Internet Marketing for Hotels

Internet Marketing for HotelsSimple way to create a hotel internet marketing plan

Have you put off writing an Internet marketing plan for your hotel because you thought it would be too difficult or time-consuming? You’re in for a pleasant surprise – you already know much of what you need for your hotel marketing plan, you just have to get it into a format that you can use! Just as traditional marketing methods are more effective when a hotel has a detailed plan in place, internet marketing for hotels works best when you have a solid, well-defined strategy to guide your efforts. If your hotel lacks a defined internet marketing plan because you’re too busy with your daily operational duties to spend hours putting one into place, Travel Tech Strategies has a solution that will help. We’ve come up with five simple questions that will help you define, plot, and implement a detailed hotel internet marketing plan, without having to invest a lot of time. Let’s begin!

Question #1: What makes my hotel special?
Describe the unique quality that sets your hotel apart from others, the specific niche that you serve. In other words, name your hotel’s best feature. This could be:

  • Location – conveniently near to an attraction or city or far from the beaten path
  • Experience – activities guests could not experience elsewhere
  • Atmosphere – relaxing boho vibe, rustic outdoorsy feel, opulent luxury, family fun

This is your hotel’s unique identity or brand, and will form the foundation of your hotel marketing plan.

Question #2: Who are my ideal guests, and what do they want from their stay at my hotel?

Describe the guests that your hotel is designed to appeal to and the features that lead them to choose to stay with you. The more detailed you can get, the better. If you have an ongoing dialogue with your guests through social media accounts, Google Analytics can yield a lot of data about their preferences. If not, just come up with a profile of your typical guests and their needs, such as:

  • Business Travelers – Free high speed Wi-Fi, conference facilities, convenience to tech sector
  • Millennial Leisure Travelers – Free high speed Wi-Fi, breakfast, thrilling action activities, cool vibe
  • Family Leisure Travelers – friendly, fun accommodations, family activities, shuttle to theme parks
  • Affluent Travelers – luxurious accommodations, spa services, 24-hour room service

This is the specific audience that you will be targeting with your hotel internet marketing strategies.

Question #3: What do I want my marketing strategies to accomplish?

Figure out precisely what you want to achieve with your internet marketing strategies, narrowing your sights on a specific, quantifiable goal. You need to be very precise in your answer – a vague goal like “get more guests to book a stay,” or “build my brand” isn’t going to be very useful as it doesn’t give you a real way to measure your progress. Come up with something more explicit – typical goals include:

  • Book 4 more guests every week
  • Get 20% of guests to extend their stay
  • Sign up 50 guests for our rewards program

This is the marketing goal that your internet marketing strategies need to accomplish.

Question #4: Which internet marketing strategies will help me achieve my goal?

This is the step where you pull it all together.  Once you have all the answers to the above questions, you just have to add in the internet marketing strategies that will help achieve your aims. Think of putting all the elements together for that famous mystery board game, “It was Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the candlestick….,” and you’ll be on the right track). Here’s a sample to make it clear:

  • What your goal is: Book 4 more guests every week
  • Who you are targeting: family travelers
  • What they want: family activities
  • Why they should choose your hotel: friendly, fun atmosphere, family activities
  • Marketing strategies to use:
    • Responsive website design for high mobile search rank when on-the-go parents plan their trip
    • SEO strategies to add family friendly keywords to your website
    • Search marketing to reach families in the trip planning stage
    • Social strategies to build excitement for upcoming family friendly activities and theme park packages
    • Email newsletter to inform of family-friendly activities and offer discounts for stays

Now that you know everything you need  – it is time to put your internet marketing strategies into play for your hotel!             

Question #5: How well are my strategies working?

Once your marketing strategies are up and running, you will be able to assess their effectiveness and adjust as needed. This is one of the benefits that make internet marketing for hotels so effective; unlike print and television ads, internet marketing avenues can be tweaked and adjusted to make them more relevant.

For more internet marketing tips for hotels and support services for your marketing strategies, call on Travel Tech Strategies. Our dedicated marketers and SEO experts can give you everything you need to effectively market your hotel on the Internet, from a responsive hotel website design, to social marketing strategies, SEM assistance, and more.

Contact Travel Tech Strategies today at 954-779-2801 and let our hotel marketing experts show you just how effective internet marketing for hotels can be!

Travel Tech Strategies is a forward-thinking market leader providing the travel industry with in-depth Big Data analysis