A Hotel Marketing Strategy To Drive Bookings

A strong Hotel Marketing Strategy can make the difference between a full-house and empty rooms. While each and every hotel requires their own unique strategy, each one follows similar lines.

It should never be a static strategy either. Your hotel marketing strategy needs to be prepared for the shifting winds of the tourism market. Peak seasons, new travel trends and unique one-time festivals are all opportunities for you to adapt, improvise and overcome.

So what does it take to build a solid hotel marketing strategy? Let’s visit several vital points that you should consider when putting together your strategy.

6 Points For A Hotels Marketing Strategy To Drive Bookings

• Strong SEO For Success
• Define Your USP (Unique Sales Proposition)
• Identify Your Hotel Guest
• Reward Direct Bookings
• Touchpoints On The Customer Journey
• Stay Relevant On Social Media

Strong SEO For Success

Potential guests will not be able to consider your stunning hotel if they can’t find you. According to research, 75% of guests begin their customer journey on a search engine – which makes SEO of critical importance.

There is no excuse for skimping on your Hotel’s SEO. For those unfamiliar with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) we’ve collated a short introduction to hotel SEO. 

In order to maximise your hotel marketing strategy you need to engage in in-depth keyword research of your compset. What are guests in the area interested in? Can you turn the relevant phrases and key points into engaging copy that rates highly on Google?

Your Hotel SEO isn’t easy: you are essentially selling your hotel to two different entities, Google and your potential guests.

A high-ranking SEO that takes you to the top of SERPs (search engine results page) may not be convincing to potential guests. Likewise a compelling copy that drives customers to book may not necessarily have a high SEO ranking. 

The right copy will combine the best of both aspects and produce high-ranking, relevant copy that pushes customers through their customer journey.

Define Your USP (Unique Sales Proposition)

Your USP is what inspires interest, encourages positive reviews and brings back guests for return bookings.

The hotel industry is incredibly competitive. Millions of travelers every year are searching for their dream holiday, weekend escape or ideal place to relax after a business trip. Each one of these guests have a plethora of potential hotels to choose from.

What sets your hotel apart? Why should guests choose to stay at your hotel?

Your USP is what will make the difference. You need to cater to a certain variety of needs to clinch that booking (as well as adding a little extra on top to sweeten the deal!) Guest needs are not only top-priority while they stay with you, but Google’s research revealed that 47% of guests decide not to book because of unmet needs.

Your USP will be a significant feature of your entire hotel marketing strategy. 

Identify Your Hotel Guest

Every hotel will have a mix of guests, it is true. No matter how niche your marketing efforts or USP are you will always encounter a variety of bookings.

However you can define the most likely guest bookings that your hotel will receive. This can be a flexible notion. You may experience corporate guests for several months and then an entirely different type of guests during the summer seasons.

Obviously your hotel marketing strategy will need to change in accordance with the time of year and your guest type. For a more in-depth guide, check out our blog on identifying your type of hotel guest.

Reward Direct Bookings

Direct bookings are the goal for every single hotel. 

No sharing your profits with OTAs on bookings left, right and center, with direct bookings you receive all of the payment. It wasn’t always possible to offer rewards for guests booking directly. Rate parity laws did not allow hotels to offer options such as lower rates.

However, now with the end of rate parity, things are much more flexible.

Now that country after country has removed the parity clauses in contracts, deeming them “in breach of EU competition law” you now have complete control over your channel pricing. They are your distribution channels, your room and your prices.

Your hotel marketing strategy demands that you encourage direct bookings at all costs. So offer lower rates or an alternative bonus for booking directly – everyone does love a complimentary bottle of champagne after all!

Touchpoints On The Guest Journey

Guests should feel valued at every step along the customer journey – that sense of care and consideration is going to encourage stellar reviews, promote recommendations and convert them into returning customers. 

From the moment that they complete the booking process, you should outline extremely precise customer touchpoints.

• • After the booking process
    • You can highlight some upgrade options or package deals
  • 24 hours before check-in 
    • They may request on some last minute alterations
  • After check-out 
    • You must send out follow up emails to gain insight into their stay, remind them to leave a review and potentially offer a discount if they return.

These are just some potential examples among dozens of options depending upon your hotel. You should never worry about annoying your guests this way. No one will leave a bad review because you were too concerned about making their stay as special as possible. But you could just earn some 5-star reviews for creating the trip-of-a-lifetime for a special few.

Stay Relevant On Social Media

Social Media is a powerful tool for your hotel marketing strategy.

Consider that the average internet user spends more than two hours a day on social media. We rarely use messaging apps now when social media inboxes are a far more convenient method of communication in between scrolling through funny cat videos.

This makes social media an ideal ground to support your hotel marketing strategy. We’ve put together a more concrete guide to hotel marketing on social media but we’ll cover it in short here.

Your hotel’s social media can act as a “pre-landing page” for many potential guests. Especially those who are brought in via your earned media. 

Every single Instagram story, post or reel (with your hotel’s geolocation) is another potential moment for more earned media as long as they tag your hotel. Now happy guests act as unintentional marketers for your hotel – with every single picture. 

Not only that, but engaging with potential guests builds your brand presence online. It also reflects and builds on your Hotel SEO (back to part one!) 

Ultimately, your hotel social media is an essential part of your overall hotel marketing strategy. It simply cannot afford to be left untouched.

Your Hotel Marketing Strategy

As we said before, your final hotel marketing strategy will be completely unique to your own hotel’s needs and services. If all hotels had the same strategy – then there would be no difference between them.

Despite this 6-point guide to creating your hotel marketing strategy, there is one point more important than all of the aforementioned. 

Stay flexible.

You must craft a hotel marketing strategy that can be altered, amended and otherwise changed. Some parts of your strategy may work better than others, so do not be afraid to remove what does not work and attempt a different tack. 

If you require assistance with creating your hotel marketing strategy our team at Regent are always here to help. In fact we offer a completely free audit of your hotel’s marketing efforts at your own discretion – No sign-up required! 

Simply get in contact with a member of our team and we’ll arrange an audit and an informal chat to share our results with you!