A hotel advertisement campaign is one of the major ways for hotels to generate interest and promote their unique offerings. However, there are a range of different hotel advertising strategies, and it is usually best to adopt several of these, in order to create a diverse marketing mix. In this article, you will find out more about hotel ads, the different options that are available, and the ways they can benefit hotel owners.
What is Hotel Advertisement?
Hotel advertising is the name given to a collection of different marketing techniques, which are used to promote a hotel and its services. Ultimately, the main purpose behind hotel ads is t portray a hotel in a positive light, and connect with a target audience in a way that makes them more likely to become a paying customer.
Advertising is often persuasive in nature, tends to be targeted at an audience rather than individuals, and is intended to produce improvements to business results, either in the short-term or the long-term.
Why is Hotel Advertisement Important?
While the primary purpose behind hotel advertising strategies is to generate more business, advertising is important for a variety of reasons. For instance, it is primarily through advertising that many hotels are able to pursue branding objectives, build up customer awareness, convey their values and highlight their qualities.
Advertising material is one of the main ways that hotels can stand out from their competitors and communicate unique selling points. A successful hotel advertisement will also encourage customer loyalty.
10 Effective Hotel Advertising Strategies
It is crucial to understand that hotel advertising is a diverse field, which includes a range of different techniques and disciplines. Below, you will learn about 10 of the most effective strategies available to hotels.
1. Have a Great Reputation
One of the single most effective hotel advertising strategies is to cultivate an excellent reputation more generally. There are a number of ways hotel owners can enhance their reputation, with some of the most obvious being to deliver excellent customer service online, and create an excellent customer experience within the hotel.
Try to exceed customer expectations at all times, across all channels. Social media is an excellent platform to engage with customers in a positive way, while you can also encourage your guests to leave reviews on various online review platforms. Complaints should also be handled swiftly, competently and politely.
2. Social Media Advertising
Aside from being a useful platform to carry out customer service, social media is also an excellent channel for hotel ads and other promotional content. The key is to try to create a diverse social media marketing mix, with a combination of text-based hotel ads, web content, video content, and other promotional material.
Hotels must recognise the diverse range of social media platforms out there, from Facebook and Twitter, to Instagram and LinkedIn. What works on one platform may not work on another, so advertising needs to be specifically tailored. Paid advertising on Facebook can also be hugely beneficial for targeting key demographics.
3. Advertising via User Generated Content
User generated content is, as the name suggests, promotional content that comes directly from ‘users’ or customers. Within the context of hotel advertisement, this is likely to mean photographs shared by guests on social media platforms, video blogs shared on YouTube, and online reviews left on review platforms.
Facilitating the creation of user generated content can be one of single most effective hotel advertising strategies, because it does not originate from a brand, therefore making it more trustworthy. Digital photo booths and mobile apps with augmented reality technology are among the best ways to encourage users to create and share content.
4. Hotel Marketing Automation
The idea behind hotel marketing automation is for promotional content to be sent to individual users, without the need for human intervention. This is primarily achieved through data collection, with specific users being targeted based on past interactions, or being targeted at particular times of the year.
As an example, a hotel might set up an automated email to be sent to all customers two months before the anniversary of their last visit to the hotel, in an effort to turn them into repeat customers. Similarly, people could be targeted with automated promotional content before major landmark birthdays, or before certain holidays.
5. Search Engine Advertising
In the modern world, search engines play a huge role in connecting users with businesses, and a large number of people looking for a hotel will turn to sites like Google first. This is why search engine advertising is such an important concept, because it allows hotels to increase their visibility on results pages.
Generally, search engine advertising refers to paid search ads, which appear separate from organic results. The benefit of this is that your hotel ads stand out more. However, some definitions of search engine advertising include SEO, which is where pages are optimised to rank as highly as possible in organic search results.
6. Video Advertising
With faster internet speeds and increased availability of mobile data, video content has grown substantially in popularity over recent times, and online video advertising is more powerful than ever. It is generally easier to consume than text-based content, conveying information in a shorter time, using both audio and visual materials.
Video advertising is especially powerful in the social media age, where content can be easily viewed, shared, and interacted with. Video-based hotel ads might highlight some of the hotel’s key features, may showcase rooms, may advertise prices, and might promote some of the nearby tourist attractions, encouraging bookings.
7. Direct Mail Advertising
Many hotel advertisement campaigns include elements of direct mail advertising, which is a catch-all term encompassing newsletters, sales letters, brochures, promotional catalogues and various other forms of promotional content. The success of a direct mail advertising campaign largely depends on effective targeting.
In most cases, direct mail campaigns need to be geared towards selected audiences in order to be financially viable. However, when this is done properly, with specific demographics being targeted with material they are most likely to respond to, it can actually be one of the most cost-effective advertising techniques available.
8. Display Advertising
Display advertising is one of the oldest hotel advertising strategies, and is often what people think of when they hear of online hotel ads. These might be banner ads, text ads, or take other forms, and they may be placed on affiliate websites, mobile apps, or social media platforms.
This form of hotel advertisement tends to be paid for on a pay-per-click basis, meaning hotels effectively pay a set fee for each click generated by their ad. It has the ability to attract online users easily, as key marketing messages can be clearly displayed to them, while audio elements can also be included.
9. Influencer Marketing
The idea behind influencer marketing is to reach out to people with an existing following or online presence, and use their influence to deliver a hotel advertisement to their followers. Crucially, influencer marketing allows hotels to reach audiences in a way that is less overtly promotional than most other advertising methods.
Aside from this more subtle approach to advertising, influencer marketing has the ability to capitalise on the trust a particular person has built up with their audience. It can also allow hotels to target very specific demographics, by reaching out to influencers who have considerable influence over the chosen target group.
10. Retargeting
Finally, retargeting is one of the most important modern hotel advertising strategies, because it allows hotels to re-connect with people who have already interacted with their brand. This can be especially useful for hotels, because research shows a significant number of people start to book a hotel room and then back out.
Through retargeting, hotels can reach out to these people, reminding them of the specific hotel room they were viewing, which could convince them to make the booking. Retargeting also has advantages over other hotel ads in terms of cost-effectiveness, as the people being targeted already have at least some interest in your hotel.
A hotel advertisement may take many forms, but it will almost always be designed to improve the standing of a hotel, or to convey something positive about it, in order to encourage bookings. Using the 10 hotel advertising strategies listed above, hotel owners and marketing professionals should be able to achieve these objectives.
