DRIVE PROFITABLE DEMAND

The ultimate guide to hotel marketing

Marketing is critical to a hotel’s success since it serves as the foundation to promote your property, outperform your competitive set, and make a positive impression on guests.

Advertising is always evolving, and hotel brands must keep pace with the ever-changing digital landscape.

This guide offers a one-stop shop for essential marketing strategies and channels to drive and capture more demand, reservations, and revenue.

Chapters

What is hotel marketing?

Hotel marketing is an overarching term referring to the different marketing strategies, tactics, and techniques that hotels use to drive awareness, bookings and revenue.

Hotel marketing strategies can range from visual design elements, to brand positioning, media channels or tailored messaging to help hotels stand out from the competition.

Across your website, social media, search engines, and other online marketing channels, your presence and messaging should feel seamless and consistent.

Why is hotel marketing important?

Hotel marketing helps advertisers in hospitality bring awareness and consideration of their accommodation offers and services to prospective guests. Building a solid marketing strategy helps attract, convert, and retain guests.

By conveying your unique selling proposition and implementing the right hotel marketing strategies, hotels can reach out to, interact with, and attract more potential customers.

Hotel direct

The hotel’s website website or direct channel is generally the most profitable for online booking, as there are no intermediaries in play.

Direct bookings are essential because as hotels struggle with rising costs of all kinds, they are redoubling efforts to have customers book directly with them.

This allows to cut out not only the fees associated with Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), but also the relationships OTAs are able to form and leverage with the customers who are loyal to them.

While the channel mix continues to evolve globally, hotels now have the opportunity to optimize the number of direct bookings and potentially grow its percentage of the overall channel mix equity through direct hotel bookings.

To bring greater balance back to the online booking equation and improve the performance of direct channels, there are several ways you can guide shoppers to your direct channel. Combating issues with rate parity, and launching omnichannel campaigns around metasearch or SEO strategies can help shift more potential guests to Brand.com.

Once you have a greater volume of guests in your direct ecosystem, it’s key to deliver a more seamless user experience, engage them with special offers, use remarketing to capture guests who have abandoned the booking process, and send personalized follow-up messages and offers.

Hotel SEO

Hotel SEO (search engine optimization) marketing refers to the process of optimizing and improving a hotel’s website so that it ranks higher in search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing).

This helps hotels gain more online exposure, traffic and consequently, more direct bookings.

An effective digital presence strategy should begin with positioning your website at the top of search engine results when people search for hotels in your area.

This will allow you to win more visibility and maximize direct booking revenue, while beat the competition to the top spot in search results.

This requires optimizing your website for search engines through techniques such as keyword research, meta tags, and content optimization.

Make sure your website is also mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. You can visit our Hotelier’s Quick Guide to Hotel SEO Marketing to learn more on these tactics.

Hotel paid ads

A well-crafted Pay-Per-Click (PPC) strategy with ads on search engines is essential for hotels to draw in potential guests searching online for hotels with your offerings.

Failing to invest in PPC can lead to a loss of market share to savvy competitors and OTAs, who capitalize on digital marketing to gain visibility.

Find out more about how to increase hotel bookings with pay-per-click advertising.

If you would like to go a step further, you can use automated ads and other dynamic formats to scale your advertising efforts where they are most successful and rapidly adjust to changes in your market demand to get the most out of your dollar.

Automating your hotel ads is the best way to ensure they show against relevant queries as people are searching for hotels.

Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) quickly generate a clear, attractive headline that links to a relevant landing page on your site when potential guests search for terms closely related to titles and frequently used phrases on your website.
Responsive Search Ads (RSA) adapt your ad’s content to match potential customers’ search terms more closely.

Most travelers today turn to social media when choosing the hotel for their next stay.

This is a powerful channel as it plays a key part of the purchasing process, with the research stage influencing decisions more than ever before.

For hotels, it refers to the activity of creating social media profiles on popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

It also involves regularly posting engaging content that showcases your hotel's unique features and amenities.

It can encourage guests to share their experiences using hashtags and geotags to increase visibility. As much as 42% of consumers say social media influences what and where they’re buying.

Take Instagram for example - with millions of potential bookers, it’s clear that it needs to form a clear part of any hotelier’s marketing strategy. Here's our article on how to increase your hotel visibility through Instagram.

Leveraging social media influencers can effectively market your hotel, offering potential guests a captivating narrative from a trusted source. These influencers, with their extensive reach and engagement, can provide an intimate perspective of your establishment, stirring enthusiasm for a potential stay. Partnering with such influencers can generate buzz and drive business growth.

Brand advocates, passionate customers familiar with your brand, can significantly enhance your social strategy. Their authentic recommendations and social media presence can amplify your hotel's visibility. Empowering these advocates to share your hotel brand story is crucial.

Online reviews are a key marketing tool, providing feedback and influencing your hotel's reputation. Managing responses on platforms like TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Facebook directly affects sales. These reviews also help identify operational improvements and refine marketing strategies. Resources like our 'Hotelier's Guide to managing online reviews' can assist in monitoring your online presence.

Hotel metasearch

Metasearch are search engines where third-party suppliers such as OTAs, brands, and independents are aggregated and compared.

These channels have gained popularity in recent years due to their ability to simplify the online shopping process and list competitive hotel prices.

Metasearch engines such as Google, TripAdvisor, Kayak, Trivago and Skyscanner are search engines where third-party suppliers such as OTAs, brands, and independents are aggregated and compared.

These channels have gained popularity in recent years due to their ability to simplify the online shopping process and list competitive hotel prices. Google, TripAdvisor, Kayak, Trivago and Skyscanner all offer metasearch.

Metasearch engines allow hotels to:

target the right guests with Google audiences for search (in the case of Google)
retrieve data from multiple OTAs and other sales channels (including hotel websites)
present booking options to potential guests simultaneously for easy comparisons
ensure their website (Brand.com) appears as an attractive option through rate parity

The world of metasearch is more dynamic than ever and by building a digital media plan that leverages it as a key strategy, hotels have an opportunity to capture a greater share of the market. Here are some of the 3 recent Google Metasearch features to support a hotel’s potential to drive bookings and maximize revenue in an evolving online ecosystem and how your hotel can incorporate them into your digital marketing strategy.

By building a digital media plan that leverages metasearch, hoteliers have an opportunity to capture a greater share of the market as demand grows.

OTAs for hotels

Online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Expedia and Booking.com can help you reach a wider audience and increase bookings.

Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) dominate the online booking landscape due to their technological prowess, understanding of online shopping strategies, and loyalty programs.

This enables travelers to self-serve from research to booking with a great user experience.

Travelers gravitate towards OTAs for the ease of comparison shopping as well as a relatively smooth booking experience.

There are many OTAs available, so choose the one that best speaks to your target audience.

However, while OTAs are vital business partners for hotels, they can be less profitable, hence hotels must ensure they find their market balance rate parity OTAs vs. Direct Bookings, to drive revenue in a competitive market.

Hotel GDS

Travel seller or GDS bookings remain an overlooked yet lucrative source of revenue for hoteliers since they are frequently shopping and booking on behalf of clients.

Hotels should capture travel seller GDS bookings and try to establish themselves as a known entity within the GDS marketplace so that agents are willing to recommend and sell your hotel to their customers.

Today more than ever, the partnership between hoteliers and travel sellers and improving relationships with travel sellers are key to increase bookings.

For instance you can share relevant information about your property in the GDS to catch the eye of travel sellers or make your property more attractive with features like flexible cancellations, room service, and contactless check-in.

Travel sellers play a key role in connecting hotels and travelers, especially given the increasing flexibility and changes that travelers require.

This positions them as a valuable resource as they are experts in handling issues like sudden changes to their bookings. rebooking, while helping businesses more effectively manage and update corporate travel bookings and policies for safety and compliance.

Hotel GDS media

Hotel GDS advertizing allows hoteliers to optimize their presence and drive revenue through targeted advertising on Global Distribution Systems in the form of priority placement, text, and display ads that appear to travel sellers during the shopping and booking process.

It is a valuable channel to help build visibility and show travel agents why they should book your property over the competition.

Actively target travel sellers while they search for a property in your market and offer a bonus commission when possible. Here are 5 ways to improve your relationships with travel agents.

With more emphasis and importance placed on support from travel agents, now is a good time to restart your GDS media campaigns to drive and capture increasing demand.

Hoteliers can significantly grow GDS hotel bookings for their properties that are preferentially placed by providing them with increased visibility in comparison to those properties that are not featured.

There are different formats for each placement:

Graphical Banners: The help visualize promotions, product and/or services, highlighting the main features of the offering.
Text: Text messages are cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the platform behavior. Promoted text messages appear upon log in and search results.
Featured / Preferred Content: Preferencing gives your hotel preferred placement over non-subscribers.
Video: Use videos, virtual tours, and other interactive materials to show value to travel sellers.

How to Reach and Target Travel Agents on GDSs

Download this eBook and learn how to:

best navigate the travel agents ecosystem
optimize your hotel brand visibility on GDSs
stay ahead with our latest travel agency trends report
master GDS marketing with our actionable checklist

Download now

Hotel Email Marketing

Hotel email marketing is also an essential strategy for hotels to promote their services and increase bookings through targeted and personalized email campaigns.

By using email marketing, hotels can connect with potential guests, build customer relationships, and drive revenue growth.

Choose from our carefully crafted hotel email templates for a consistent and polished guest communication strategy.

For instance, are you looking to increase your hotel's occupancy rates during low season? Hotel email marketing can be an effective channel to address that.

In our dedicated article on Hotel email marketing, we explore the power of targeted and personalized email campaigns in connecting with potential guests, building customer relationships, and driving revenue growth for your hotel.

Get ready to take your marketing strategy to the next level and boost your bookings like never before!

Hotel Mobile Marketing

Hotel mobile marketing is a powerful tool for enhancing guest experiences, building loyalty, increasing retention, and driving revenue. It allows properties to connect with their potential guests through mobile devices and networks.

Google has made a major updates to its mobile search algorithm that will change the way hotels promote their properties online. This algorithm helps users find mobile-friendly hotel pages and changes the order in which websites are ranked in the Google mobile search engine. Ensure your hotel website is mobile-friendly to avoid being penalized and denoted in search rankings.

Independent hotel marketing

For independent hotels, it is critical to not only have an effective marketing strategy that draws guests in, but one that also converts them into loyal customers.

This can be challenging in the competitive independent market, but there are ways to conquer this challenge and ultimately increase your return on investment.

A successful marketing strategy starts with knowing your travelers on a deeper level, hearing their feedback, and engaging with them throughout the travel lifecycle to create a lasting impression.

Here are 4 ways to ignite your independent hotel's marketing strategy.

In addition to competing with existing independent properties, branded hotels and alternative accommodations, each local market exhibits its own set of unique challenges, and it may seem impossible to find solutions for them all.

With that in mind, it is advisable to conduct a SWOT analysis of your competitive set, to inform your overall business strategy, build your brand, and enable you to establish a solid foothold in your local market. Find out more about the benefits of conducting a SWOT analysis for independent hotels.

Finally, independent hotels need to establish the right mix of direct and online booking channels to maximize revenue and take full advantage of any projected market growth.

They should explore all their distribution options, including how these channels can benefit their business, to create a multi-faceted mix that meets the unique needs of their market.

The best distribution strategy enhances spend, reach, and results. Optimizing your channel mix should be an ongoing process - especially in uncertain times.

Our guide to new independent hotel openings covers how to implement independant hotel distribution channels along with launching promotions and loyalty programs.

Timeless Hotel Strategies for Black Friday

Hotel marketing regulations

Online advertising activity is always evolving, and hotel brands must keep pace with the ever-changing digital landscape, such as new technologies and regulations.

Advertisers in particular are seeing an increased number of compliance obligations, regulations, and also the emergence of new technologies that are changing market dynamics.

An ever-evolving landscape

Over the last two decades, we have witnessed a true explosion of marketing on the internet and it has become the fastest means of advertising of this decade.

The rise of online marketing grew from an era of little consumer tracking capabilities to almost unlimited access to tracking user data across the internet.

This evolution in tracking capabilities based on data such as user behavior or user attributes increasingly raised data privacy concerns and started raising the need for the government to step in to protect citizens from how their data was tracked, used and sold across the web.

A world without third-party cookies

For more than a decade, advertisers have been relying on cookies and other web tracking solutions for targeting, retargeting, and display advertising. But recent privacy-related announcements by Google and Apple to control the collection of data collected by websites and applications, have challenged some of the fundamentals of online advertising.

Recent advancements from Google are also changing how we analyze the consumer’s purchasing path and observe whether a booking has taken place. New privacy controls are changing the digital advertising landscape, such as on browser privacy navigation settings, data collection and user tracking, have changed the way advertisers can run personalized ads based on user interests.

But Google has announced the extension of its self-imposed deadline to block third-party cookies as a default in its Chrome web browser until late 2023, allowing advertisers to better strategize on moving to new user identifying technologies and to take more time to turn these strategies into practice. So as we transition into a world without third-party cookies, hotel advertisers should define new approaches for targeted advertising and rethink hotel marketing strategies with first-party data in mind.

In order to accurately attribute and assess the effectiveness of marketing campaigns amidst changing privacy regulations, Google has introduced conversion modeling in a world without cookies. It estimates the number of conversions by using a predictive algorithm after looking at historical campaign data that is part of its media platform.

GDPR for hotels

General Data Protection Regulation, better known as GDPR, has also impacted hotel industry practices worldwide. The law revolutionized data privacy across Europe, expanding rights for consumers while mapping out strict new guidelines for businesses and building the foundations of the digital marketing regulatory framework.

GDPR applies not only to European companies but to all companies processing European consumer data, making it the most far-reaching legislation of its kind in 20 years. Here are 3 considerations to make while aligning your hotel for GDPR.

In the age of personalization, data protection laws such as GDPR are a juggling act for the hospitality industry. The collection of consumer data is critical for organizations to build loyalty among guests and understand their behavior and preference in order to craft their marketing strategies, so it is important to ensure you are choosing adequate hospitality technology in a Post-GDPR World.

Here are the 4 questions to ask to determine where you can entrust your data and hence decide if you have clear policies about how personal data is processed. These include policies about data management, staff training, restricting system access to employees and more.

Ready, set, drive demand!

We hope that this hotel marketing guide was useful for you

Hotel marketing can be a little overwhelming at first, but with a little practice and experience, you can quickly produce high-quality hotel marketing campaigns that generate results from day one.

Marketing plays a foundational role in helping hotels maximize bookings and revenue. Adapting to changing market behaviors, leveraging the right channels, and basing your strategies on the right data are all necessary ingredients to attract more travelers to your hotel.

For further reading, check out our recently published rebuilding hospitality marketing eBook.

You can also access our other comprehensive guides for hoteliers:

We wish you a lot of success in your hotel marketing strategies and do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to discuss how to kick-start or optimize your hotel marketing strategies.