It’s true that having the best hotel location makes your hotel marketing strategy much easier. But, what if you don’t have the best hotel location?
While a great location is a huge marketing plus, it’s not the only thing that can pull in guests. You just need killer storytelling, awesome guest engagement, and genuine guest insight. We’ll show you how to get it right.
Tell your hotel’s story in a way that gets attention
Customers choosing from hundreds of hotels don’t only buy locations. Sure, there are those guests that need to stay in a specific place, but for others, they’re faced with choosing between pages of hotels, all with similar amenities and Tripadvisor ratings. The key? Stellar storytelling. Crafting and sharing a great hotel story is so important. Storytelling shares what makes you unique, as well as giving your guests clear values to resonate with. Storytelling via video content on Instagram Stories is an important way to share your story, including behind-the-scenes moments with employees or showing your brand’s fun side with engaging clips. The result? You’ll begin to create an engaging hotel brand that’s not relying on its location to draw guests in.
Offer guests free quality WiFi (and make sure you use that data too)
Recent research has shown that guests searching for hotel bookings now value free WiFi more than free breakfast, so make sure you offer it at your hotel. Advertise guest WiFi on every listing or social profile for your hotel so guests know to expect quality WiFi. As well as keeping your guests happy, you’ll be able to use the insight collected from guest WiFi data to create effective future marketing campaigns. Data generated from WiFi will quickly build an opted-in email list, allowing you to segment and market based on customer behavior. This way, you’ll always be able to send relevant and useful communications to every customer, every time. Giving your customers lasting value like this is way more powerful than relying on the best location alone.
Get social with your hotel guests before and after their stay
Social media platforms are essential for hotel storytelling, but they’re also a vital way to genuinely engage with your guests before, during and after their stay. Asking guests to tag you while they’re staying at your hotel, or thinking of booking a stay with you is an effective way to get your brand out there with great images and videos. Encouraging guests to share their user-generated content is marketing gold dust, so make sure it’s a key part of your strategy. Investing in your brand profile on platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram are important in developing a stand-out, interesting hotel brand that guests will want to visit, so take the time to do it genuinely.
Use data and automation marketing to create hotel guest loyalty
Great, quality customer data is key to creating loyal hotel guests, so collect it, segment and analyze it well. You’ll then be easily able to give your customers individual offers that reward their loyalty. For example, send customers return visit offers, or special discounts to celebrate an upcoming birthday or anniversary. Automating this process with marketing automation software makes it easy to segment your rewards program, and you’ll soon see the benefits of treating guests as individuals.
Invest in creating strong social proof with great hotel reviews
Great reviews are essential for any hotel, creating the vital social proof that will get you more guests. Hotel guests are often more than happy to share their feedback, but encouraging every single guest to do so can be time-consuming. Just like with rewards activity, automating review requests makes the entire process quicker, easier and more efficient. As soon as your guest has checked out, send them an email or push SMS to ask for a review. Include a link to Tripadvisor to make it as easy as possible, and highlight how much you value their feedback. Boosting your social proof is vital way to compete with other hotels, so don’t skip this step.
Hotels need more than just a great location
The key to competing with hotels with better locations is to create a stand out brand with values and a story that guests respond well to. Take the time to invest in interesting social media profiles and create genuine guest insight for lasting success. A great location makes marketing easier, but developing lasting guest engagement and loyalty are the real ways to create hotel longevity.
