An effective digital marketing strategy can help your hotel achieve marketing objectives and increase room bookings. It can set your hotel apart from the competition and allow you to best identify how to get your message out to audiences through a variety of digital channels. It also can also expand your audience and allow you to further identify your audience’s interests. Selecting the right digital marketing strategy can raise your hotel to the next level and further achieve your marketing goals. However, it can be difficult to know which specific strategies your hotel should focus on. The world of digital marketing is constantly changing, which is why we’ve created a list of 4 hotel marketing strategies that you can implement to increase bookings.
Create an independent website
Although many hotels are part of a larger brand like Marriott or Hilton, some brands allow hotels to have independent websites, separate from a corporation’s website. Independent websites can be key to booking guests since they can drive visitors to your hotel and encourage direct bookings. Independent websites can target a keyword strategy that is different or more targeted than a corporation’s hotel website. Additionally, hotel corporation websites often compete on search engines with other hotels with the same domain. For city-based hotels that have multiple hotels within the same brand, it can cause domain crowding on the first page of Google. This makes it more difficult to search for your specific hotel since other hotels of the same corporation can show up when using a search engine, especially since search engines have a cap on the number of links from the same domain that can populate on the first page. An independent site with luxury website design in mind can also be customized, eye-catching, and share beautiful photos and videos of your hotel, showing visitors what staying at your hotel is really like.
Focus on social media marketing
It’s easy to let social media marketing slide as a priority, especially if you haven’t seen bookings from it in the past. However, social media marketing should still be a priority since you can utilize it to draw people to your website, generate room bookings, and provide a place to respond to questions and concerns. Plus, over 3.6 billion people use social media globally, with this number projected to increase to 4.41 billion in 2025.There are a variety of ways you can create a hotel social media strategy, including using certain social media platforms, tracking metrics, learning about your target audience, and researching your competitors’ social media channels. Hotels can post about special deals for room packages, highlight unique amenities, or share fun things to do near the hotel. Social media provides an excellent opportunity for hotels to be creative with content, so don’t be afraid to be innovative.
Update online listings
Oftentimes, a hotel’s online listings can be out of date. Online listings are important because they not only lead to more bookings, but can also increase online presence, allowing your hotel to be discovered more frequently. In addition to these benefits, online listings can strengthen brand awareness and increase local visibility. Your hotel could be listed on Yelp, Google My Business, Facebook, Tripadvisor, and many other places. To update a hotel’s online listings, you can do a variety of things. First, you may want to review how your listings look. If there are old photos being used, make sure to upload newer ones in place of the old. Double-check and make sure that all of the information on the listings is correct. You may also want to test the site to make sure you can properly book rooms through the listing. Lastly, make sure that your hotel is responding to guest reviews since many listings offer a place for guests to leave them.
Make your website mobile-friendly
It is essential for hotels with independent websites to be mobile-friendly. Statistics support this—57% of consumers said that they wouldn’t recommend a company with a poorly designed mobile website. Mobile optimization includes a website’s speed, design, and other common search engine optimization practices. Review your hotel’s website design to make sure that it is mobile-friendly. Remember, nearly half of users will stop using a website on a mobile device if they find that the content is useless or the layout is complicated.
Implementing a hotel marketing strategy
Now that you’ve learned about these advantageous hotel marketing strategies, it’s time to make a plan for your hotel. Talk with your team or marketing agency about how you can best leverage these strategies. Consider which strategy would work best for your hotel. Think about what makes your hotel unique and choose which strategy would best portray this and accomplish your marketing objectives. Using these top digital marketing strategies can help elevate your hotel’s brand and take it to the next level.
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