In this challenging time where the priority is hotel business recovery, you should budget for what gives you the best return — focus on your most profitable channels.
NB: This is an article from ARO Digital
A financial plan for your hotel business is essentially looking backward to look forward — using historical data to determine what resources are needed.
Initially you should examine year-on-year booking trends, occupancy levels, rate fluctuations, market conditions.
Then consider what new demand drivers there might be in the year ahead.
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Also think about creative ways to reach new guests or innovative ways to engage with existing ones.
Where should you focus your marketing budget? How much should you spend on hospitality marketing?
A roadmap is essential to ensure your 5-star hotel marketing budget isn’t wasted and the correct channels are used to satisfy your marketing plan’s goals.
All hotels are different, and a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work – your plan needs to be bespoke.
Your budget should cover the expected costs of whatever you need to drive the business forward with a clear expectation of priorities and return on investment.
WHY ARE MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR HOTEL BUSINESS IMPORTANT?
Hotel digital marketing helps to build your brand identity, helps in promoting your services and delivers a greater reach to your potential guests.
A marketing plan for the hotel industry plays an critical role in every aspect of reaching your hotel sales and marketing targets.
WHY IS DIGITAL MARKETING IMPORTANT FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
Many of your guest’s journeys begin online – researching the location, getting a sense of the accommodation available and the fun things to do on their trip.
They are likely to discover your hotel via meta search engines, organic search results, social channels, paid campaigns such as Google search or display advertising and many more web-based platforms.
That is why the best way to reach all these travelers is by enhancing your hotel’s online marketing.
But don’t forget!
Marketing strategies for hotels and resorts business should be responsive to their guests’ habits.
Hotels who see the most success from their hotel marketing plan are those that take the time to nail down who their audience is.
Take the time to write full profiles of your typical guests, complete with demographic, job title, travel and booking habits and likely spend.
Then, identify goals for each marketing campaign you commit to.
There is no doubt that hotels are one of the business types most affected by COVID-19.
The crisis has changed the way guests and prospective customers interact, the tools they use to communicate and their spending habits.
Thus previous digital marketing strategies need to adapt and be updated to this new model.
A comprehensive hotel digital marketing strategy is more important than ever before.
WHAT ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS TO PROMOTE A HOTEL ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGY?
Online hotel marketing has become the most effective and cost-efficient ways to promote hotels.
It is substantially less costly and some aspects will continue to work indefinitely, promoting your hotel for years to come.
The result is a much higher ROI for your marketing spend.
Hotel marketing budgets have become more directed towards business growth.
Intense competition in the market is driving digital marketing plans towards a new paradigm for the hotel industry.
Today there are a number of platforms where you can promote your hotel.
You can’t afford to miss out on these if you want to boost your sales and online revenue.
Here are the platforms where you can promote your hotels to achieve your desired ROI:
- Your hotel website
- SEO
- Brand searches pay-per-click advertising
- Brand awareness advertising and remarketing
- Google Hotel Ads
- Email marketing
- Professional photography
- Video production
- Paid listings on partner websites
- Software and tools
HOW DO YOU CREATE A 5-STAR LUXURY HOTEL SALES AND MARKETING PLAN IN 2022?
The hospitality marketing strategy should consider your previous sales channels, your current revenue situation, the profile of the hotel, hotel marketing ideas, and your current online status (how well-optimised is your digital strategy).
Some questions you might consider when developing a hotel marketing plan are:
- What are your hotel’s marketing objectives?
- To get more bookings back from OTAs?
- To promote new aspects of your business?
- To increase profitability of your online bookings?
- To generate customer loyalty?
- To increase visibility on social media?
The plan’s objectives can be far reaching but it’s good to collect them all and prioritise them.
If you want to reach your goal, the following action needs to be taken:
- Review your trend report and competitor-set information.
- Audit your book direct strategy and prioritise improvements with your agency
- Identify each booking channel and task each team in the hotel to come up with ideas to sell to them
- Develop a 2022 hospitality marketing budget.
- Create a strong database for e-mail promotions and make sure your website is a focused, customer-acquisition medium.
