Gone are the days when word-of-mouth was good enough to carry hotels through each holiday season. With the modern traveller turning first to their internet browser for information about accommodation, hotels and travel agents that aren’t online are missing out on bookings. Implementing a digital market strategy has long been a must-have for hotels, and it doesn’t have to be an over-complicated quagmire. Below we’re looking at what should a marketing strategy for hotels and travel agents include, and three valuable digital marketing strategies to consider.
What should a marketing strategy for hotels and travel agencies include?
- A purpose for the marketing activities
Why are you marketing your hotel in the first place. Forget increasing your turnover or improving your bottom line. Your purpose for marketing should focus on your guests. Whether that’s solving a problem they’re facing, or providing them with motivational or useful information, find your purpose and make it the starting point of your hotel marketing strategy.
- Clearly defined customer personas
Marketing for hotels should never take a one-size-fits-all approach. Some of your guests are corporate travellers, while others are travelling for holiday. Some are single people, while others are full families. Personalise your marketing content by establishing 2 or 3 guest personas. These are archetypes of the most common guests your hotel or travel agency receives. When you have a better idea of whom you’re talking to, creating personalised marketing content is much easier.
- Specific marketing channels to be used
Your marketing strategy should also include clearly defined marketing channels. These are communication channels through which you’ll be sharing your hotel marketing content. Social media pages are a good starting point for company updates, sharing content and community management. If you’ve got a database of customer email addresses, that’s a great avenue for more direct marketing content.
- Types of content to be created
Speaking of marketing content, here’s another important addition to your travel agency or hotel marketing strategy. Images, videos, lines of text, links to website pages, infographics and eBooks are all examples of content you can create to market your business. However, you don’t just want to create content for the sake of it. It’s better to create one or two pieces of amazing content than to create countless average or below-average pieces of content.
What To Consider When Building My Digital Marketing Plan – Digitlab
Three digital marketing strategies for hotels
1. Performance Marketing
Performance marketing in the hospitality sector is a results-driven approach to digital marketing, designed to maximize returns on investment for hotels and travel agencies.
With a focus on targeting specific audiences with personalized campaigns and utilizing data-informed tactics, performance marketing drives direct bookings across multiple channels including search engines, email, and social media.
Cost-effective and targeted, this type of marketing strategy provides real-time data and insights into customer behaviour, enabling hotels and travel agencies to make informed decisions about their marketing approach and improve the user experience.
Emphasizing measurable results, performance marketing plays a crucial role in helping hospitality businesses stay ahead in a highly competitive market, driving increased revenue and direct bookings. As a marketing professional, it is imperative to appreciate the advantages of performance marketing in the hospitality sector and its impact on the success of hotels and travel agencies.
2. Brand Building
As marketing professionals in the hospitality industry, it is important to understand the significance of brand building in driving long-term success for hotels and travel agencies. The example of Airbnb, who invested in strong brand building campaigns, demonstrates the potential benefits that can be reaped from such an effort.
Brand building offers numerous advantages over performance marketing. These include increased awareness, differentiation from competitors, customer loyalty, and price premium. There is also better reputation management, employee engagement, partnership opportunities, crisis management, trust, and long-term success.
Through building a recognizable and memorable brand, hotels can reach a wider audience, command higher prices, and inspire customer loyalty. Additionally, a strong brand culture can motivate employees and improve the overall guest experience. In times of crisis, a well-established brand can provide a competitive advantage and help withstand negative publicity.
Furthermore, investing in brand building can also support performance marketing objectives, drive up search demand, and improve return on investment. In conclusion, brand building should not be overlooked as a crucial component of a successful hospitality marketing strategy.
3. Micro Moment Strategy
The micro-moments strategy is powerful for dissecting your traveller’s important moments that inspire them to make a purchase. Understand these moments and build your strategy and marketing tactics around them. This can revolutionise marketing as you find the best times to leverage interested travellers and secure their buy-in and loyalty.
In short, a micro-moments strategy will bring additional value to your hospitality business through:
Increased Mobile Relevance
By targeting customers during micro-moments, hotels can improve their mobile presence and reach customers when they are most likely to book.
Improved User Experience
A micro-moments strategy can help hotels create seamless, mobile-optimized experiences that meet the needs of customers in real-time.
Increased Direct Bookings
By providing relevant information and calls to action during micro-moments, hotels can drive more direct bookings and reduce their dependence on online travel agencies (OTAs).
Better Customer Insights
Micro-moment data and insights can provide valuable information about customer behaviour and preferences, allowing hotels to make informed decisions about their marketing strategy.
Increased Brand Awareness
By targeting customers during relevant micro-moments, hotels can increase their brand awareness and reach new audiences.
Competitive Advantage
By focusing on micro-moments, hotels can gain a competitive advantage and stand out in a crowded market.
Increased Engagement
By providing timely and relevant content during micro-moments, hotels can increase customer engagement and build relationships with potential guests.
Better Ad Targeting
Micro-moment data and insights can inform targeted advertising strategies, allowing hotels to reach customers at the right time and place.
Better User Experience
A micro-moments strategy can help hotels create a better user experience, reducing friction points in the booking process and improving conversion rates.
Increased Revenue
By targeting customers during relevant micro-moments and improving the user experience, hotels can increase their revenue and improve their bottom line.
Case Study: City Lodge Hotel Group’s Woah-men’s Month Campaign
