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Marketing is a complex business, one of those things you never stop learning. This does not mean, however, that you cannot learn the basics of how to advertise your business effectively and reach as many customers as possible. In recent weeks, we have talked about Google Hotels and Google Vacation Rental, two excellent—and free—Google functions to showcase one’s business to customers all over the world. Take a look and treasure them. However, there are other tricks and tips that will help you shine and stand out from the rest. In this article, we will talk a little bit about marketing theory, but above all, I will give you some useful, easy-to-apply and create an effective hotel marketing strategy.
You don’t need to be a Hotel marketer with this guide, keep reading and start to improve your Hotel revenue through the marketing effort that best suits your target audience!
What are the 5 best marketing methods and strategies used in the hotel industry/business?
Generally speaking, these strategies include online marketing, traditional advertising, public relations, and customer loyalty programs.
In this article, we will discuss them and explain which are better for a hotel and how these strategies can help you reach more customers and build brand awareness. Read on to learn more about marketing strategies for hotels.
1- Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing web pages and content to increase visibility and rankings in search engine results. SEO is an important part of any online strategy, as it helps to increase website traffic, improve conversions, and build brand awareness. In the hospitality industry, SEO can be used to boost hotel revenue by driving more customers to your website. By optimizing your website for users as well as search engines, you can ensure that potential guests will find your hotel when they are searching for accommodation in your area. Additionally, SEO can help to improve the overall awareness of your hotel’s name and brand by increasing visibility in organic search results.
So, in other words, SEO gives you visibility and brings people, your potential guests, to your website. Once they are on your website, they need to be convinced to choose you and not your competitor. Also, should be better if they will buy on your website and not on Booking or Airbnb, saving you the commission. To be able to do this, you need a booking engine integrated into your website and there, your almost-guest should find the lowest price possible.
Technically speaking, by doing this, you will be able to increase the conversion rate of your website.
How to accomplish such a tremendous goal? In The Hotel Club’s free e-learning course, we talked a lot about the activity of bringing traffic to your website. Take a look, it’s funny, and we have a ginger Irish professor teaching everything you need to know.
But above all, Amenitiz can help you to rank better. The websites we create for our clients are SEO-Optimized. So, with all the suggestions you can learn from this article, you will be able to appear in first positions. This means attire more clicks and as a consequence more guests!
2- Content
One of the best ways to drive traffic to your website is through a Blog. It is what we could call the beating heart of a winning hotel marketing strategy.
A great way to start is planning your Marketing plan. It is the first step in every marketing strategy, a sort of calendar used to have a clear idea of the thematics you want to touch, how you want to talk about them, and which day and hour. Is the key to setting marketing goals to acquire consistency and post pieces of content on regular basis, talking directly to your target audience.
Writing a blog is not about selling, it is about giving value to your potential guests. So tell them all the reasons why they should visit your city. Tell them how interesting or how many activities your area offer. Tell them why your city is beautiful during Spring time, or how romantic those little cafés in the city centre are. And so on, think about your guests’ necessities and give them what they want.
As you employ your hotel marketing strategies, ensure you promote the location and experience just as much as the lodging when customers are dreaming and planning. Your potential visitors may not even know which country they want to visit, let alone which region. Determine what your visitors might want to consume, drink, watch, and do throughout their visit. Then concentrate on experiences that are close by and simple to organize for you and your visitors. These can range from visiting a beautiful cafe or market to scaling a hill. You may use your hotel’s digital marketing to promote these selling features as enhancements to your offer.
3- Effective Hotel marketing campaigns
Here I want you to understand the importance of effective marketing campaigns. They promote your touristic structure through different kinds of media and strategies. Here I will give you some examples and explanations about campaigns.
A successful campaign can increase the number of people who visit and book your hotel, which in turn boosts your revenue. It also helps you reach more potential guests and convert them into paying customers.
In general terms, marketing campaigns are designed to target people who are already interested in booking a hotel stay. A good campaign needs a specific target audience. You can use content, ads, and other tactics to capture their attention and encourage them to take action. The goal is to create an effective message that talks to potential guests and drives traffic to your website and ultimately increases conversion rates. With the right strategy in place, you can create a powerful hotel marketing strategy on your website and on Google ads that will help you reach more people and generate more business for your hotel.
In the articles I mentioned before, I wrote a step-by-step guide to help Hotels and Holiday rentals to create campaigns with Google Ads.
4- Local online marketing
Local online marketing is the process of promoting a business or service in a specific geographic area. As we saw in the previous paragraph, it involves using digital tools such as websites, social media, search engine optimization (SEO), and other online channels to reach local customers.
Take the example of Hotel owners. You can use local online marketing to promote their rooms to local customers. On occasions like S. Valentine’s, you could promote a special offer for couples. If you have a Spa, you can encourage people to book with a discount for their birthday. The more you think, the more ideas you will have!
This can involve creating a website for the hotel, running ads on social media targeting people in the vicinity of the hotel, and optimizing content for SEO so that it appears higher in local search results. Word of mouth is also an important part of local online marketing as it helps build trust with potential customers and encourages them to book rooms at the hotel. A comprehensive marketing plan should be implemented by staff to ensure success.
5- Form brand alliances
To market your hotel, you may experiment and evaluate which activities excite your prospective customers most by advertising local activities in your hotel’s digital marketing. It is then a good idea to contact them about forming a brand alliance. You can employ specific marketing strategies in your hotels, such as discounts or value-added for your visitors, which can appeal highly to potential guests. These agreements have a less clear value in the shape of backlinks to your webpage. Every link from a partner’s site enhances your SEO and improves your online visibility.
Hotel marketing strategy examples: how the internet is doing it
Allow for a quick check-in and check-out
This hotel marketing strategy can be helpful since time is the most valuable commodity in the corporate world for business travellers. As a result, they stay at a hotel where all the procedures are quick and straightforward. One of the most crucial factors to consider when achieving your hotel marketing objectives is making your arrivals and departures process as fast as possible.
The use of digitalized marketing strategy for your hotels, such as a digital check-in and check-out system, can be highly beneficial to prevent unwanted scenarios and saving time. Fast check-in and check-out in hotels also favour elderly customers, who may be too old to stand and wait for their check-in and check-out to be processed. Self-check-in via hotel terminals or smartphone client self-service websites is in high demand nowadays, particularly among youthful visitors.
Use apps
Whether we are willing to admit it or not, we are in a world ruled by smartphones. A small computer always gives us something to do. It is great not only for entertainment, but also for work or, in general, to simplify certain tasks. One example is our partner Lightspeed, which is used to automatically bring your hotel restaurant bill to your room account. In this article, we have already explored the world of smartphones and their usefulness for a hotelier like you.
Take over the trends of chatbots and email marketing
Chatbots have become a highly prevalent hotel digital marketing strategy in the hotel industry in recent years. They cannot only aid with conversions but also with your brand’s reputation. They make your potential visitors more confident and involved with you. Use chatbots to respond to your visitors’ questions. As a result, chatbots increase communication, drive individuals down the booking process, and engage with guests who have cancelled their appointments. Try using chatbots on your website to see how your reservations rise along with a significant boost in visitor happiness.
A well-think email marketing strategy is useful for people that came or are about to come to your structure. They will trust you more. You can thank them, ask for a review, do upsell for a better hotel room, etc. The only limit is your imagination. For more tips about it, check module 2 of our e-learning course, named “Emails before and after reservation”
Use Social media and digital communication
A self-respecting hotel marketing strategy cannot be without a part dedicated to social media. Today, everyone uses one or all of the most popular social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. They have billion of users and a lot of them are interested in travel.
Why not use them to your advantage?
Investigate the behaviour of your competitors, who manage to engage and imitate your audience. Post pictures of your rooms, and updates. Choose a style, because you want a uniform look. Don’t forget to call a freelance photographer to take some photos you can use in different opportunities.
And by the way, do you already follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok?
Work with marketing influencers
One of the most efficient hotel marketing strategies is influencer marketing. In this method, a hotel could use an influencer to entice many potential customers and can persuade the customers to purchase choices. Because an influencer has a strong reputation for their knowledge and experience in a specific area, it can be an effective marketing strategy for your hotel. Influencers may assist you in marketing your hotel by sharing information about your hotel on their favourite social media pages and engaging with their fans on your website.
Surf on viral trends
In the blog article about TikTok, we talked a lot about the importance of following social trends. We also gave interesting and funny tips and ideas to follow to show your hotel and your personality.
Nowadays, content is an important part of any hotel’s marketing strategy. In today’s digital world, it’s vital for hotels to produce content that reflects the latest market trends. By producing relevant content in tune with the times, a hotel can create more opportunities for engagement with their future guests and increase their chances of success in the competitive hospitality industry.
Creating content that follows new trends on social media can help a hotel stay up-to-date with what customers are looking for. This could include creating videos or other visual content that showcase the unique experiences people have had at the hotel or sharing stories from other guests about their experiences. By staying ahead of trends on social media, a hotel can ensure that they are providing engaging content to their customers and keeping them informed about what’s happening in the hospitality industry.
Get feedback from previous visitors
The world – and your city – is with all probabilities full of hotels, rentals and B&B, so you need to have a competitive presence in your area. To gain this status, you need to build a positive online reputation. As we saw in these previous paragraphs, social media and SEO are very important, but you have another tool.
If I say: “Book this restaurant! It has 4.6 stars” What do you think? Yes, reviews. Getting reviews from your visitors can contribute significantly to marketing your hotel. Tourists read reviews before reserving a hotel because they need the so-called “social proof”. Excellent reviews are critical to your hotel reservations and, don’t worry, you can ask for them! Learn tips for getting the best reviews with The Hotel Club’s e-learning and get happy reviews from happy people.
Establish loyalty programs
The perfect marketing plan for a perfect hotel marketing strategy includes a loyalty scheme to encourage customers to come back regularly. These programs assist you in increasing the value and image of your brand in the marketplace. Through a customised rewards program, both independent hotels and hotel groups may attract and keep recurring business by giving what business travellers value, such as free nights and cheap stays. Business travellers appreciate benefits like free travel, complimentary refreshments, and subsidised spa services that make their journeys less taxing.
This strategy may also help you to create partnerships with local businesses. You could create partnerships with some businesses and share clients, gifts, etc.
An SEO-Optimized, responsive and attractive website will help you to guide clients in the right direction. In fact, with the Amenitiz solution, you have an interesting section that allows you to give “gift cards” to your guests.
See more: FAQ about Hotel Marketing Strategy
What is the best marketing strategy for hotels?
The best hotel marketing strategy depends on your target customers. Social media, email marketing, content marketing, influencers, and search engine optimization are all great ways to reach people online. Offline strategies such as events and promotions can also be effective. By understanding your customers’ needs and having the right tools in place, you can create a successful marketing strategy that will help you stand out from the competition.
How do hotels attract customers?
To put into practice a good hotel marketing strategy to attract customers, you need to understand your target’s needs. Offline marketing still being useful, but online marketing is crucial to attract customers. With the internet, you have global visibility and a high potential to transform your hotel into the first choice for customers all over the world.
How is hotel marketing done?
A good hotel marketing strategy takes into consideration a lot of points. As a first step, you need to know who comes to your hotel, your target. Then, you should evaluate which kind of content your target needs. Be consistent and often check the results to understand where you need to improve, add, or remove. Read the article to have more details