Knowland Group

Knowland is a web-based software company that provides business development products and services to the hospitality industry.

History

Knowland traces its roots back to a small software engineering firm. This firm spent months developing an entirely new kind of hotel readerboard service, heavily reliant on web technology, for a client in the industry. When the client backed out, Knowland’s founders recognized the hospitality industry’s need for a higher standard of market intelligence. They decided to start their own hospitality field research service, and by the fall of 2004 an online readerboard service was launched.

Knowland signed its first client, the Holiday Inn in Arlington, Va., in September 2004. During 2005, the company expanded to over 20 markets, serving a diverse clientele of single and multi-property clients. By the end of 2006, Knowland had over 400 clients in 60 markets and had tracked more than 200,000 events.

In 2007, Knowland introduced Insight, a tool that generates targeted sales leads with details on each prospect’s event booking history. The company also activated a 7,000 square foot call center to expand its infrastructure for customer support, in-depth contact and event research, and sales activities on behalf of customers. The Event Booking Center employs research and sales support professionals who specialize in cold calling and can become an extension of hotel clients’ sales staff.

Knowland launched Target Net, a meetings management and sales force automation platform, in 2010. In addition to managing events from start to finish, Target Net also generated sales leads and opportunities. This product was discontinued in 2015.

Today Knowland is a provider of intuitive business intelligence products for the hospitality industry and has more than 3,000 client hotels and 50,000 users globally.

Products

Knowland is a provider of business development solutions to the hospitality industry. Target Net, Insight, and Readers are cloud-based and accessible from any computer connected to the Internet.

Target Net

Target Net is a salesforce automation and meetings management tool that allows hoteliers to manage their sales funnel from start to finish.

Knowland no longer sells Target Net product, but continues to offer support for clients already using it.

Insight

Insight is a search engine and sales lead-generation tool that gives hotel sales teams access to a database of groups that have held millions of meetings at hotels and conference centers.

In 2014, Knowland released Insight 3.0, an effort to enhance the Insight platform, which transformed the traditional search engine leads database into a customizable meeting intelligence tool for event professionals. Insight 3.0 included new features such as anonymous reviews of groups and their events, the ability to follow groups, properties, and people, and more detailed group profiles.

After receiving many unfavorable reviews from clients regarding the changes to Insight for the 3.0 release, Knowland launched Insight 3.1 the following year (2015). Insight 3.1 was designed almost entirely around user feedback. This release leveraged the powerful, and once again enhanced, search capabilities of the tool, putting popular search features in the spotlight. Insight 3.1 made the focus of Knowland technology less about social media-influenced networking and more about the power of its raw, historical data on groups, planners, meetings, and contact information to help clients optimize their sales tactics.

Readers

Readers is an online readerboard service that offers daily reporting and data on groups that hold meetings and events at hotels' competitor properties. Readers combines an online tool with Knowland’s version of a traditional readerboard report, in addition to telephone-verified contact information. Each week, approximately 400 field researchers take digital photos of hotel readerboards. Those photos are uploaded each night to the Knowland database and the data made available online to clients the next morning. New groups are constantly being added to the database and detailed profiles are created and updated for each group. In April 2014, Knowland released a new data management process to help maintain the accuracy and freshness of the information provided.

Recognition

Knowland Group was ranked 26th on Deloitte’s 2010 Technology Fast 500™ list in October 2010. The list identifies the fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, and clean technology companies in North America. Rankings for the award were based on the fiscal revenue growth from 2005–2009, during which Knowland grew 5,764 percent. Knowland ranked fifth out of 190 companies in the software industry, which was the largest industry recognized on the Fast 500™ list. Knowland ranked first on the Greater Philadelphia Fast 50 list.

Target Net, Knowland’s sales force automation and meetings management tool, received a 2010 Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation’s Customer Interaction Solutions magazine. The award is given annually to companies based on their vision, leadership, and diligence.