How Can Hotel Brands Use Omnichannel Marketing to Boost Engagement and Growth?

The hospitality industry has undergone drastic changes in recent years, much like its neighboring sectors - retail, travel, and food and beverages, to name but a few - consumer expectations, pain points, and demands have evolved from years past.

While the end goal in the era of ‘self-service’ is still to provide memorable and positive experiences, there have been recent upticks towards making guest and customer experiences more personalized and seamless, throughout every stage of their relationship with a hospitality brand.

Hotel Marketing Activity: A Difficult Strategy to Get Right

Hotels, in this case, bridge most of these sectors together and thus are presented with an array of complex challenges. Not only do hotels have to stay abreast of inflation fluctuations and remain competitively priced, but they must provide unique, relevant and engaging content to prospective guests who may be at various stages of the proverbial ‘marketing funnel’. Hypothetically speaking, some may be completely unaware of a hotel’s existence, while others may be actively seeking something local and budget-friendly - imminently - that can accommodate them during their next getaway.

Ultimately, however, guests expect personalized and enriching experiences across all touchpoints, whether researching hotels online, browsing the website, booking through third-party directories, communicating via social media, or consulting reviews from past guests to gauge amenities and pricing. Hotels, therefore, have to maintain a consistent, eye-catching and immersive presence to capture the attention of more guests year-round.

Omnichannel marketing strategies help hotel brands gain a competitive edge over the competition in many ways. Coordinating messaging, offers, and amenities through multiple channels - from the hotel website to sponsored social media ads and remarketing campaigns - hotels can guide and nurture guests through every step of their journey. A strategy like this enables hotel brands to refine and improve their services as well as marketing activity going forward, as collected data tells a valuable story.

So how exactly can hotels map out an impactful omnichannel strategy? This article will explore the essential channels and tactics to include at each stage.

Boosting Brand Awareness Through Video and Social

When guests are in the preliminary stages of researching and discovering brands, the priority for hotel marketers is driving awareness and promoting the facility as much as possible.

Therefore, any marketing activity and content must strike an immediate, memorable impression with prospective guests who are on the hunt for a hotel that meets their needs. The content and messaging must highlight key essential details and information that someone considering a brand would need to know; they don’t necessarily need to know the intricate finer details yet.

Visual Content Strategies

Prioritizing visually immersive and dynamic content is crucial - this means focusing on video, imagery and social media campaigns to capture buyer attention and convey the unique selling points of your hotel brand. Authentic video content doesn’t have to be overly complicated or expensive, and hotel marketers can create some truly memorable and shareable material by following these basic video creation tips.

Consider the following with quality video content in hand:

• Short-form video ads - snappy and concise videos showcasing the essential amenities and location of your hotel can be run across multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and more. Clear calls to action (CTAs) can direct viewers to the website or a dedicated landing page to book or find out more.
• Behind-the-scenes (BtS) content - user-generated videos that allow guests to get a glimpse of the inside of your hotel, including rooms and communal facilities. This ‘insider access’ builds organic brand affinity.
• Influencer marketing - partnering with relevant social media influencers to produce authentic reviews and social media ads to convey the guest experience can work wonders for generating brand visibility.

Driving Direct Bookings via SEO and PPC

In the background, it pays dividends to consider the long-term marketing objectives and milestones for your hotel brand. This will involve leveraging two highly strategic marketing strategies, namely search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is never one-and-done; it requires constant thought, action, and reconsideration. Obtaining prominent rankings for competitive search terms is tricky, and requires a mixture of methodical technical SEO, keyword research, engaging content, and link building. A proper SEO strategy is required to identify what prospective guests - in your hotel’s region - will be searching for, and what pain points your website pages need to address. Hotel websites also need to be responsive, mobile-friendly, and optimized to offer a positive user experience (UX) and seamless booking.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC advertising through search engines or social media platforms requires a fairly different strategic approach. While many of the same marketing messages, CTAs, and keywords can be used across the hotel website and built-in PPC ad channels, competitiveness, search volume, and intent can be weighed differently. It’s worth creating bespoke PPC landing pages that can be exclusively served to users who end up clicking paid search listings (that will always appear above organically ranking pages in SERPs). These pages can still mirror the branding and UX of your website, but with differently-placed CTAs and content to make bookings more accessible and easy for the user.

Whether catering for organic or paid audiences via search engines, consider the layout, CTAs, content, and structure of your website to drive bookings. A/B test PPC ads and run remarketing campaigns for visitors who have left your site.

Leveraging Retargeting to Re-Engage Prospects

Speaking of which, prospects remain well within reach even if they do not convert via your website. This is why it’s vital to run retargeting or remarketing campaigns (the terms are often used interchangeably) to gently remind users of your brand, and nudge them towards converting.

If prospects had previously shown interest but had not quite booked, study your website analytics and determine a) who and b) why they might have abandoned. You can send customized emails to users if they have enquired and browsed webpages - or your social media profiles - including an incentive to nudge them over the line. Social media platforms have pixels or plugins that you can add to your website code which then, bilaterally, dispense related ads to users across their social media feeds.

Building Loyalty Through Personalization

Once a guest makes a booking, marketing efforts don’t stop there. It’s essential to nurture them and pivot them towards becoming a loyal customer and avoid going to a competitor.

Personalized communication helps create those all-important meaningful connections throughout their stay and afterwards too. Consider the following:

• Reminder emails - Send arrival instructions, recommendations and special offers once a booking is made, with clear tips on how to get in contact if they have any queries.
• In-stay surveys Brief feedback forms help spot and immediately resolve any issues impeding their experience.
• Post-stay reviews - Monitoring and responding to reviews everywhere online protects your reputation.
• Loyalty programs - Offer repeat guests members-only rates, room upgrades, dining discounts and early access to offers.

Throughout all of your communications with guests, make sure that all advice and responses reflect your hotel brand values, identity, and level of service. Any inconsistencies or discrepancies should be clarified to ensure a seamless experience - free of ambiguity - for all guests.

United Marketing Channels Set Expectations From the Off

When planned and executed strategically throughout all stages of a guest’s customer journey, omnichannel tactics like these combine to provide a smooth, unique, and consistent experience. Hotel brands that adopt this approach in their marketing direction will stand greater chances of fostering more loyal, beneficial relationships with guests from all walks of life while gaining a much-needed competitive edge in the cutthroat hospitality industry.

The key is to view each marketing channel as part of an interconnected ecosystem, rather than in isolation. Ensure messaging, offers, CTAs, and promotions stay consistent and coherent when prospects switch between marketing channels (i.e. moving from Facebook to Google Ads to emails). With the right strategy firmly in place, all aggregated guest data can become more easily understood between platforms. This, in turn, enables a more holistic, comprehensive view that hotel brands need to micro-target touchpoints, identify areas for improvement, and capitalize on strengths.

By aligning objectives across platforms and understanding precisely how channels impact and augment each other at different points in the funnel, hotel brands can orchestrate guest journeys that drive real revenue growth.

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