For many owners, hospitality digital marketing seems like an untapped and novel territory.
It’s massive and highly competitive!
Some swear by a handful of well-known strategies, but the continuous change in consumer behaviour and evolving trends demand marketers to look into different ways to create and share information to increase their bookings and profitability.
As per recent statistics, an average millennial spends more than 5 hours a day on social media platforms - and, the current hit of the global pandemic has accelerated the whole scenario.
Bearing that in mind, imagine what will happen if hotel marketers fail to keep a pulse on the latest digital innovation and social media platforms?
It will be nothing but downright detrimental to your hotel revenue and reputation!
So to keep up with this complex, ever-growing playing field of hotel marketing, you need to take proactive steps and get involved with digital marketing for hotels.
Here is an overview that will help you understand the whole concept of hospitality digital marketing along with the latest trends and strategies that will help your business stay ahead of your competitors.
What is exactly Digital Marketing for Hotels?
In simple terms, digital hotel marketing is all about building and maintaining an online presence of your hotel to increase the visibility of your brand across all digital channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google and other search engines like Bing, DuckDuckGo and more.
In this era, hospitality digital marketing is one of the best ways to get in touch with potential customers, establish brand name and reputation, acquire new customers along with retaining loyal ones.
8 Keys to ace hotel digital marketing in 2021
The impact of digital marketing on hotel industry is undeniable. In this rapidly changing environment, it is often confusing to know where to start and where to invest.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will be the backbone of your online visibility
Without online visibility, your online business presence is of no use. Hoteliers can - and must- do SEO to increase discoverability and maximize website traffic.
Using the right SEO tactics will help your hotel website rank higher in search engine results, making it easier for customers to find your business.
Did you know more than 93% of online purchases and interactions being with a single search?
Discoverability, authority, and relevance are the three pillars of SEO that will help you create a well-optimised website.
A few tactics to help you improve your SEO game:
- Start posting high-quality content on your website on a regular basis.
- Start your own blog or even start guest blogging on other authoritative sites to build brand reputation and establish yourself as an industry expert.
- The importance of choosing the right keywords cannot be stressed enough.
- Answer customers’ questions on a well-optimised FAQ page that is easy to navigate.
- Get quality backlinks to your website.
- Content marketing, content marketing and more content marketing!
What is your online hotel business with no content marketing?
No matter how great your digital marketing plan is, without the right content marketing, it will fall flat on the face.
Content marketing is all about defining your audience and creating useful content to reach the target audience.
Start creating valuable content and share them on social media platforms, used by your target audience. It is an excellent way to establish, promote, and drive brand recognition and boost profitability.
SEMrush released data that states, more than 86% of companies choose blogging as their most created content. Why?
Because blog posts help to keep your website neat and relevant and are also great for SEO.
But, only posting quality content is not going all! You need a proper content marketing strategy to help you steer your content ship.
- A few pointers to bear in mind to create relevant, quality content:
- Write content to solve problems rather than creating more.
- Include CTS to encourage customers to take immediate action
Choose goals and KPI’s for your content to help measure and track their success.
- Stay at the top of the game through personalizing and engaging email marketing
Generally, people underestimate email marketing without even knowing what they can do or their online businesses.
Creating an engaging and informative email campaign will help you connect with planners and travellers with the best plans and programmes.
Start sending pre-arrival emails, designed with a personal touch, to your guests. Utilize past user behaviour to make your email more relevant and guide your prospects a
bout selecting the best amenities as per their budget.
A few writing tips to create engaging email campaigns:
- Make the subject line clear and actionable
- Deliver what you promise in your email subjec
- Be brief and to the point.
- Go the social media way
With 3.6 million active social media users across the globe, you cannot deny its importance for your online hotel business.
It’s a no brainer to figure out that there will be endless potential travellers and buyers that can convert to potential customers, only if you do the right digital marketing for hotels.
Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter - use all these social media platforms to benefit your hospitality digital marketing strategy.
A few pointers to help you on the journey:
- Brevity is your friend
- Repurpose and reuse old content
- Stop them mid scroll with quality images and enticing captions.
- Inform and engage through video
Videos are entertaining and help your customers get a 360-degree view of your hotel.
Whether it's social media, website, or emails, hotel videos is a great way to engage with the right prospects and build brand reputation. It is also a great way to earn the trust of the visitors.
Create videos to engage, educate, and demonstrate to your customers and audience about the services and capabilities, and also let them know about the personalized experience.
According to research by EyeWideDigital, including videos on the landing pages increases the conversion rate by 8o%.
Your hotel digital marketing agency will help you know what types of videos are the best to help your online hotel business reach the right target audience.
- e-Reputation
This is one of the new emerging ideas for Digital marketing for hotels, and is crucial.
Before booking and making a purchase, customers always check the online reviews, comments and ratings of the business, to know what others think of them.
A single negative review or publicity can ruin the online reputation of your online business.
Devise a stellar e-reputation marketing strategy that is multi-disciplinary and incorporate the inputs from digital consultants and public image consultants.
New Trends in the Hotel Digital Marketing World
The online world is continuously changing. Search engines are amping up their policies to improve user experience.
Here are a few new recently announced trends by Google that you must know and incorporate in your hospitality digital marketing strategy:
- Google is releasing a new ranking algorithm, Google Page Experience Update that ranks web pages based on the user’s experience of interacting with a page - meaning poor visitor experience will lead to poor ranking.
- CRM: Personalization is key post Covid-19, meaning creating personalized messages to your customer segment will give them the boost and extra confidence to start booking and travelling.
- Social Media: Facebook boosts its test for in-stream ads on live, meaning it will help the global giant evaluate the effectiveness of the ad format before rolling them out to the masses. This ad format for hotels could be an amazing way to engage destination content reach out to target audiences, only if you partner with the right content provider or influencer.
- Ad Display: Discovery ads are available globally and Gallery ads are being discontinued. So if your hotel ads are designed with high-quality image assets with amazing visual effects and are relevant, Discovery Ads will help them reach the right segment.
- Design: Visual COVID-19 prevention plan guides are mandated for travellers, meaning only assurance and a prevention plan will nr of no use. Travellers want visual details of the measures being actually taken to have their peace of mind.
If you’re not being to take a grasp of these upcoming digital trends, talk to your hotel digital marketing agency and know how they can help your business make the most of it.
Time to put these digital marketing strategies to practice
Digital marketing for hotels plays a vital role in revenue generation. It touches every aspect of the buyers’ journey.
Certainly, there are bigger and better players entering the market, and with improved digitalization, guests are demanding more and more personalization.
Use these tools and tips to make the best of your hotel marketing strategy and start getting more and more bookings