In the modern digital world, marketing your hotel has become more important than ever. With guests from all over the world with the mobility to travel anywhere they desire, hospitality has become global in an unprecedented way.
In such a competitive environment, marketing is one of your most vital tools to stand out from the crowd. So, in this article, we will be looking at how to market your hotel in 6 steps. We created this list by going through a deluge of marketing advice online.
We hope you find these steps helpful on your journey to corner the market.
1. Setting Goals
The first step in coming up with a marketing strategy for your hotel is setting the goals you want to achieve.
These goals should be what industry experts call SMART goals. That is to say, goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Approaching your goals this way allows you to realistically pace yourself as you work towards creating your marketing strategy.
Some examples of goals can be to increase social media engagement or to increase tourist arrivals from a certain sector or demographic.
Once your goals are set, it’s time for the next step.
2. Know your Audience
When trying to market your hotel, what you know is information about your property and everything it offers. What you lack is information on how the people you are marketing to think and what their interests are.
This is the reason why the second step of marketing your hotel is researching the audience you are marketing towards. Different types of people require different approaches. For instance, the youth or millennial market needs a different approach compared to families or influencers.
Some options for research are questionnaires to the guest who stay over at your hotel, online questionnaires, and reading market research from secondary sources such as economic journals.
Once you know your audience, you are one step closer to figuring out how to get their attention.
3. A Content Plan
The next step on your path to marketing your hotel online is to come up with a content plan. This is a plan that goes over what kind of content you want to make and how.
A good idea when doing this is to look at your competitors and see what kind of content they make. You can also look at what kind of content does better and with which audiences. This information can help you when deciding what type of content creation to invest in.
Some examples of content that popular hotel brands around the world create are hospitality news, news from their branches globally, promotional photos and videos, ads on other platforms such as TV, and promotional graphics for their offers.
Creating a content plan puts you on the path for the next step.
4. Scheduling Posts
Knowing what to post is only half the battle. Knowing WHEN to post it is just as important. It has been discovered in the early days of digital marketing that there are certain days and times at which posts do better.
As such, doing a little research into when your online audience is more likely to interact with your content is very important. Picking the right day and time to post content can result in a better response than simply posting when ready. Social media platforms offer data analytics that can offer insights into finding the right time.
Once you get the schedule down, the process of content creation to promote your hotel will become much easier on you and your staff.
5. Data Analytics
After your digital marketing machine has had some time to do its thing, it is a good idea to check out the data gathered during this time. It will provide valuable insights on how you should proceed with marketing.
One of the best sources of data comes from social media websites. They offer analytics on views, interactions, and other details.
Once you have the data in front of you, you should be able to see which part of your strategy worked and which part didn’t. This insight is crucial in altering your plans for the future.
6. Responding to Comments
Now that we have what is basically a self-correcting marketing plan set up, the next step is to focus on the social media management aspect of this equation.
It is not enough to simply post content online. You must also manage the responses to this content. This can mean moderators that make sure inappropriate comments are deleted or even social media managers whose job it is to respond to queries and comments made by your followers online.
Responding to comments also makes your brand more personable and approachable. This increases the likelihood of guests opting for your hotel when the time comes.
And there you have it! Six steps through which you can market your hotel online. When you follow these six steps, you can go from knowing nothing about marketing online to being proficient at it.
So talk to your marketing team and designers today and start with step one!
While we have you here, we’d like to turn your attention to another great avenue for creating an online presence for your hotel; TripKit.
TripKit is our easy-to-use, easy-to-learn, highly customizable digital concierge app. It can be used to showcase all the products and services your hotel offers online, visible to any potential guests through their own smartphones.
If you’d like to learn more about TripKit, please head on over to our website.
We invite smaller hotels to try the base version of TripKit at an affordable price, while larger hotels have the options of getting a white label version of the app, which they can customize to their liking.