Channel Marketing for Hotels: 5 Channels to Drive Brand Awareness
In a world of multi-channel marketing and distribution, hotels have greater opportunities of revenue building and driving brand awareness. It takes a smart strategy to cut through the noise and stand out. Channel marketing for hotels just requires a little bit of creativity but is well worth the brand amplification you’ll see. Here are five channels you should be using.
Discover the Best Channel Marketing for Hotels
1. Use social media marketing for your hotel
The world we live in today is fast-moving and everyone gets their information from the web. Social networks are where people spend hours of their day and are a great place for any hotel owner to stay in touch with their clients. Managing an active hotel social media page on popular networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google allow hotels to:
- Be able to gather loyal subscribers on a platform that they use almost daily and are very comfortable with.
- Be able to reach out to interested subscribers to make them aware of new services, prices or events.
- Be able to assist customers with questions and answer them promptly.
- Gather more customers and spread brand awareness using social competitions, or by creating eye catching advertisement campaigns.
Although, having an active online presence is challenging. It requires engaging with your audience daily and posting relevant content. But, if done properly you can garner a valuable and engaged audience.
2. Create live events that highlight your hotel
Events as a marketing channel are successful for both small and large brands for a reason. Hosting live events of your own are a great way to generate brand awareness while bringing an in-person aspect to your branding efforts. If you’re planning on opening a new hotel location, why not host a launch party with area hotel, travel, and events influencers? Giving them a first-hand look at the new property is sure to spark earned media from the event.
Another opportunity is to host potential customers in-person is through an open house. Show off what your events, culinary, and meetings teams can do for potential clients and show off the best spaces your property has to offer. Discover top B2B marketing trends and ideas for driving interest from planning companies at your hotel’s live events.
3. Sponsor events frequently
Sponsoring an event for a good cause, or to support the local team not only helps the community, but gives back with a lot of exposure for your own business. Hotels can partner with non-profit, for profit organizations, or industry associations and help them host conferences and events at a low to no cost.
Events like these offer valuable ˜face time’ with potential customers. You have this opportunity to showcase your brand in front of hundreds of people who visit the hotel. They experience the look, feel and personality of your brand. These people share experiences with family and friends, which creates more brand awareness.
There is a high chance that the amount of bookings in the hotel will increase. Main reason being, that many people may be visiting from different cities and states and would prefer staying at the same hotel, where the event is.
4. Feature impressive guest reviews and content on your hotel’s website
Normally when people look for a good place to spend their time, they ask Google for the best place to go and hotels are not an exception. Smart customers check online before they go anywhere, if you want to get popular, you have to get amazing reviews from your customers.
The best way to do this, is not only to provide the best possible experience for your guests, it’s also to keep reminding them or giving them a benefit for the review. You could offer discounts on their next visit or just give them a complimentary souvenir to remember the hotel and visit again.
Offer free event wifi, and make sure the first page they land on when they get connected is a page where they can leave a review for your hotel’s services. You can also have a tablet or a QR code on your front desk for your customers, giving them an option to write a review before they check out.
Positive reviews are crucial and will promote brand awareness at a rapid pace, we can assure you they will also result in an increase in guests at your hotel. Learn more about what makes a great hotel website design, and discover the best content marketing for hotels here.
5. Offer memberships or loyalty cards for your hotel
A very simple but effective way of promoting customer loyalty is by offering memberships or loyalty cards. Such cards are used to gather points for them to exchange for discounts on your rooms or to dine in any restaurants or stores in the hotel itself.
This form of marketing will make sure your guests keep coming back and prefer staying at your hotel, rather than any other hotel that doesn’t offer them such courtesy. Make sure your guests feel welcome, throw in some extra perks for your loyalty card holders to make sure new guests feel the need to sign up for these offers too.
You can make a database of all your loyalty card holders and send them emails, with offers and season’s greetings to keep reminding them, to pick your hotel as accommodation on their next trip. Get more ideas for budget-friendly group perks and rewards here.
With proper planning and action, these five ways to test channel marketing for hotels are great places to start. A little imagination and creativity is all you need to stand out from the competition and make your way ahead in targeting a large audience this year.
Up next, learn new hotel marketing ideas, and try easy and effective hotel marketing software.
Which channels do you leverage for your hotel’s brand awareness efforts? Share them with us on Twitter!
