Understanding your guests is the key to more effective hotel marketing. A well-crafted hotel guest persona ensures that the right travelers see the right messages – whether it’s a mother discovering your kid-friendly amenities or a couple finding a spa package tailored to their romantic getaway.
NB: This is an article from Travelboom
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By segmenting guests into distinct archetypes based on preferences and behaviors, hoteliers can craft more personalized campaigns that increase engagement and direct bookings.
According to our latest travel study, 56% of travelers prioritize custom experiences, making personalization more important than ever. By leveraging hotel guest personas, you can deliver targeted promotions, refine your messaging, and optimize marketing efforts to boost occupancy rates and maximize ProPAR.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to build hotel guest personas and use them to create more effective, data-driven marketing campaigns.
Collecting Data on Hotel Guest Personas
Data collection is the first step in creating hotel guest personas and provides a foundation for targeted campaigns. Gather information from several sources to paint a complete picture of your ideal hotel guest personas. Here are some information sources to use when building these archetypes:
Survey Guests
You may know that 30-year-old females are your most loyal customers, but do you know why? If you want to understand what brings guests to stay with you, ask. Surveys provide qualitative answers beyond the data.
There isn’t one correct way to gather feedback, so you may need to try multiple methods. Encourage feedback with an incentive, like extra rewards or a discount on a future stay. Here are a few ideas to find out how guests discovered your brand and the reasons they booked:
- Inquire with guests during check-in and add this information to your CRM.
- Provide a survey in a post-stay email or an in-room QR code.
- Incorporate checkboxes on your booking page for guests to provide basic answers.
- Ask for feedback through a pop-up window on the booking confirmation screen.
Dive Into Advanced Analytics
Google Analytics offers information on your audience’s demographics, behavior, preferences and browsing habits. Detailed reports on age, gender and location, plus information on clicks and page views, can reveal patterns between specific traveler types and their interests critical to developing personas.
Review CRM Data
A hotel’s CRM holds the keys to many guest personas because it details booking history and browsing habits. Identify common traits and characteristics to create natural customer archetypes that can inform the process as you begin crafting hotel guest personas.
Analyze Social Media Insights
Review audience metrics on social platforms to better understand your customers. Information from these channels can guide ad targeting and social media marketing campaigns by telling you more about your guests’ identities and interests, including:
- Age, location and gender
- Income level and occupation
- Education level
- Online content they engage with
- Events, groups and brands they follow
Once you’re armed with data on your guests, it’s time to organize this information to define your target audience segments.
