10 Best Hotel Digital Marketing Tips

Looking to grow your hotel brand and business? Use these hotel digital marketing tips to reach a wider and more relevant audience, without having to add many hours to your already long days.

You can’t expect growth to happen instantly, regardless of how many techniques you implement all at once. The biggest challenge for the hotel industry is to convince potential guests to choose their hotel over others in the area.

That’s why many hotel administrators are now trying to figure out how to increase their booking rate for next year by having the right hotel digital marketing approach. How can you stand out in a crowded field like hospitality?

If your skills are in hospitality and management, how do you know what’s correct when it comes to digital marketing strategy? Often times, hotel brand managers are left wondering how to approach a digital campaign that would yield good results in the hospitality industry.

If you are feeling clueless about using digital marketing, you’re not alone. It’s not easy to convince potential guests to book a room in your hotel. However, we’re pretty good at digital marketing, and we’ve developed this guide to the best digital marketing tips that could boost your hotel’s booking revenue next year.

Best Digital Marketing Strategies

1. Elevate Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Booking directly through hotel websites may not always be the most effective option. Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com and Expedia are fierce competitors in the market. A solid Search Engine Optimization (SEO) foundation is necessary to increase visibility on search engines like Google.

A great digital marketing strategy to deploy here is to create content focused on local attractions and hotel bookings. You can use a tool like SurferSEO to conduct keyword research, create new SEO-optimized content, and optimize existing pages on the hotel website.

Off-page SEO is focused on boosting website authority and credibility, which involves strategies like link building, influencer marketing, PR, reviews, and events. It works in tandem with offline marketing efforts.

The more external sites link to your website, the greater its visibility, resulting in higher rankings, increased website traffic, and, ultimately, more bookings! It’s essential to aim for a mention on the most influential and trend-setting blogs.

Reach out to your favorite travel blogs and see if you can place a sponsored post. This can cost you a few hundred dollars, plus a sponsored stay, depending on the publication size. Oftentimes, travel publishers will have a writer in or near your city who can visit for a sponsored stay and write about the experience. Be sure to ask for backlinks, photos, and video content in exchange for the fee you pay.

2. Utilize Online Reviews to Enhance Your Hotel’s Visibility

In today’s world, digital media significantly impacts how people make travel arrangements and bookings. Unsurprisingly, many vacationers rely heavily on online platforms to gather information about their holiday destinations.

Vacationers have confessed that they would never stay at a hotel that lacks reviews or feedback on either the site or the hotel’s website. This reveals how important online reviews and ratings have become in shaping people’s perceptions and choices regarding their travel accommodations.

The travel industry is unique because numerous platforms allow users to share their travel experiences and leave comments. From popular review websites to social media platforms, travelers can voice their opinions and provide valuable insights for fellow wanderers.

This allows individuals to make more informed decisions and fosters a sense of community among travelers, as they can connect with like-minded individuals and exchange tips and recommendations. You’ll want to maintain visibility by responding to both positive and negative reviews on various platforms.

The impact of digital media on travel arrangements extends beyond hotel reviews. With the emergence of online booking platforms, travelers can compare prices, read descriptions, and even view photos of various accommodations before deciding.

You’ll want to ensure that your photos are up to date on OTA sites and that you are transparent with amenities. Accuracy in these listings can make or break your hotel’s reputation.

3. Manage Instagram and Pinterest via Tailwind

Just like any business, an effective hotel digital marketing strategy requires the use of multiple social media platforms. However, it cannot be easy to keep up when you already have multiple channels. Posting regularly, growing a community, and engaging with your followers can be difficult without the right tools.

Imagine doing everything on individual channels. You will most likely miss out on one or two social media platforms you use to connect with your potential guests.

With Tailwind, you can “supercharge” your Instagram and Pinterest accounts. Many may have known Tailwind as a post-scheduler. But in reality, it goes beyond the role of a post scheduler for Instagram and Pinterest. It also optimizes how you post on these platforms.

First, it gives you an idea of the best hashtags that can fit your post. It allows maximum visibility to attract people interested in booking your hotel.

Next, you will know the best time to post with its SmartSchedule feature. This is perfect, especially to maximize your posts’ engagement.

It is also critical to discuss analytics when discussing an effective digital marketing strategy for hotels. Tailwind provides you with all the numbers you need to evaluate and test your Instagram and Pinterest campaigns.

You get to see instantly what works and what doesn’t work. What it does is help minimize the trial and error and go straight to what works well.

Just how effective is Tailwind when used in hotel digital marketing? On average, Tailwind users enjoy 1.8 times more likes on Instagram and 6.9 times more repins via Pinterest. And with its tutorial, you won’t feel lost at all.

Follow my guide on how to use Pinterest in the travel niche. 

4. Build an Effective Landing Page with Leadpages

Another ideal approach when it comes to digital marketing for hotels, resorts, and bed and breakfasts is to optimize your landing page. Landing pages using a tool like Leadpages can generate leads for your business.

Your audience has a limited attention span. According to three separate studies, you only have around 50 milliseconds (!) to make an impression, and visitors can decide if they’re staying on your site or backing out.

LeadPages is a handy tool for building landing pages, pop-ups, and your entire website. LeadPages has helped more than 40,000 small businesses reach their full potential by allowing users to build landing pages, perform A/B testing, and evaluate the statistics.

It has 200 plus conversion-optimized templates that can simplify the process for you. It means you get something tried and tested to attract leads.

If you don’t have any experience coding, Leadpages is also useful. It has a drag-and-drop builder allows you to create web pages in a few minutes.

Plus, you even get integrated tools to collect your payments. This hotel digital marketing tool requires you to invest a bit in their services. You can start as low as $25/month if you are going to run just one website.

See Related: Travel Hacking 101

5. Hire a TopTal Freelancer Who Will Make Your App/Website

Hotels, resorts, and bed and breakfasts must have their own website or even a dedicated app to simplify booking for potential guests. Though hotels partner up with booking websites, nothing beats having your own app that can accommodate booking arrangements, answer inquiries, and showcase your hotel’s specials and packages.

Though a website and an app can simplify the entire process of improving a hotel’s booking rate, some hotel owners and management are worried that this would require a good amount of money to implement.

With the help of freelancing websites like TopTal, you can find some of the best freelancers in the market who can help design and develop a better website or an app for you.

So why use TopTal? First, you can take advantage of the talent pool available on their platform. Some freelancers can be hired per project, so you don’t need to pay someone monthly.

If you need someone to maintain your site or app, you can hire them hourly or as needed. Top companies have already used TopTal freelancers for their projects – including Airbnb, Duolingo, and Bridgestone.

And it doesn’t have to end in designing and developing your website and app. You can hire someone to help you improve your SEO and formulate your campaign to increase visitors and app downloads. 

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6. Improve Your Email Marketing Campaign with Constant Contact

Did you know that the average ROI for email marketing is $42 for every $1 spent? Also, despite being one of the oldest digital marketing strategies, it remains effective, given the growing number of email users.

More than half of the global population – 4.37 billion people – use email. But of course, the potential to reap the benefits of email marketing still relies on the tool you will use.

Constant Contact is an all-in-one tool that small businesses have used in creating online stores, websites, and even social media marketing strategies.

The strong suit of this tool is its email marketing tools. You can use its email template builder and find hundreds of mobile-optimized templates that fit your requirements. Plus, you get reliable analytics that gives you an idea of whether or not your campaign is working.

7. Host Your Website Via Bluehost

Having an aesthetically appealing and functional website will become useless if you don’t have a good host. Bluehost is the premier choice of top industry players, including hotel industry players.

And why choose Bluehost? Bluehost is known for its impressive consistency. Your website is expected to be up 99.99% of the time.

And if you have any problems with your website, you can easily contact their support, which is available 24/7. Bluehost is compatible with WordPress, making updating your content and other things on your website easy.

But one thing that made it stand out from other hosting service providers is the daily backups. Many overlook backups, thinking there won’t be any problem with their website.

Lastly, Bluehost is beginner-friendly. You don’t need to be technically proficient to be able to run everything.

See Related: Travel Agency Blog Ideas

8. Develop a Content Marketing Strategy By Hiring Content Creators from WriterAccess

Hotel digital marketing isn’t complete without a good content marketing strategy. Since Google continually updates its algorithm, content continues to be king. High-quality content is required for every website to rank highly in search engines.

Websites with highly informative and engaging content get on the top search result page, while those that struggle with their content are left behind. But aside from SEO, high-quality content can attract the right market for your hotel. It can also build trust within your niche and positively affect your conversions.

If you don’t have the time to write your site’s content, why not hire someone? One of the best freelancing platforms to hire freelance writers is WriterAccess.

You can choose from thousands of freelance writers matching the voice and style you want for your site. Of course, writing content isn’t a one-time thing. To rank, you must produce high-quality content on your website regularly.

Hiring a regular writer from WriterAccess means you don’t have to worry about your hotel website going stale. You’ll be able to come up with fresh and engaging content that can attract your market. 

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9. Automate Your Lead Generation Strategy Using Keap

One reality that every hotel owner should remember is that the vast majority of marketing leads never materialize into a sale. Most people who visit your website won’t bother booking your hotel. But let’s look at the bright side.

Despite the relatively low percentage of useful leads, it is all you need to fill the rooms slowly. That’s when lead nurturing comes in handy. Lead nurturing, by definition, is the process of building a relationship with your leads until the time comes that they need you.

One of the best tools for the job is Keap. It’s a CRM tool that allows you to grow leads and build long-standing relationships with potential guests.

The best part about this tool is that you can automate everything. Use our link, and you’ll get a free 14-day trial. 

See Related: Best Travel Agency Jobs

10. Hire a Graphic Designer via Fiverr

Another effective hotel digital marketing approach is to develop strong branding materials that can be used on your website and social media channels.

Graphic designs can be in photographs, posters, illustrations, and infographics. It’s absolute worth hiring a professional to create consistent graphic design materials that will be shared on your site. Poorly made posters and social media materials can do more harm than good.

Keep in mind that everything you share will be reflective of your hotel. The last thing that you want is for your potential guests to think that you have a hotel that offers sloppy services to their guests.

So, where do you find the right graphic designer for the job? Fiverr is one of the best platforms where you can hire a graphic designer to do illustrations, posters, infographics, and other graphic design requirements that you’ll need for your hotel’s digital marketing campaign.

Why Fiverr? What makes Fiverr popular among small businesses is that you don’t have to spend much money on your graphic design needs. As the name suggests, freelancers can offer services starting at $5. The price goes up depending on the complexity of the request.

Why is Digital Marketing Important for Hotels?

Invest in proper hotel digital marketing strategies to reach new markets and attract new guests. With the right approach in hotel digital marketing, securing guests to fill your rooms and raise your booking rates is more than possible.

Hotels often overlook digital advertising and digital marketing. The digital market is an ideal platform to effectively reach your target audience and keep your rooms filled every season.

FAQs

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