Hotel Marketing Solutions To Boost Your Success

The travel industry is one of the most competitive out there, and while that’s certainly so secret, it can sometimes be harder to know how to get a leg up on the competition especially when it comes to marketing for hoteliers.

So when it comes to the question ‘how do hotels market themselves?’ there are many different methods of hotel marketing, all of which provide many benefits to you as hotel owners. Which is most appropriate can change depending on whether you’re operating as an individual property, a large-scale chain, or a group of hotels.

However, there are several hotel marketing solutions that provide benefits no matter what kind of business you run, which we will be exploring in this article. But first …

What Is Hotel Marketing?

Hotel marketing is a blanket term that encompasses the digital marketing strategies, metrics and techniques that hotels (chains, groups, or boutiques alike) all use to drive awareness and revenue.

It’s no surprise therefore that hotel marketing is crucial when it comes to driving success for you as hotel owners, and especially as the travel industry is so fast-moving.

It’s important that not only are you keeping abreast of the latest traveller behaviours that may change how, where and when your final customer travels - and therefore impacting the likelihood of them booking your hotel in the first place - but it’s critical that you’re utilising the right hotel marketing solutions for your business to achieve maximum impact.

So, why invest in hotel marketing?

Naturally, any marketing is essential, as it promotes a brand, product or solution to in-market audiences to increase conversion rates and exposure within fast-moving industries. Hotel marketing is critical as it is the method through which hotels can promote their properties, showcase their unique features (Unique Selling Points) to stand apart from competitors, and establish the benefits of staying in your hotel compared to your rivals.

Not only this, but online hotel marketing solutions are more important than ever in today’s digital era, when you consider the fact that hotel marketing - and travel marketing as a whole - continues to have significant impact on traveller behaviours and decision making, from destination to which hotel they book and what time of year they visit their chosen destination.

What Are The Best Hotel Marketing Solutions?

So, when it comes to how to market your hotel, there are many different techniques and strategies that you could adopt in order to increase your occupancy; but focusing on the right approaches for your business not only saves time, but it ensures you’re reaching the right audience at the right time. This is a critical factor in any marketing, but especially when it comes to the fast-paced travel marketing industry.

Partner With A Global Distribution Company

Now, this might come as no surprise, but working with a specialist in global distribution is one of the most effective ways to increase your exposure to your end customer and therefore improving your occupancy rate and competitiveness in an agile industry.

This becomes all-important when you consider that as a whole, the hotel and hospitality industry is set to grow by a sustained 6 - 7% for the foreseeable future; so working with a partner that understands how to create a profitable mix of all distribution channels is essential in today’s industry. 

The answer here is partnering with a global distribution company, like Hotelbeds, that understands the significant impact of choosing the right distribution channels on your revenue management and success. After all, an empty room is a loss of income. 

Partnering with a specialist in hotel distribution like Hotelbeds provides:

●    Access to a wider choice of distribution channels to efficiently promote your hotel, or hotel chain.
●    Effective ways to improve yield management practices, to increase profit.
●    Combined visibility across online and offline distribution channels, including OTAs, MetaSearch platforms, retail travel advisors and travel providers on a global scale.
●    Higher exposure in hard-to-reach, high-value, and in-market segments without competing with your direct or brand.com strategy.

At Hotelbeds, we specialise in facilitating connections, linking travel buyers and sellers in the marketplace. 

Discover more about the impact of global distribution and how we drive incremental growth in the travel industry for our clients here!

As a global distribution company, we connect and empower businesses in an ever-changing industry in order to drive growth for our partners in a way that may not have been accessible while working independently. In fact, around 60% of bookings from our network at Hotelbeds are from non-domestic source markets, as a result of our ability to connect travel buyers and hoteliers on a global scale.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search Engine Optimisation forms a large part of the hotel marketing strategy called Search Engine Marketing (SEM). While SEM is the overarching strategy, SEO is the specific process of optimising numerous user-experience and technical attributes of a hotel’s website in order to improve the position, or ranking, of the website in search engine results pages. 

SEO is highly beneficial and one of the most essential hotel marketing solutions because not only does it help drive organic traffic to your website – which is traffic acquired through other means than paid marketing - but it also can reduce customer acquisition costs. 

Some of the main considerations to take into account when undertaking search engine optimisation as part of your hotel marketing strategy are: 

●    Build domain authority - this a major ranking factor for search engines like Google, this is built by providing valuable content that’s link-worthy, gaining high-quality referring links from other websites, and performing regular technical audits. 
●    Target long-tail keywords - if your hotel’s website has lower domain authority, then let the large-scale brands compete for those generic search terms, and target longer, more niche keywords that are easier to rank more highly for.
●    Create valuable content - one of the most important factors of SEO is content. Not only does having engaging, up-to-date content on your hotel’s website improve the chance of being discovered online, but it adds value for your customer and increases the likelihood of conversion.
●    Prioritise technical audits - a website that functions in accordance to ‘best-practice’ recommendations is one of the key ranking factors for Google.
●    Make sure your website is ‘user-first’ - Google’s 2022 update suggests that in order to even rank on their search pages, websites must be ‘guest-first’: meaning that customers can find the information they’re after quickly and efficiently, with simple designs and fast loading times. 

Increase Exposure With Digital Brochures

One of the best hotel marketing solutions is to participate in widely distributed online and printed brochures - much like our Star Collection! Used by retail travel advisors worldwide, hotel brochures are one of the most steadfast methods of increasing your exposure and, therefore, maximising your occupancy rates.

Why? In most cases, a digital or printed brochure is a go-to tool used by retail travel providers, regardless of their markets’ demographic or travel preferences!

Being showcased as part of an exclusive collection of properties actively shared and promoted, by customer-facing professionals during their consultations, gives you as a hotelier access to thousands of end customers you may have found it challenging to attract otherwise.

Plus, taking part in our Star Collection Programme, for example, ensures that your property is showcased in high-traffic digital spaces with prime placements on our website banners, and with external promotions to 71,000+ travel buyers across the globe.

Digital brochures can provide:
●    Access to thousands of travel bookers in global, hard to reach, niche and, high-value segments who will actively promote your hotel.
●    A vital distribution channel as part of your hotel marketing strategy that does not compete with your brand.com strategy. 
●    More opportunities to showcase your hotel through paid advertisements as part of the exclusive brochure collection.

Email Marketing for Hotels 

As one of the most direct and cost-effective methods of marketing your hotel, email marketing strategies can help you to boost direct traffic and increase sales by reaching guests directly. And with one of the highest return on investments, when you’re thinking about how to market a hotel or hotel chain, email marketing should be at the top of your list. 

Here are a few things you should do before implementing email marketing as part of your hotel marketing strategy: 

●    Build your email databases - gain quality potential leads by using sign-up forms on your website; providing gated content; requesting guests to opt-in to email marketing; getting sign-ups from social media campaigns.
●    Analyse any current email performance - consider key metrics like open rates, click through rates, conversion and unsubscribe rates. This lets you see what kind of email communications are the most valuable and converting - and which aren’t.
●    Segment your email audiences - sending the right email at the right time, to the right audience, is essential. 
●    Personalise your emails - 71% of consumers expect personalised interactions, and 76% are frustrated when this isn’t the case.
●    Optimisse your content - carrying out A/B tests helps you determine what content drives the most valuable reactions. It’s worth noting that short-form video is one of the top content marketing trends for 2023.
●    Create email flows to follow up - focusing on Customer Lifetime Value and retaining existing customers can significantly lower your acquisition costs.
●    Keep tracking! 

Luckily, our teams of hotel marketing specialists at Hotelbeds are on hand to provide dedicated solutions! Our experts curate bespoke email campaigns that showcase our partner hotels to thousands of key travel buyers in our network, dramatically increasing the reach of your hotel(s) on a scale that may have been costly to achieve through direct communication.

This is just one of the ways that working with a travel partner - like us at Hotelbeds - who offers comprehensive channel management and diverse hotel marketing strategies can be hugely beneficial to your business. 

Social Media Marketing for Hotels 

Advertising and being active on social media is a great opportunity for hotels to grow as a brand, gain visibility and ultimately, reach potential guests. In fact, Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users, Facebook almost 3 billion, and WeChat (the China exclusive social media platform) has 1.2 billion! 

‘Influencing’ your ideal customers’ decisions on social media is the name of the game, especially when social media and online hotel marketing continues to have a significant impact on travel decision-making, from destination assessments, hotel-booking intent, to in-destination activities.  A recent study by Expedia also found that 30% of US social media users suggest that what they see online inspires them when booking a trip. 

Social media, if it isn’t already, should be a key aspect of your hotel marketing plan for 2023 - in fact, around 50% of hoteliers suggest that social media is a top two sales and marketing priority, so if you’re not visible, you’re not competing! 

Here are some things to consider if you think you need to refresh your social media as part of your wider hotel marketing: 

●    What are your competitors saying/posting? Keeping an eye on your direct competition means you’re less likely to see gaps in your marketing efforts.
●    When was the last in-depth audit you did? Deep-dive your current campaigns, and consider which messaging/channels/placements/incentives drove the most valuable results.
●    Re-evaluate your customer personas/profiles. How might your ideal audience have changed over the last year? Are you still actively meeting their needs?
●    Is your brand identity immediately discernible? Today’s travellers won’t hesitate to move away from brands that don’t have a strong ethos and that don’t resonate with their needs.

Choosing The Right Hotel Marketing Solutions

There are many aspects when it comes to the question of how to market a hotel, and each of which provides differently weighted benefits for each hotel depending on whether you’re a boutique hotel, or a large chain. 

As part of your larger strategy, one of the most beneficial hotel marketing solutions is working with a global distribution company. Doing so provides many benefits that do not compete with your existing brand.com strategy, including access to dedicated marketing teams, and exclusive partnership opportunities that promote your hotels within communication and advertising campaigns aimed at travel buyers. 

This, combined with your in-house hotel marketing, significantly improves the exposure your hotel receives to travel buyers and their end customers. Which means higher occupancy rates for you!