Marketing can often seem like a bottomless pit of possibilities.
The days of investing in only a few marketing channels are long gone. Now, there are endless ways to reach potential guests and drive direct bookings, leaving some hotel marketers paralyzed or flustered over the overwhelming task of choosing what to focus on.
So, we’re here to narrow down the field.
We’ve compiled a list of the strategies that have actually worked for us and our clients this past year.
Call it our secret sauce, if you will.
We fully recognize that there are no magic bullets that work for every property and market, but these are some of the consistently effective tactics that have proven to drive revenue, expand reach and boost direct bookings in 2016.
Let’s get started:
1) Crafting an Authentic and Unique Story
There’s a reason why storytelling became one of the top buzzwords of practically every industry. People are drawn to emotions, stories and engaging narratives rather than facts, figures or hyperboles. Creating stories that both educate and delight are the foundation for authentic conversations with guests.
Before telling your own story, think about your hotel’s main demographics and what drives them. Determine what makes you more unique than your comp set. Then, tell the story only you can tell… and tell it consistently with rich visuals across all of your marketing channels.
2) Harvesting Guest Generated Content
It’s one of the universal truths of marketing: consumers will always trust their family and friends over you. Smart hoteliers are using the power of ‘word of mouth’ marketing and leveraging it to their advantage. By encouraging and incentivizing current guests to post images and videos onto social media while they are staying with you, effectively makes your guests a potent extension of your marketing team.
Recognizing this, we recently launched Tout, which makes it easy to discover, capture and obtain rights to content created by your own guests. Guest generated content holds multiple benefits: They’re more authentic, more trustworthy, and more creative than anything your marketing could have produced.
Best of all, you won’t have to invest any marketing dollars to obtain new images and videos for your future marketing campaigns.
Read rest of the article at Tambourine
