You cannot overstate the importance of having and implementing the right marketing trends and strategies for your hotel. Critical factors like building brand awareness, optimizing the bookings generated, and managing the hotel’s reputation are essential for increasing traffic and rates to the hotel. However, to meet the ever-changing demands of the hotel market, management must regularly adapt to different marketing strategies to stand out against the competition. The hotel industry is extremely fierce, and the only way to get and stay ahead of your hotel marketing is to implement strategies that work. So, here are a few hotel marketing tips you can use!
Why are these hotel marketing tips important?
Hotels rely heavily on marketing to attract guests and increase their occupancy. However, finding and implementing hotel marketing trends that work for your hotel can be challenging. For instance, you can market your hotel through various channels, including online advertising, traditional advertisements, social media, and public relations.
Finding the right marketing strategy that works best for your hotel determines the effectiveness of the marketing tips you use. This post provides the most up-to-date marketing trends for today’s world:
1. Have Great SEO to Be Easily Searchable Online
Your hotel’s online presence is only as good as the SEO strategies you use. Thanks to technological advancements, over 75% of travelers start their hotel searches on search engines like Google and Bing! Therefore, you’ll already have a captive audience you can capitalize on with the proper SEO implementation.
Ensure the hotel website is optimized correctly to get in front of the right target audience. It is crucial to invest in the right SEO marketing team and resources to make your website excellent and rank top of the SERPs.
First, you must do prolific keyword research and understand your target audience’s main search phrases. Turn the most relevant keywords to your hotel and create engaging content that gets the searcher’s attention.
Also, ensure the hotel website is very mobile-friendly and fast-loading. Your website needs to be EVERYWHERE relevant online to increase potential bookings. The secret is to stay on top of the SEO trends that work for your hotel.
2. Use Remarking/Retargeting
Unfortunately, it happens more often than businesses would like, not just in the hotel industry. The abandonment rate for hotel bookings online stands at 84.63%. Three out of every four potential clients who initiate the booking process fall short mainly because of distractions.
However, whatever the reason may be, NEVER give up on abandoned bookings just yet. Distractions are quite normal and can happen to anyone. A crying baby or pop-up phone notification can throw a potential client off.
Remarking helps the hotel marketing team to reach users who have already visited the website and started the booking process without completing it. Some retargeting tools you can use include:
● Google Hotel Ads
● Facebook Travel Ads
● Personalized emails
● Personalized website ads and pop-ups
Hotel marketers need to be more present and retarget their bookings on several platforms to have the best possible chance of capturing more reservations.
3. Take Advantage of Social Media
Social media easily ranks as one of the essential tools for hotel marketing and increasing rates and revenue. However, you must post engaging content consistently to drive more traffic to your website for social media marketing to work. A well-established social media marketing strategy helps give the hotel a human touch by highlighting the staff members and other important sustainable initiatives.
Like SEO, implementing the right hotel social media marketing strategies will directly increase your hotel’s direct bookings. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube are also great for building and establishing an effective brand awareness campaign. Hoteliers can post deals and other promotions to incentivize potential guests to make conversions and, thus, bookings.
The key is to maintain a regular social media presence and not limit your hotel to one social platform, travel website, or search engine. Establishing a strong presence on every social media platform may not be practicable. But it helps to know which social platforms your target audience typically book from and establish an engaging and competitive social presence on those platforms.
4. VR Tours of the Hotel
Since its inception, VR has proved to have great potential for hotel marketing and promotion because of its immersive sensations. Virtual reality can communicate how your hotel feels and the services and experiences it comes with from a distance.
As a hotel marketing tool, VR reduces the perceived risk of intangible services by helping travelers to make better-informed decisions based on more realistic expectations. When used correctly, VR can generate positive emotions toward your hotel and offers one of the best forms of advertising.
VR is the best hotel marketing tool to help your hotel stand out from the crowd. Its differentiation stands for itself and says it all.
5. Encourage Online Reviews
Your online reputation is critical for your overall marketing strategy and will determine how readily potential guests will be to book your hotel.
Not having a positive and established online reputation will likely put you out of the competition even with all the other marketing strategies implemented properly. This means implementing the hotel’s online reviews in your marketing strategy. Hoteliers can do this by:
● Having active listings on review websites like TripAdvisor
● Encouraging new guest reviews
● Actively responding to positive and negative reviews equally. Remember you’re on stage when responding to online reviews – potential future guests may use your interactions with present and future customers to decide whether to make reservations at your hotel.
Hotel Marketing is an Art – Use it wisely
Establishing an optimal hotel marketing strategy is critical for reaching potential guests and giving them reasons to pick your hotel over the competition. The hotel marketing tips above can help drive your marketing efforts around reaching potential guests when implemented properly.
Bolstering your hotel marketing trends requires expert guidance. NewGen Advisory specializes in hospitality and lodging assets. We have the team and expertise to help hoteliers find and implement the most effective hotel marketing tips tailored to your hotel’s needs. Contact us for more information on suggested hotel marketing companies.