Like many other industries, the Internet has revolutionised travel and tourism. Online agents and aggregators have forever changed the way people book hotel accommodation, increasing the competition and driving down prices for consumers; because of this, building an effective hotel online marketing strategy has never been more important.
Commission payments to aggregators have also decreased margins, putting hotel operators under increasing pressure.
However, hoteliers are starting to leverage hotel online marketing techniques to increase direct bookings and push margins back up.
Implementing your Hotel Online Marketing Strategy
A good holistic marketing strategy for your hotel would encompass a mix of the following components:
- Paid ads – Paid ads can be used across a variety of platforms like Facebook or Google, and will give an instant boost in traffic to your site. You can also work directly with other sites that will relate to your target audience placing banner ads to help reach new customers.
- Local SEO – Focusing on local SEO will ensure you appear near the top of the search listings when people are looking for a hotel in your local area. This involves optimising the content on your website to target specific search terms relating to your location. Consider how your hotel online marketing strategy could make reference to your local landmarks, or local history.
- Social media – Social media has become fundamental to the way that customers make decisions today. Your hotel online marketing strategy must consider how you interact directly with your customers, answering their questions and keeping them informed of developments. It is also a great way to get across the specific spirit and culture of your hotel, through the words that you choose and the images you share.
- Third party reviews – the impact of sites like TripAdvisor simply cannot be ignored when it comes to hotel marketing. The vast majority of people will now actively seek out third-party reviews before they make a booking. You should actively promote these reviews by integrating them directly to your site, showing potential customers positive feedback from others and giving them social validation that they are making a wise choice by staying with you. If you receive negative feedback, take this on board and make changes to your proposition if necessary. Always be very careful about how you respond to comments, appearing petty or disagreeable will only further damage your reputation.
One of the key things that your hotel online marketing strategy gives you is the opportunity to celebrate the things that differentiate your business from the competition and make you stand out from the crowd.
A vital part of the strategy should be to find your niche audience and talk in a language that appeals directly to them. A benefit of this marketing model is that you can integrate analytics into the process, which will show you where your web traffic is coming from and how they interact with the content, which empowers to you make gradual improvements over time.
Find a Partner for Success
Building out the expertise to craft a hotel online marketing strategy in-house can take time. A faster route to success is to partner with third parties that have a proven track record of delivering these strategies.
At AsOne, we have worked with a number of hotels, helping them build their online presence through innovative marketing techniques.
If you’d like more information on how AsOne can help you launch an effective hotel online marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of our marketing and business development experts.
Alternatively, you can find us at the North East Expo on May 2nd 2019, at Kingston Park, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
