Digital marketing will assist you in creating the types of experiences that your customers demand.
The hospitality industry is embracing all things digital. If you want to keep ahead of the competition, you must launch a modern hotel marketing strategy online, or you will be left behind.
Your prospective guests are constantly seeking the best possible experience. While planning their journeys, vacationers and business travelers alike look for hotels that can provide comfortable stays and react to their requirements, basic expectations, and (hopefully) more. This means that your distinctive hotel experience must begin before your customers arrive and continue beyond their stay.
With excellent digital marketing tactics in place, you can create a current, convenient, and joyful online experience, and potential customers will always select you.
Seven Key Hotel Marketing Trends
While becoming digital is an excellent place to start for every hotelier, specific techniques have proven more effective than others. As you create your hotel marketing strategy, keep in mind some of the top marketing trends driving outcomes in the hotel industry—as well as the broader hospitality market—today.
In this part, we'll take a deeper look at a few efficient marketing tactics that you may employ to make the most of each of these trends.
1. Metasearch advertising
Thanks to access to hundreds of internet research tools, modern customers are making wiser buying selections than ever before. Your potential guests are no longer just selecting the first hotels they encounter via a regular Google search, which means the hotel industry can no longer rely entirely on search engine optimization (SEO) to generate leads. Instead, you should concentrate your efforts on metasearch engines as well.
Metasearch engines, often known as search aggregators, enable tourists to compare accommodation rates from various hotels at the same time. Some of the most popular metasearch engines, such as Google Hotel Ads, TripAdvisor, and Expedia, are gaining popularity like never before. When you spend in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on any of these platforms, they can directly account for 12% of all hotel reservations, but they impact many more by driving people to your website to learn more.
Because it accounts for the great majority of search aggregator conversions, most hotels invest the most in Google Hotel Ads, which rank you at the top relevant hotel search results. However, practically all of the top metasearch engines are growing in popularity, which means that advertising on other platforms can help you reach millions more individuals.
When reservations for your peak season are scheduled to begin, you may proactively increase your metasearch ad expenditure to convert more hotel visitors than your local competition.
2. Mobile optimization
Over 90% of Americans already possess smartphones, so more and more customers inevitably want mobile-friendly experiences wherever they go. By 2022, smartphone reservations are predicted to account for over half of all online sales in the travel sector.
To prepare for the quick transition to a mobile-first business, make sure your hotel website is suited for smartphone customers. In addition to making direct reservations more straightforward for your visitors, a mobile-optimized site may boost your search engine results, helping you reach your target demographic more effectively.
Beyond this essential contemporary requirement, hotel marketers are experimenting with new methods to include text messaging and mobile applications into their tactics to improve the visitor experience. Some hotels allow visitors to check in using only their cellphones for a contactless check-in. Others utilize the Podium Messaging Platform to provide visitors with an easily accessible digital concierge before, during, and after their visits.
3. Influencer marketing
Social media marketing, particularly on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Facebook, stays in the hotel sector. With over 3.8 billion worldwide consumers utilizing social media, no hotel business can neglect this marketing medium.
So, how can you stand apart when most businesses have already figured it out? Influencer marketing is the answer for many hoteliers.
Influencer marketing is when you collaborate with someone who has a significant internet presence and ask them to spread your message on your behalf. You may provide free hotel stays, commission, or a one-time lump sum payment in exchange.
When these social media influencers endorse your message, you instantly win the trust of their devoted followers. This might result in a high return on investment (ROI), primarily targeting millennials.
To maximize the efficiency of your influencer marketing, you must be selective about whom you collaborate with. Influencers with similar values and target audiences are ideal for promoting your hotel brand. This makes their promotion feel more genuine and ensures that it reaches the proper individuals.
While influencers with enormous followings may deliver much traffic to your site, so don't overlook the micro-influencers either. Social media users with 1,000 to 10,000 followers tend to have more interaction from their followers, which means their posts can have a tremendous influence.
4. Video marketing
one of the most acceptable methods to attract potential visitors is immersing them in the experience you can deliver. Videos are excellent marketing tools since they allow people to see your lovely property and feel as if they are walking on it. Video, more than still photographs, can trigger strong vacation emotions—and who doesn't want to feel like they're on vacation?
Almost every marketing effort may benefit from the usage of video. You may create advertisements that showcase your hotel rooms and all of the facilities you provide and then promote them on social media, through email marketing, and elsewhere. Many hotel owners are now including 360-degree video tours on their websites to show off the complete experience for customers. With a couple of these videos of your physical area with footage starring your hotel guests and personnel, your potential consumers will get a good sense of your hotel's overall ambiance.
5. Chatbots on social media
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the hospitality industry is a prime example of how technology is revolutionizing the visitor experience. Social media chatbots are one of the most prominent uses of AI in hospitality these days. Chatbots are designed to answer visitor inquiries while unavailable, which is especially crucial if you do not have customer care personnel available 24/7. After all, more than 40% of consumers want replies within an hour, while 32% expect a response within 30 minutes. When your consumers direct messages you on convenient platforms like Twitter and Facebook, chatbots can quickly make them feel acknowledged, if not wholly satisfy their concerns.
Social media chatbots may even be programmed to make appointments for you, reducing the amount of time you need to personally reply to potential visitors.
6. Online feedbacks
Consumers prefer to trust other individuals more than their brand, as seen by influencer marketing. As a result, many of your potential customers will go for internet reviews to learn more about your hotel from individuals who have stayed there.
In addition to receiving input on popular review sites like Google and Facebook, your company must have a presence on specialist platforms like TripAdvisor, Booking.com, and other hotel review sites. These specialty websites are where millions of committed travelers—quality leads who want to book hotels shortly—flock, so if you're consistently receiving favorable comments, they'll be more inclined to consider you.
Once you've established a plan for gathering reviews, you'll need to develop a procedure for responding to both good and bad evaluations. This not only re-engages your current client base by demonstrating your concern, but it also demonstrates to potential visitors that your team will be as attentive when they book their stay.
You can automate your review invites while also expediting the complete review response process using a solution like Podium Reviews. Soon after a guest's stay, they will be requested to give a hotel review through SMS, advancing the mobile-first hotel experience—for the sites that are most important to you. When you get comments on any review site, you will answer from a single platform.
7. Create amazing digital experiences
Before making a reservation, modern hotel customers explore a wide range of online resources to familiarize themselves with your business. You may amaze your target audience before they book and long before they stay in your hotel marketing mirrors the real-world experience you can give.
Go our hospitality marketing advice to guarantee you always stand out, even when you have more than your fellow hotels to compete with when you're ready to add a few more digital techniques to get ahead in your business.
Conclusion
With the help of digital marketing and using the above tools, you can build trust with the customer in the digital world. You can make your hotel stand out from other competitors. Customers will book your hotel even before visiting that city. This will help ease their booking and stay at your hotel. There are several digital marketing agencies for hotels that can help you build your marketing strategies. Check them out and consult with them.
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