How to Market a Hotel: Top 10 Tips for Promoting Your Brand
People either love hotels or hate them. Often these emotions come from a first encounter. But either way, at some point everyone has to spend a few days in a hotel. Most people look for a nice place that offers an affordable price, a great environment, ensured safety, helpful and knowledgeable staff, and so forth.
But here’s a fact about advertising: how you market a hotel is much more important than what you offer. In other words, the whole idea of marketing is enhancing the brand “image”. That said, we don’t encourage dishonesty or manipulation. You should always highlight your best strengths and try to attract customers by promoting values shared by the community.
Once we understand the core principle of marketing, the real challenge starts: how to market a hotel most effectively? Here, we’ll answer this question by exploring some of the most effective marketing strategies out there. No matter where you are or how big your hotel is, this guide will take your marketing game to a new level! Let’s begin:
How to Market a Hotel
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
#1 Create a User-Friendly Website
If you want to market a hotel, your first step is designing a structured, beautiful, and functional website with enhanced navigation and optimized user experience. If you want to market a hotel, you need your website to operate as the first line of communication between you and your prospective leads and take care of all online bookings and orders.
There is a good chance that your hotel includes a wide range of different facilities and VIP offers. With a quick search on a well-designed website, people can learn everything about your place. You can also add a chat box on the main page and let viewers share their thoughts, questions, or recommendations.
There are many other methods and tactics to improve your exposure on a business website. For instance, you can offer virtual tours that simulate an existing location, with a sequence of videos, still images, or 360-degree images. Our customized solutions incorporate multimedia elements such as sound effects, music, narration, text, and floor map.
By offering a virtual tour on your website, visitors can experience what it’s like to be in your hotel and will be encouraged to have first-hand experience. All you need is a professional team that understands your business needs and showcases your comfortable environment, equipment, and resources. Consult our team today and equip your website with a custom 3D virtual tour.
#2 Collect All the Relevant Information
More often than not, hotel owners are preoccupied with a lot of different tasks and responsibilities that they simply cannot find the time to collect data on their marketing performance. Without analyzing your campaigns, you are continuing your investment at the risk of making the same mistakes without understanding the reasons behind unfavorable results.
The good news is that we are living in an era where collecting actionable insights and gathering data on customers as well as your own marketing campaigns is very easy. Plus, data-driven marketing plans are the most efficient ways to maintain your edge over competitors.
From Google Analytics to website analytics, social media engagement rate, and other relevant KPIs, all can help you find the weaknesses and shortfalls in your marketing approach and find a timely response for them. Moreover, having a research-backed marketing strategy improves your operational flexibility and allows you to adjust your tactics according to a new situation.
#3 Define Your Value Proposition
With growing competition and mounting pressure to stay ahead of rivals, many business owners struggle to distinguish themselves from competitors. Competitive edge is not necessarily about having a facility in an enviable location or offering the most luxurious services. It’s about understanding what makes your offer unique.
Whether it’s comfort, easy access to historical landmarks, affordability, or else, your entire brand message should reflect that unique selling point. Keep in mind that value proposition is a way to attract customers. So, being unique isn’t enough. You must provide customers with something they value and consider useful.
Usually, it’s a combination of “little things” that creates a memorable experience for your guests. So, make sure everything is set in a way to deliver what you’ve promised. This way, they will have enough reasons to check in at your hotel the next time they are in town.
How to Market a Hotel
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
#4 Retarget! Remarket!
The importance of collecting relevant data on your online performance is partly because it allows you to retarget audiences who haven’t been successfully converted. A SaleCycle survey shows that the abandonment rate for booking hotels online is approximately 85 percent. In other words, 85% of visitors leave before completing their booking.
A high abandonment rate is not entirely a problem from your side. People get distracted and dissuaded for various reasons. They might suddenly receive a disturbing message while they are booking, or think they can get a better deal somewhere else. In any case, you can at least make sure they have all information they need to make the right decisions.
Moreover, when a lead doesn’t make it to the end of the sales funnel, it doesn’t mean your marketing mission is over. When you market a hotel, you have many different ways to remarket your facility and retarget similar audiences with a better offer. Remarketing helps businesses find their pain points from customers’ perspectives and deal with them as soon as possible.
Successful marketing and lowering the abandonment rate will improve your marketing efficiency, increase your sales, and indicates a thriving business. So, occasionally you can even add a little extra incentive for potential leads, encouraging them to book a room.
#5 Find the Right Audience
Most hotel owners can describe a typical guest. However, for some people, it’s hard to imagine how these similarities such as purchasing habits, online behavior, education, nationality, or other factors impact marketing. But every seasoned marketer would tell you that every little detail about customers can help build a more accurate brand promotion plan.
To have a better grasp of the demographics of your target audience, make sure to research your way into the market and learn everything about the people you attract to your business. This way, you will know their needs and preferences and you can provide them with a satisfying unforgettable experience.
People search differently, book differently, travel differently, and spend differently. Combining audience targeting tools and data analytics allows you to find the exact audience segment with the highest chances of conversion.
That said, this doesn’t mean you should find one audience segment and abandon others. Most hotels host a wide range of guests from different backgrounds and different income levels. The only purpose of audience segmentation is to understand how to target each group more efficiently.
#6 Start Influencer Marketing
Another excellent way to market a hotel is by using influencers to promote your facility. Influencers are a big part of today’s marketing since they enjoy a wide reach and can help you boost your engagement rate online. Moreover, influencers enjoy a supportive and active follower base that can potentially become your guests.
If you have just started to market a hotel, you don’t have to spend a fortune inviting the top 10 Hollywood actors. You can contact micro-influencers with a smaller follower base -between 1,000 and 100,000 followers and find a good way to promote your brand. The goal here is to expose your hospitality brand to your target audience and persuade customers to pick you.
Influencer marketing can be a cost-effective and powerful tool for increasing bookings and enhancing brand awareness. But you should do your share of research and make sure you find the right people whose follower base is interested in traveling to your destination and staying at your hotel. So, finding local influencers is not the smartest place to start!
#7 Encourage People to Book Directly
Direct booking is your golden ticket to saving money because you don’t have to share any portion of your profits with third parties as commissions on sales. By having a well-optimized website, or running 24/7 customer support service via phone calls or emails, you will increase the chances of getting more direct bookings.
One of the best ways to increase direct booking is by running a customer loyalty program. A loyalty program is a reward program similar to an airline’s mileage rewards program, offering benefits for guests who travel more frequently. The loyalty program is an excellent way to attract and retain guests by offering discounts, gifts, and other perks.
Another option is starting a referral program. The referral program incentivizes previous customers to recommend your hotel to their families, friends, and loved ones. Put simply, happy customers always bring you more customers!
How to Market a Hotel
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
#8 Find the Right Time for Marketing
While marketing can always bring you benefits, running a well-thought-out plan during peak booking seasons should always be on your schedule. If your hotel is close to a ski resort, or near the ocean, you already know when people are more likely to come and visit you. Pick an approximate timeline and start your marketing a few weeks ahead.
As a rule of thumb, your ad budget should be roughly proportionate to how much exposure you receive. If it’s a busy season, increase your budget. If things go quietly, you may be better off saving your money for now. Instead, you can improve other aspects of your business such as website design, brand awareness, etc.
Most advertising platforms like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and YouTube Ads already have advanced scheduling capabilities. All you need is to find out when people typically book their trips and present your offer as early as possible.
#9 Run Digital Ads
Digital advertisement is used across all industries and in many different marketing campaigns for driving online traffic to clients’ websites and social media accounts. No one can deny how powerful digital ads are for expanding brands’ customer base and building awareness among prospective leads.
Studies indicate that worldwide digital advertising spending is expected to reach over $700 billion by 2025, meaning that digital advertising remains one of the effective methods for all hotels and resorts.
However, running a digital ad campaign should follow the same principles we mentioned above. Firstly, you need to have a clear set of SMART goals. Then you need to conduct regular keyword research and analyze your ad strategy to ensure you are making the right impression on the audience.
#10 Create a Social Media Strategy
Almost 60 percent of the world’s population uses social media! That will add up to billions of potential customers who might be interested in what you offer. Social media marketing offers an exceptional opportunity to communicate with different audience groups and convince them to come and check-in in at your hotel.
A robust social media presence establishes your brand name and boosts your business’s SEO score which will bring in more customers to your hotel. Moreover, establishing a strong social media presence can be the most cost-efficient part of your plan to market a hotel.
Notice that each platform has a different content requirement, different audience reach, and different ranking algorithms. For example, making Instagram reels is an excellent approach to get more eyes on your services on this platform and build brand awareness among potential leads.
How to Market a Hotel
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
Bottom Line
Crafting a well-designed plan is the stepping stone of any marketing campaign. If you want to market a hotel, start by writing down your objectives and prioritizing them based on importance and urgency. Only then, you can see what methods and tactics work best for you.
The above-mentioned strategies, while not an exhaustive list, are among the most effective tools and methods to help you build more awareness, grow your business, and increase your conversion rates.
Aside from using these strategies and devising a well-thought-out marketing plan, you also need to find a well-trained, professional team who can help you implement your ideas. And that’s exactly what we offer at Momentum 360.
One of the most effective ways to market a service business is offering a tailored education 3D virtual tour along with a broad array of multi-media solutions to optimize your online exposure. With Momentum 360, you can enjoy the exceptional quality of our services provided by a team of dedicated professionals. Don’t hesitate any further. Contact us today.
How to Market a Hotel: Top 10 Tips for Promoting Your Brand
People either love hotels or hate them. Often these emotions come from a first encounter. But either way, at some point everyone has to spend a few days in a hotel. Most people look for a nice place that offers an affordable price, a great environment, ensured safety, helpful and knowledgeable staff, and so forth.
But here’s a fact about advertising: how you market a hotel is much more important than what you offer. In other words, the whole idea of marketing is enhancing the brand “image”. That said, we don’t encourage dishonesty or manipulation. You should always highlight your best strengths and try to attract customers by promoting values shared by the community.
Once we understand the core principle of marketing, the real challenge starts: how to market a hotel most effectively? Here, we’ll answer this question by exploring some of the most effective marketing strategies out there. No matter where you are or how big your hotel is, this guide will take your marketing game to a new level! Let’s begin:
How to Market a Hotel
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
#1 Create a User-Friendly Website
If you want to market a hotel, your first step is designing a structured, beautiful, and functional website with enhanced navigation and optimized user experience. If you want to market a hotel, you need your website to operate as the first line of communication between you and your prospective leads and take care of all online bookings and orders.
There is a good chance that your hotel includes a wide range of different facilities and VIP offers. With a quick search on a well-designed website, people can learn everything about your place. You can also add a chat box on the main page and let viewers share their thoughts, questions, or recommendations.
There are many other methods and tactics to improve your exposure on a business website. For instance, you can offer virtual tours that simulate an existing location, with a sequence of videos, still images, or 360-degree images. Our customized solutions incorporate multimedia elements such as sound effects, music, narration, text, and floor map.
By offering a virtual tour on your website, visitors can experience what it’s like to be in your hotel and will be encouraged to have first-hand experience. All you need is a professional team that understands your business needs and showcases your comfortable environment, equipment, and resources. Consult our team today and equip your website with a custom 3D virtual tour.
#2 Collect All the Relevant Information
More often than not, hotel owners are preoccupied with a lot of different tasks and responsibilities that they simply cannot find the time to collect data on their marketing performance. Without analyzing your campaigns, you are continuing your investment at the risk of making the same mistakes without understanding the reasons behind unfavorable results.
The good news is that we are living in an era where collecting actionable insights and gathering data on customers as well as your own marketing campaigns is very easy. Plus, data-driven marketing plans are the most efficient ways to maintain your edge over competitors.
From Google Analytics to website analytics, social media engagement rate, and other relevant KPIs, all can help you find the weaknesses and shortfalls in your marketing approach and find a timely response for them. Moreover, having a research-backed marketing strategy improves your operational flexibility and allows you to adjust your tactics according to a new situation.
#3 Define Your Value Proposition
With growing competition and mounting pressure to stay ahead of rivals, many business owners struggle to distinguish themselves from competitors. Competitive edge is not necessarily about having a facility in an enviable location or offering the most luxurious services. It’s about understanding what makes your offer unique.
Whether it’s comfort, easy access to historical landmarks, affordability, or else, your entire brand message should reflect that unique selling point. Keep in mind that value proposition is a way to attract customers. So, being unique isn’t enough. You must provide customers with something they value and consider useful.
Usually, it’s a combination of “little things” that creates a memorable experience for your guests. So, make sure everything is set in a way to deliver what you’ve promised. This way, they will have enough reasons to check in at your hotel the next time they are in town.
How to Market a Hotel
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
#4 Retarget! Remarket!
The importance of collecting relevant data on your online performance is partly because it allows you to retarget audiences who haven’t been successfully converted. A SaleCycle survey shows that the abandonment rate for booking hotels online is approximately 85 percent. In other words, 85% of visitors leave before completing their booking.
A high abandonment rate is not entirely a problem from your side. People get distracted and dissuaded for various reasons. They might suddenly receive a disturbing message while they are booking, or think they can get a better deal somewhere else. In any case, you can at least make sure they have all information they need to make the right decisions.
Moreover, when a lead doesn’t make it to the end of the sales funnel, it doesn’t mean your marketing mission is over. When you market a hotel, you have many different ways to remarket your facility and retarget similar audiences with a better offer. Remarketing helps businesses find their pain points from customers’ perspectives and deal with them as soon as possible.
Successful marketing and lowering the abandonment rate will improve your marketing efficiency, increase your sales, and indicates a thriving business. So, occasionally you can even add a little extra incentive for potential leads, encouraging them to book a room.
#5 Find the Right Audience
Most hotel owners can describe a typical guest. However, for some people, it’s hard to imagine how these similarities such as purchasing habits, online behavior, education, nationality, or other factors impact marketing. But every seasoned marketer would tell you that every little detail about customers can help build a more accurate brand promotion plan.
To have a better grasp of the demographics of your target audience, make sure to research your way into the market and learn everything about the people you attract to your business. This way, you will know their needs and preferences and you can provide them with a satisfying unforgettable experience.
People search differently, book differently, travel differently, and spend differently. Combining audience targeting tools and data analytics allows you to find the exact audience segment with the highest chances of conversion.
That said, this doesn’t mean you should find one audience segment and abandon others. Most hotels host a wide range of guests from different backgrounds and different income levels. The only purpose of audience segmentation is to understand how to target each group more efficiently.
#6 Start Influencer Marketing
Another excellent way to market a hotel is by using influencers to promote your facility. Influencers are a big part of today’s marketing since they enjoy a wide reach and can help you boost your engagement rate online. Moreover, influencers enjoy a supportive and active follower base that can potentially become your guests.
If you have just started to market a hotel, you don’t have to spend a fortune inviting the top 10 Hollywood actors. You can contact micro-influencers with a smaller follower base -between 1,000 and 100,000 followers and find a good way to promote your brand. The goal here is to expose your hospitality brand to your target audience and persuade customers to pick you.
Influencer marketing can be a cost-effective and powerful tool for increasing bookings and enhancing brand awareness. But you should do your share of research and make sure you find the right people whose follower base is interested in traveling to your destination and staying at your hotel. So, finding local influencers is not the smartest place to start!
#7 Encourage People to Book Directly
Direct booking is your golden ticket to saving money because you don’t have to share any portion of your profits with third parties as commissions on sales. By having a well-optimized website, or running 24/7 customer support service via phone calls or emails, you will increase the chances of getting more direct bookings.
One of the best ways to increase direct booking is by running a customer loyalty program. A loyalty program is a reward program similar to an airline’s mileage rewards program, offering benefits for guests who travel more frequently. The loyalty program is an excellent way to attract and retain guests by offering discounts, gifts, and other perks.
Another option is starting a referral program. The referral program incentivizes previous customers to recommend your hotel to their families, friends, and loved ones. Put simply, happy customers always bring you more customers!
How to Market a Hotel
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
#8 Find the Right Time for Marketing
While marketing can always bring you benefits, running a well-thought-out plan during peak booking seasons should always be on your schedule. If your hotel is close to a ski resort, or near the ocean, you already know when people are more likely to come and visit you. Pick an approximate timeline and start your marketing a few weeks ahead.
As a rule of thumb, your ad budget should be roughly proportionate to how much exposure you receive. If it’s a busy season, increase your budget. If things go quietly, you may be better off saving your money for now. Instead, you can improve other aspects of your business such as website design, brand awareness, etc.
Most advertising platforms like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and YouTube Ads already have advanced scheduling capabilities. All you need is to find out when people typically book their trips and present your offer as early as possible.
#9 Run Digital Ads
Digital advertisement is used across all industries and in many different marketing campaigns for driving online traffic to clients’ websites and social media accounts. No one can deny how powerful digital ads are for expanding brands’ customer base and building awareness among prospective leads.
Studies indicate that worldwide digital advertising spending is expected to reach over $700 billion by 2025, meaning that digital advertising remains one of the effective methods for all hotels and resorts.
However, running a digital ad campaign should follow the same principles we mentioned above. Firstly, you need to have a clear set of SMART goals. Then you need to conduct regular keyword research and analyze your ad strategy to ensure you are making the right impression on the audience.
#10 Create a Social Media Strategy
Almost 60 percent of the world’s population uses social media! That will add up to billions of potential customers who might be interested in what you offer. Social media marketing offers an exceptional opportunity to communicate with different audience groups and convince them to come and check-in in at your hotel.
A robust social media presence establishes your brand name and boosts your business’s SEO score which will bring in more customers to your hotel. Moreover, establishing a strong social media presence can be the most cost-efficient part of your plan to market a hotel.
Notice that each platform has a different content requirement, different audience reach, and different ranking algorithms. For example, making Instagram reels is an excellent approach to get more eyes on your services on this platform and build brand awareness among potential leads.
How to Market a Hotel
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
Bottom Line
Crafting a well-designed plan is the stepping stone of any marketing campaign. If you want to market a hotel, start by writing down your objectives and prioritizing them based on importance and urgency. Only then, you can see what methods and tactics work best for you.
The above-mentioned strategies, while not an exhaustive list, are among the most effective tools and methods to help you build more awareness, grow your business, and increase your conversion rates.
Aside from using these strategies and devising a well-thought-out marketing plan, you also need to find a well-trained, professional team who can help you implement your ideas. And that’s exactly what we offer at Momentum 360.
One of the most effective ways to market a service business is offering a tailored education 3D virtual tour along with a broad array of multi-media solutions to optimize your online exposure. With Momentum 360, you can enjoy the exceptional quality of our services provided by a team of dedicated professionals. Don’t hesitate any further. Contact us today.
