Your digital marketing strategy is key to your success as a hotel, and if you get it right then you could find that you’re able to actually spend less, but achieve more. In order to do this, you need to be sure that you’re focusing on strategies that actually work, by giving you more control over marketing efforts, as well as giving you improved results.
To achieve this, it’s less about the trends in the industry, and more about managing your online marketing in the most efficient way. Leonardo blog, a blog that’s focused on marketing for hotels, has identified some key activities that can help you to gain an advantage.
Regain market share with good stories and killer photos
As we’ve said before, the quality of the content that you produce is key to your success. You don’t want to produce the same old content that every hotel has on their website, but instead you need to be innovative. Rather than thinking about promoting yourself as a hotel, think about the type of content you can provide that will really add value to guests and potential guests. For example, if you’re based in a tourist destination, think about the type of content that could improve a guest’s experience. Are there popular tourist attractions nearby? Maybe there’s a large event that brings in a lot of guests, or a hidden gem that you know about, but your guests might not. By giving people this type of information, they’ll not only see you as a thought-leader in the industry, but they’ll recognise that you’re offering something different to your competitors. Alongside this content, try to provide unique images that are eye-catching. Why not hire a photographer to spend a day taking images that you could use for an extended period of your content strategy?
Of course, while producing this content, you don’t want to forget about promoting the key features of your hotel. There’s no point enticing customers with top-quality content and images to then leave them confused about your hotel. Make sure that you have landing pages targeted towards your customer personas, as well as high-quality content detailing your unique features and benefits. You can also display this type of information in different ways. Instead of writing content in your blog that comes across like a sales pitch, try to display it in a different format. You could include reviews taken directly from TripAdvisor, share images provided by guests themselves and encourage previous visitors to share their own information.
Ensure you’re optimised for mobile
According to eMarketer, mobile will represent more than half of all online travel bookings in 2016. In addition to this, Google’s algorithm was updated in 2015 to penalise all websites that aren’t optimised for mobile, meaning that if you haven’t done this, your website won’t hit those top rankings in Google searches. All websites should now be optimised for mobile, so if yours isn’t, then you need to focus on this immediately. Assuming that it is, then you now need to focus on the ease of your mobile website.
Google research shows that travellers spend an average of 55 minutes booking a hotel and flights, visiting an average of 17 websites and clicking on four different search ads. Of these consumers, 90 per cent will conduct their research and booking process on multiple devices. Bearing this in mind, you need to know that whatever type of device a customer is using to make a booking, you’re not creating any barriers that will cause them to go to your competitors. Think about what your call to action is for each page, and make sure that this is easily visible whatever device a person is using. For hotels, this will tend to be the booking function.
However, you also need to make sure that all of the information a person might need to make the decision to book is also easily accessible. This includes things such as the cost, location of the hotel, unique features, key amenities and the answers to any frequently asked questions. People don’t want to spend too much time searching for the information that they need, so make sure that you can easily guide someone through the process and offer a clear journey to help them to locate this content.
By making your website clear, using high-quality content and thinking about what the customer will want every step of the way, you’re spending no additional money on marketing, but making your hotel even more attractive to potential guests.
