Facebook fatigue? A results-driven marketing strategy is so much more than just social media. Here’s the reality of today: consumers have an unprecedented impact on a hotel’s reputation and success. Building, maintaining, and nurturing consumer relationships has never been more important. Likely, your hotel has been doing that through social media, now your hotel needs to transition to the next evolution – content marketing. Content marketing will continue to build and maintain those relationships, while simultaneously attracting new consumers.
Engage your audiences with relatable stories or useful information. Become consumers go-to website to hear about the latest events in the area, or to find the most useful packing tips. The key here is to produce content that will attract your target audiences, and send them straight to your website. Writing great content, though, is only the first step. It’s imperative to utilize social media as the vehicle to draw attention to your content. Having a strong content marketing strategy in place will aid the success of your content, and by default, your hotel. Follow these quick and easy guidelines to create a strong and robust content marketing strategy.
For a Strong and Robust Content Marketing Strategy
Know Your Audience
Don’t market to everyone in the world. Think about who’s actually interested in what you have to say. You may have several audiences, strategize differently for each. Families, business travelers, weekend warriors and leisure travelers, are just a few examples of potential target audiences.
Put Yourself in a Traveler’s Shoes
Once you know who you’re marketing toward, put yourself in their shoes. What aspect of your hotel would make a family with young children excited to come stay? How can you convince leisure travelers that your hotel offers every amenity they could want? Carefully craft your content so that each target group can zero in on the aspects that are most important to them.
Storytelling is Key
Personal connection is what will set you apart from the masses. Write an article about your personal favorite places to go out to eat, shop, and enjoy in the area. Tell a funny anecdote that highlights common visitors mishaps and how to avoid them. Discuss important people who have stayed at your hotel. Feature guest stories, or have a staff member tell a story about why they love working at the hotel. It doesn’t matter what the story is, as long as it’s personal, relatable and attention grabbing. Your hotel is a temporary home for the guests, make it feel as such.
Get Social
Now that your website is filled with amazing content, what’s next? Post-it, blast-it, share it, and tweet it all day, every day. Social media is the bridge between your excellent stories and your target audiences. Potential guests are going to pour themselves over travel review sites and social media sites to discover all the information they desire about your hotel. Be proactive on your social sites, know what is being said about your hotel. Respond to positive and negative reviews and comments personally, so the guests feel valued. Potential guests will notice and appreciate your engagement. Understand what guests think and feel about your property, and then use that information to improve your hotel’s reputation. These days, the customer defines your hotel’s image.
Have a Blog
Where are you going to put all of these fantastic stories, tips, and more? On your blog of course. If your website doesn’t have a blog, that should be your first step. Make sure the blog is orderly, streamlined, and up to par with current standards. If any part of your blog, or your website for that matter, is complicated or confusing, your audiences will leave. After working so hard to get them to your site, you want to make sure they stay, and hopefully take action.
With a strong content marketing strategy, there’s no limit to the success of your hotel. Engagement isn’t just desired by potential and current guests, it’s required. Social media alone is not enough. You need a well-oiled machine – your website – that is constantly functioning, drawing audiences to it, and responding to it’s environment.
If you want your hotel to succeed, heed the advice of HMG Hospitality management, we’ve seen firsthand, over and over again, which strategies and tactics work, in a variety of hotels and regions. We know the challenges of the industry and have sophisticated and reliable solutions. If you have a hotel in need of management assistance, contact us today and put our expertise to work.