Event tourism is a niche which holds huge revenue potential for hospitality providers. With festival season falling in the off-months of March and April many hotel managers are looking for ways to strengthen their position on the local hospitality market by driving up bookings around the most lucrative time of the first quarter. But succeeding in this task have to be neither challenging nor expensive. Here are some tips on promoting your hotel without busting your budget:
1. Create Search Engine Optimisation Content for your Hotel’s Website
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the most straightforward and resource savvy hotel marketing ideas at your disposal. It is also frequently one of the most underutilised. SEO is frequently used by companies for the purpose of improving their search rankings and in turn their chances of increasing revenue, but it is a strategy that requires the constant generation of new content in order to keep or improve your hotel’s search result rankings.
Many hoteliers opt out of generating hotel SEO articles in favour of paying for better ranking across distribution channels. While the power of OTAs cannot be denied, hoteliers who overlook the opportunities provided by SEO. Make your posts informative, consider the inquiries that your potential guests could have and present them with succinct answers. For instance, the topic of location and transportation is always a top priority when booking a room.
Even if your hotel is not in the direct vicinity of the event you’re writing about you can still spin it to work in your favour. You can claim the comfort and quiet of being away from the noise of the crowds while also assuring guests that transportation would not be an issue.
Consistency in updates is key to a successful hotel SEO strategy. Choose a day of the week and post regularly at a certain time. Map out a list of topics that could generate interest in potential guests, not limiting posting to local events, rather consider the guests you tend to attract. If you frequently book company professionals, then instead consider hiring a business content writer who would generate the type of articles aimed at their tastes. If your establishment is in a more tourist-heavy area and your average guest is a mid-twenties backpacker, then lists on everything from local bars to the hidden gems of the city.
Hotel SEO marketing clearly goes beyond improving your search result listing. It can help you foster a connection with your guests, setting you apart from your completion as an establishment that cares about their guests’ personal reason for travel and is willing to go the extra mile for them.
2. Use Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertisements to Drive Direct Bookings
One of the most straightforward hospitality marketing strategies is PPC advertising. And no wonder, a good PPC campaign can completely reshape your hotel sales strategy and increase hotel occupancy and revenue. In order to successfully promote your hotel via PPC ads you must consider the following:
Timing
Identify the right time for promoting your hotel. Based off the size and the exclusivity of the event, a few weeks before the start of the event might be too late in the game for you to properly profit off the situation, which is why part of your hotel marketing strategy should involve keeping lines of communication open with local ticket vendors. They know what is in the works long before any official announcement is made. Another great way of optimising your PPC ad is through tools such as Google Trends and SEMRush. They can be used to help you study searches for popular events which can, in turn, help you attract a greater number of guest prospects.
Keywords
PPC relies heavily on keyword optimisation that is using the right combination of keywords that would attract the largest number of potential guests for your establishment. When choosing your keyword selection you want to hit all the major points that would generate interest in your establishment. So you must consider what search options your guest prospects will most likely be using. A combination of “hotel + name of the event” would put you in the top selections for event-goers, but if you wish to cast a wider net you might consider using the city’s name or some more touristy attractions.
Build a Landing Page
Once you’ve established the right time to run your campaign you need to make certain that you can optimise your revenue by cutting down on excessive spending around your promotions while also guaranteeing successful bookings. Many hoteliers are tempted to link directly to their webpage, but the myriad of options that are presented once a guest starts browsing your homepage will be a distraction from the task, and in many cases that would likely result in them putting off booking. In order to make certain that your pay-per-click marketing strategy is actually paying off, you should create a landing page that focuses the customer’s attention on the basics, the dates, the number of rooms, and the action button that simply says “BOOK NOW”.
A PPC ad campaign can aid your hotel revenue management as it will redirect bookings towards your direct booking engine, allowing you to maximise your revenue by avoiding OTA fees, while at the same time providing you with the opportunity to build guest loyalty.
3. Hotel Social Media Sales Strategies
Social media is a popularity game, the more popular your hotel the higher your rate-per-room. When it comes to event-based advertisement, linking your hotel advertising campaign to a strong social media following can lead to some serious revenue spikes.
Social media influencers are the go-to product pushers, especially in event-marketing. Luckily, many of them would find a tradeoff a perfectly fair deal. Unlike most brands marketing for hospitality offers an immediate benefit to influencers, they can stay at your establishment for the duration of the event, in lieu of a daily post with the appropriate hashtag, exposing your brand to hundreds of thousands of people.
As far as creative hotel sales ideas go, this is both one of the most out-there, but also the most heavily used by both independent establishments and small to medium hotel chains. Hotel chains in particular stand to benefit greatly from social media exposure, as influencers tend to have a ripple effect across their audience. Who knows maybe staying at your establishment could become the next trend.