In the demanding world of hotel marketing, profitability (not revenue) is king.
NB: This is an article from Direct Your Bookings
However, paradoxically, there might be some hidden practices within your own marketing strategies that are, in reality, undermining your success. These are what I refer to as the revenue sinkholes – potentially damaging patterns that could be silently draining your profits.
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We often become entangled in common strategies and tactics, all with the intention of growing our hotel business and revenue. But are we always sure they are delivering the desired results? Or could they be, perhaps, creating traps that are causing us to lose more than we gain?
This is where the concept of marketing paradoxes comes in – apparent best practices that can actually lead us down the wrong path.
In this post, I’ll dive deep into the 9 most prevalent hotel marketing paradoxes. I’ll explain why they can cause more harm than good, providing an understanding of their potential impact on your revenue.
Best part though, what follows is pure, plain and simple logic. No technicalities. Zero, none, nada!
Ready? Let’s dig in.
#1 The “Taking Traffic from Competitors Without Offering Value” Paradox
The first paradox relates to the strategy of trying to divert traffic from our competitors when we don’t have unique value to offer.
When it comes to attracting new traffic, potential clients, one of the first ideas that often comes to mind is to intercept traffic that is searching for or viewing our competitors’ hotels’ websites or channels.
But what sense does it make to try to lure these potential clients when all we have to offer is, at best, exactly the same thing?
Even when we have something extra to offer, we frequently fail to communicate it effectively. Many times, our campaigns simply state, “I exist too.” The customer is already aware of your existence.
When there’s no unique value proposition, these efforts are wasted resources. Intercepting traffic that is already close to making a decision, possibly not in our favor, is pointless.
This paradox emphasizes the importance of offering a unique value proposition before attempting to divert traffic from competitors. Only then can we hope to influence potential customers’ decision-making effectively.
#2 The “Running Brand Protection Campaigns Without Competing Players” Paradox
The second paradox is related to running brand protection campaigns when no other players are bidding on your name.
Often, OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) bid on a hotel’s brand name in their campaigns. However, it’s not always the case.
The OTAs run campaigns targeting our brand name on search engines because they aim to draw traffic that would otherwise directly land on our website. Running brand protection campaigns can make sense in such a context.
However, not all OTAs bid on every hotel’s brand name indiscriminately. They may focus on certain countries or specific circumstances. Hence, running a brand protection campaign when there’s no brand under threat doesn’t make much sense.
