We all are in the hunt to gain a competitive edge. Aren’t we? Staying aligned with the focus of this portal, in this post, we have discussed a few of the best Hotel industry marketing strategies that are extremely relevant in 2022 and beyond.
Some key and essential marketing trends and strategies have entered the hospitality industry and they have become impossible to ignore.
In order to survive the tough industry in these harsh contemporary times, it is essential for players in the sector to arm themselves with modern marketing strategies that can allow them to stay afloat as well as attract new customers.
Thus devising strategies that work well in the hotel industry would hold the key to success.
Some of the crucial marketing strategies for the hotel industry in 2022 revolve around technology. Before we even begin to discuss top marketing strategies for the hotels and resorts, it’s crucial to understand that the below are necessities now.
We have covered these in greater detail in this article.
- Just having a website is not enough. It must be an attractive, useful and interactive website.
- Go mobile. Fast, crisp and user-friendliness are more important in 2022 than ever.
- Staying connected through various channels including social media is crucial.
- Create videos as these have greater retention in a customer’s mind.
- Apps will still be relevant in 2022 but expectations have increased for the app performance.
- Content is still the king. Organic search matter more in 2022 and advertising can still be a potent and relevant marketing strategy for hotels in the coming years.
Given the rapid and non-stop pace of new developments, technology has now become commonplace and important in the travel industry.
Hotel owners must now take steps directed at maximising their marketing efforts to adapt to the changing needs of the consumer and to better compete with other players in the industry.
These are a few of the best hotel industry marketing strategies:
1. Digital Presence holds the key – You need a great website
Few of our earlier posts have already discussed a few of the advancement in technology for the hospitality industry.
Embracing technology is the key to stay competitive today.
Unfortunately or fortunately, it is no longer sufficient to just have your hotel listed online.
In this digital age, it is vital to ensure that you have a firm digital presence. As such, social media must become a vital marketing strategy.
To ensure success, every hotel must now invest in a quality website that can also facilitate online bookings.
Your Hotel Website design should be of top quality. In short, it should be a visual treat for potential customers.
With review sites such as Trip Advisor now playing a vital role in influencing consumer decisions, it is important to get involved to get a share of the hotel industry market size.
Get started now if you don’t already have an enviable digital presence. There are multiple hospitality marketing tools to ensure successful implementation of this strategy.
Get the best out the digital marketing channel. The image is a good recap of what you should be considering.
2. Customer Insights are everything for Customer Acquisition and Retention
Hotel industry marketing strategy will now have to take into account customer insights into their marketing campaigns.
The success of a hospitality establishment depends entirely on the perception that the customers have; if they find faults, customers are not afraid to share with other customers online about the various issues that they have encountered.
Focusing on customer service in the hospitality industry is the key to sustained growth.
As such, when conducting any hotel industry market research, hotels must gauge who their customers are, and what they need in terms of service and entertainment so that as a business, you can improve on these things.
Customer insights can be implemented easily as long as hotels ask the right questions.
Customer acquisition and retention are key to the profitability of the organisation. The whole aim of marketing is to acquire the customer and then retain as well as upsell.
There are a lot of marketing tools in the hospitality industry that can help in this whole process.
To acquire customers, you have to create a proper portfolio or a mix to ensure you reach out to the right people and grab their attention.
So, let’s sum up the ones mentioned in this article and few others through this image by an article published on Medium.
So, try out these to check which work the best and create an excellent portfolio.
Some initial workout and research are well worth the effort given the lifetime benefits you can expect to reap out of the effort.
The Hospitality industry is already quite good at it through various Customer loyalty programmes. Don’t forget other tools like VIP clubs, Passes, Vouchers etc.
However, a little bit of innovation and some use of technology can help provide an unparalleled user experience and a better retention rate.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) solves much of the puzzle stored in the minds of customers.
The hospitality industry is already testing a lot of AI-related tools and we have already covered a lot of them on this portal.
3. Content is the King
You probably found us on the first page of Google.
Consider searching for most of the things regarding the hospitality industry and you would find us somewhere at the top.
The key reason for our search ranking is our focus on content. We create, on this portal, what we believe is fit for our readers. We create comprehensive content to ensure that it is helpful to our target market.
Same is true for the Hotel industry.
Hotels and other hospitality organisations work a lot on word of mouth publicity.
Content helps you send clear messages across your target segment.Plus, you build an organic presence across the globe.
Content marketing is becoming a clear winner these days as far as top marketing tools in the hospitality segment is concerned. Content is equally effective in social media and e-mail marketing.
Use NetAffinity, Evernote, Quora, Canva, Keywordtool, Buzzsumo and other tools to organise content ideas, create content and then promote them effectively.
If you have already built a website then, it’s probably the time to refresh the design for better conversion.
After you have made a website and ensured that it is a quality one, you would want your audience to know more about your business. Put simply, if your hospitality organisation doesn’t have a website, it doesn’t exist.
If your organisation doesn’t have an eye-catching and attention-grabbing website, you are losing big on potential business.
Plus, not having a decent website, dents your chances to become a brand in the hospitality industry.
Thus, we have started with the website while listing the top marketing tools in the hospitality industry. A website not only gives you an opportunity to sell yourself but also gives you various other benefits like:
- Adds credibility to your hospitality business
- Provides free marketing
- Opportunities for digital marketing
- Easy to sell your packages or products online
- An easy way to announce promotion and business news
- Helps build a global brand
- Helps in expanding to bigger markets
and much more.
Content has become instrumental if hotels want to rule various hotel industry market segments.
Aside from the obvious need for an online presence, hotels have to make their websites engaging as a way of marketing to a wide pool of clientele.
Online content is an affordable alternative to get into modern methods of digital marketing. It can be through articles, through infographics or videos.
4. Direct marketing
Direct marketing that includes leaflets and promotions are also still beneficial and will continue to play an essential role in the Hotel industry marketing strategy.
It is also important to influence the customer to retain them for the lifetime.
Direct Marketing in the Hotel industry is still a potent force in acquiring customers. The hospitality industry is all about service and it’s by the direct interaction that customers can be retained.
The image below gives a snapshot of the Customer lifecycle of an example customer in the hotel industry.
While the digital hotel marketing tools explain how digital platforms can help skyrocket your hospitality business, one can’t undermine conventional wisdom.
The Hospitality industry is more about face to face interaction and word of mouth publicity.
Here’s where the printed advertisement and events come in handy. It helps you get uninterrupted attention.
The attention span is extremely less on digital platforms. Events can thus be big winners.
If you were wondering about the popularity of the Food & Beverage Shows around the world, you now know why.
The response rate and conversion are still high while the competition is driving the cost of these marketing tools down.
Try organising an event to showcase how your hotel or restaurant is way better than the competition.
You might make a lot of customers for a lifetime when you meet them in person.
5. SEO, Social Media Marketing & E-mail marketing
This again is one of the most useful and one of the top hotel industry marketing strategies in this technology era.
Everyone is online and mobile in this era and thus it is important to stay ahead of the competition by a fair margin.
Hotels have a list and e-mail id of all the customers but they don’t use it.
It is important to have repeat sales and thus e-mail marketing is crucial to retain existing customers and make new ones. Shoot your best offers to customers through emails and see the impact.
Also, it is important not to have an impeccable Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for your hotel website to ensure organic growth online.
Proper SEO and e-mail marketing should be a key component of the Digital Marketing budget for hotels. E-mail marketing can give you a big marketing boost.
Here are a few points to prove that e-mail marketing can be one of the most trusted marketing tools in the hospitality industry.
- Shorter Sales cycles
- Better engagement with existing client
- A great method to promote new products
- Low-cost marketing
- Better conversion rates
- Can help in getting referral sales
- Integrates well with social media
and many more.
6. TV and Newspaper Advertisement
Marketing strategies such as TV and Newspaper advertising are still instrumental, but they are also quite expensive.
Top Hotel chains across the world still shell out a huge part of their marketing budget for advertising in Newspapers.
Probably, the return on investment is not as high with digital channels taking lead as far as return on investment is concerned.
This used to be one of the key marketing strategies of the hospitality industry in the past. However, competitors like Airbnb and others are forcing the hotel industry to come out with innovative and cost-effective marketing techniques.
Check out the study by Statista about Direct Marketing channels.
While advertising still has a long-term return on investment, but the affordability issue and ease of promoting through digital channels make Newspapers and TV advertising less attractive.
7. Social Media Promotion is still crucial in 2022
This seems to be one of the crucial hotel industry marketing strategies in the current era.
While social media promotion is a no-brainer today and most of the hotels are already paying huge attention to promoting everything on social media. This at times is even close to over promotion.
However, social media is now stacked and it is important for the hotels to allow some money to paid social media promotion.
Social media marketing today is one of the most important ways to promote your business.
A lot say that the social media space is stacked as of now. Competition is fierce but so are the opportunities.
If Hospitality businesses are to thrive, they would have to depend heavily on social media promotion and e-mail marketing.
The sheer volume of social media usage across the globe indicates how important digital marketing strategy is to the hospitality and travel industry.
Paid media like Adwords or Facebook adverts might seem like a thing only for the leaders of the game. However, you can start for as little as $2 a day depending on the location. Try to get visible and integrate paid search marketing into your marketing strategy.
8. Go Fast, Add Tech and Go Mobile
This could have been covered in the Digital marketing or website section but with Google now going gaga over mobile sites, we have decided to give a special mention to going mobile.
Going mobile going forward is going one of the most effective hotel industry marketing strategies. Well, it already is extremely effective as on date.
The list of marketing tools in the hospitality industry might sound overwhelming. So many tools. Which one to select and which one to discard?
A lot of Hotel Management Software help automate a lot of things for hospitality businesses. These include distribution systems, property management systems and more.
But, did you know that a lot of hospitality marketing tools can also be automated?
Right from social media marketing, to customer reach out to content promotion. A lot of these can be automated by using the right tools.
There are a lot of providers of these automation services who can help improve the profitability of your hospitality business by a few button clicks.
Also, building an app has never been easier.
It not only helps in enhancing the user experience but lowers your marketing costs in the long run.
Spending time and money on having a super interactive mobile site or app is well worth.
Conclusion
Here you go. 8 obvious yet still under utilised hotel industry marketing strategies in 2022.
There are a lot of other marketing strategies that can be used by the hotel industry to gain and retain a competitive edge.
Technology today is coming up like a quick fix solution to everything. However, we must not ignore the conventional wisdom as we stressed in this post.
We covered a few of the most trusted marketing strategies in the hospitality industry. Hopefully, we will be of some help in helping your hospitality business shine a bit more.
However, also remember that Old is Gold. Nothing would beat a personal interaction in the hospitality industry.
The events, telesales and leaflets can be offbeat for other industries but they continue wielding magic in our very own hospitality world.
Hope you liked the list of few of these simple yet powerful hotel industry marketing strategies. There is a lot more information about the Hospitality industry at this all hospitality portal.
So, please keep checking back or use the search box to carry on exploring more about the Hospitality and travel industry.
