The hospitality sector is booming again, with more people than ever before booking holidays to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
With this in mind, hotel owners need to recognise the importance of hotel advertising, if they want to increase their bookings, raise awareness, and manage their reputation.
Here are our top 5 tips for effective hotel advertising.
1. Take advantage of social media
Social media is now one of the most powerful communication tools for engaging with your target market, from all corners of the world.
Giving you the tools you need to connect and engage with potential guests, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter provide the perfect opportunity to market your hotel.
You should create a strategic content calendar that focuses on driving traffic to your website, boosting bookings and raising awareness of your hotel. There are plenty of fantastic content ideas out there, including deals and promotions, behind-the-scenes insights into your hotel and its facilities, and interesting information about where your hotel is based. Remember to mix up the content to ensure it stays engaging and really showcases your hotel and the local area.
2. Reward direct bookings
Direct bookings mean you won’t have to worry about sharing any profits with third parties.
With this in mind, you should focus on encouraging your guests to book directly and reward direct bookings with lower prices, upgrades, discounts, or even a welcome gift in their room. You could also consider running a loyalty scheme for regular direct bookers.
3. Recognise the power of data
When it comes to optimising your hotel advertising strategy, you should always utilise the power of data. For example, tools such as Google Analytics will help you understand how your website and social media channels are performing and will allow you to gain a better insight into the behaviours of your target market.
4. Invest more money during peak booking season
Summer and Christmas tend to be peak booking seasons and, as you will be up against lots of competition during these periods, it’s important to focus on optimising your marketing efforts and adjust your ad budget accordingly. Remember, there may also be popular events in your local area which will also drive seasonal traffic such as festivals or Christmas markets so look into past bookings to see if there is a trend you can adjust your spending to.
5. Invest in SEO for your website
There’s absolutely no point in having an all-singing, all-dancing website that looks great but doesn’t convert website traffic into bookings.
This is why it’s so important to invest in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in order to give your hotel the best chance of being seen on search engines such as Google. You should start by carrying out keyword research in order to understand what your target audience is searching for, followed by link building. Many companies offer SEO services that will help you to achieve your advertising goals.
Remember, your hotel marketing strategy is likely to change depending on the season and market trends.
If you’re considering buying your own hotel, get in touch with a member of our skilled and experienced team who is on hand to help you discover your dream B&B property.
