Hotel marketing today, in the online world, is—just as it is for any other business—a matter of mathematics, not creativity or technology.
I believe there are three key elements:
- Audience, which, in terms of our website, includes all the mechanisms we deploy to attract targeted, high-value traffic to it. This includes SEO, or search engine optimisation, search engine marketing or pay-per-click, email marketing, social media marketing, and so on. An audience can also be generated through third-party distribution channels, such as OTAs, through compelling descriptions, striking photography, offers and packages, etc.
- Conversion, or the percentage of our audience that successfully completes the booking process. This is influenced by factors that we manage to a greater or lesser extent, such as online reputation, revenue management and rate parity, the security and reliability of handling private information, and the credibility of the hotel or its brand, as well as other influential elements such as usability and the content itself.
- Retention, one of the most overlooked elements, as we tend to confuse retention with loyalty. Retention should be the process through which we seek to extend our relationship with the guest over time, which is not always synonymous with loyalty. This is where CRM and relationship marketing play an important role.
Some aspects overlap, such as requesting an email address during the booking process, which we will later use to send promotions and more. However, it is clear that each one deserves special attention.
Managing distribution channels through exhaustive contracting and implementing revenue management policies without considering these three aspects is, rather, the approach of the mediocre.
Generating an audience effectively and intelligently, being precise and clear in order to convert the greatest possible number of visitors into buyers, and offering guests a superior experience are, in my view, what define a hotel with clear ideas.
To achieve successful hotel marketing today, it is essential to follow a series of key steps:
1. Identify and segment the target audience: It is important to know who we are addressing and what type of guests we are seeking to attract. This will allow us to tailor our marketing strategies and messages effectively.
2. Develop a digital marketing strategy: The online world is crucial today, so having a solid strategy in this area is essential. This involves using a variety of tools, such as SEO, search engine marketing, email marketing and social media, among others, to attract quality traffic to our website.
3. Optimise conversion: Once visitors are on our website, it is important to ensure that they complete a successful booking. This involves working on online reputation, pricing, information security and reliability, website usability and content quality.
4. Build guest loyalty: Guest retention is key to successful hotel marketing. To achieve this, it is important to implement CRM and relationship marketing strategies, such as sending personalised promotions, loyalty programmes, and maintaining regular, close communication with guests.
5. Continuously assess and adjust: Hotel marketing is an ever-evolving process, so it is important to monitor the results of our strategies and make adjustments as necessary. This involves analysing metrics such as conversion rates, retention rates and guest satisfaction levels.
In summary, successful hotel marketing today requires us to understand and segment our target audience, develop an effective digital marketing strategy, optimise conversion, build guest loyalty, and continuously assess and refine our strategies.
There is little point in investing effort in search engine positioning or pay-per-click campaigns if we do not have an effective website capable of converting that traffic into bookings.
Likewise, it will be of no use if, in order to offer our guests a superior experience, we wait for them to come to our hotel in the hope that they may later become loyal guests. Let us be realistic: loyalty in hospitality—or at least in hospitality today—does not exist, at least not loyalty as we have understood it until now.
There are no more secrets:
Audience, Conversion and Retention. Trying to go beyond this is overcomplicating things, just as falling into unnecessary pragmatism through sophisticated terminology that may lead nowhere. We can be more or less sophisticated in our approach and invest more or less in each of these areas, but one thing is certain: however little we do, if we do it well, results are assured.
