among B2B customers

The Belfry Hotel & Resort in the Midlands is perhaps most well known for its association with the PGA golf tour, but it is now looking to broaden its appeal among B2B customers after undergoing a major overhaul of its facilities.

Following its acquisition by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Cedar Capital Partners in 2021, the business has invested £80m in renovating the resort and updating its facilities. With the project due for completion in September, The Belfry has simultaneously been updating its brand identity and marketing strategy.

“The last time that we had looked at the brand and its positioning was probably around 10 years ago,” admits marketing director Gail Aldridge, who says it was in need of updating.

The Belfry’s identity was “a little bit more corporate in its look”, she explains, while the venue’s tone of voice “wasn’t reflective” of its guests and the resort experience.

Given the level of investment being injected into the redevelopment, she says it made “perfect sense” to revisit its branding and proposition.

The whole resort experience has been updated with a new brand identity, and it has created sub-brands for spa, golf and leisure, as well as refreshing its restaurant brands.

The refurbishments have spanned bedrooms, meeting rooms and food and drink spaces. Alongside this, additional facilities such as a new pool and spa area, family Woodland Adventure zones, and 149 new bedrooms have been built.

She says the new brand identity is designed to be broader in its appeal to guests and “more elevated”. It is particularly interested in reaching companies looking for larger-scale events and those from outside the Midlands area where it is most well known.

She adds that while the brand is proud of the resort’s heritage, it wanted to make sure The Belfry is “set for the future”.

As part of this drive, it has developed a huge new meeting and events facility, The Masters Suite, which has already received £70m worth of enquiries, thanks to the rollout led by Aldridge and her team.

We’ve got these multiple audiences that we’re looking to attract with different types of offering and different types of experiences.

Gail Aldridge, The Belfry Hotel

The main goal of the rebrand is to drive awareness and expand into different markets, she says.

“The market for B2B events is expanding, and our clients’ events are expanding in capacity as well,” she adds.

Aldridge explains that the promotion of the rebrand to B2B customers started long before the B2C element, given the longer buying cycles. The lead time for a B2B client is usually 12 months, as opposed to anywhere from a week to a few months for an average leisure guest, she says.

This is also key when considering that for the Belfry, 75% of its meetings and events guests are return visitors booking for the following year.

Aldridge says the business is using “traditional and modern marketing techniques” to communicate its refreshed offer to prospective B2B customers. She describes it as a “drip-feed of information” via PR, social media, in-person visits, B2B media, and events like The Meetings Show.

The marketing team found that by using this variety of techniques and spreading out the activations in the run-up to the new suites being ready, it has been able to keep up momentum.

“We don’t have one individual target audience. We’ve got these multiple audiences that we’re looking to attract with different types of offering and different types of experiences,” she says.

Aldridge points to “brand synergy” and “brand alignment” when discussing how most of the amenities in the hotel serve both the B2C and B2B clientele. “We’re essentially all things to all people.”

How Abercrombie & Kent unified its brand to become an ‘authority’ on luxury travel

Research and reach

The rebrand effort began last year with Aldridge saying guest data from post-checkout surveys was key. The marketing team also spoke to the hotel’s various departments to ask them what the brand meant to them and what they thought it needed.

“We pulled that together in terms of a wider brief that went into our designers, The Way,” she explains.

In terms of measuring awareness and reach, she explains: “We’re looking at that from a metrics point of view. We’re looking at traffic to the site. We’re looking at engagement on the site.”

On social media, for example, a post highlighting the work done on The Masters Suite received a LinkedIn engagement rate of 4.73%, versus an industry average of 1.1%.

When taking the combined reach across social, influencers, digital, and print, the campaign for the refreshed Belfry offering has reached over 6 million people, according to Aldridge.

The feedback it has received from people at meetings and events has also been positive, Aldridge says, adding that it’s “worth its weight in gold”.