Seasonal offers are a great opportunity to bring in direct bookings by making your direct channel stand out.
NB: This is an article from Hotelchamp
However, one size does not fit all when communicating messages to website visitors. As you pursue different marketing goals throughout each stage of the customer journey, your strategy also needs to adapt in terms of website messaging. For instance, displaying your USPs on your homepage is a great way to raise awareness.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and stay up to date
However, displaying them on your booking engine page is better at increasing conversion. To ensure your campaigns achieves all your marketing goals, it’s crucial that you have a holistic messaging approach. We look at the summer campaign of a hotel chain, and how it successfully used a multi-message strategy to convert their visitors across various touchpoints.
The Summer Campaign that Incentivises Direct Bookings
Aiming to make their direct channel stand out, our client put together an attractive direct booking offer. This was valid for 8 of their properties. For specified dates during the Summer of 2022, visitors could enjoy 22% off and free breakfast. A mix of both price and non-price direct booking benefits like the one in this campaign is beneficial for both hoteliers and guests. Price benefits such as discounts positively influence occupancy rates and help hotels compete with the reduced rates offered by OTA loyalty programs. Moreover, non-price benefits such as the included breakfast improve the perceived guest experience and satisfaction. Overall, these benefits provide a powerful incentive for guests to book direct.
Using Hotelchamp Convert, we helped our client create a campaign made up of 3 messages on their website, targeted at different moments of the guest journey. Though highlighting the same offer, the messages ensured coverage on different devices and helped accomplish different goals. They all contained an action button which applied the promo code directly in the booking engine. This streamlines the process and enhances the user experience. We will go into further detail about how each individual message helped make the campaign successful.
1. Countdown exit message to create urgency
The first message was a flash sale message which was only displayed on the website for 14 days. Yet, it rendered amazing results. Displaying a countdown, it created a sense of urgency that contributed to the effectiveness of the message. Moreover, it was triggered when users are leaving the browser tab. This diminished the opportunities for the visitor to drop off and gives them one last nudge to make the booking.
