To run a successful hotel you need to be constantly attracting guests. This involves a strong marketing campaign. But just what are the best ways to market a hotel?
Host social media contests
Social media contests are a fun way to get people to discover your hotel. They typically involve giving away a room for free to a select winner. While this may seem like you’re making a loss, you could end up gaining lots of new customers by making social media users more aware of your hotel. This post offers a few different social media contest ideas including photo sharing contests and trivia contests.
Send out email vouchers
You can encourage people to book rooms during non-busy periods by advertising discounts on rooms. One great way to do this is to send out vouchers via email. Vouchers can be distributed via your own mailing lists or mailing lists of other companies.
Invest in local SEO
Local SEO involves increasing the search rankings of your hotel when people enter location-specific search terms. This can be done by targeting location-specific keywords. There are many other elements to SEO, which can be quite complicated and may require a lot of resources. This is why it is often best to hire a hotel marketing agency to do your SEO for you.
Encourage positive reviews
Many people will look up reviews of a hotel before booking a room. By making sure that you have lots of positive online customer reviews, you can increase the chance of people choosing your hotel. A great way to encourage positive reviews is to collect the email address of every guest and send a review request to each happy guest after they check out.
Embrace influencers
Online influencers are people who have a large online following. This includes popular social media personalities, bloggers and vloggers. Influencers can help spread awareness of your hotel through social media posts, blog posts and videos. Don’t wait for influencers to find you – consider reaching out to influencers with the opportunity to stay at your hotel in exchange for promotional content.
Reach out to hotel guides
You may be able to attract more guests by getting your hotel featured in a hotel guide. This typically involves reaching out to the people running the guide and asking them to stay at your hotel to see if it meets their quality standards. Other online directories may allow you to publish a listing of your hotel yourself. These directories are worth taking advantage of, but may require you to pay them commission on every guest booked through their platform.
Network with local companies
There could be local companies that can recommend your hotel and help you get more business. Think about services in your area that are likely to recommend hotels to people. This could include local tourist information centres, bars, taxi companies or even vehicle breakdown services.
Keep your signage fresh and salient
Hotel signage is the most traditional form of marketing a hotel. Bold signage that is in good condition can attract travellers looking for a hotel and encourage them to book a room. While most people do book online nowadays, it’s useful to still attract those last minute guests. Besides, customers may still want to look up photos of your hotel before booking a room. Consider whether you need to clean or replace your signage.
