If you run a small hotel, you have probably already realised how tough competition is among travel and tourism companies like your own.
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Naturally, this situation calls for some diligent and clever marketing to help your hotel to attract bookings; however, there can be such a myriad of marketing advice out there that you can too easily overlook a lot of simple but wonderfully effective marketing techniques.
Here are 10 basic tips that we would give to small hotel owners with relatively little marketing know-how.
Think about who you definitely want to market to
Many hoteliers can be in such a rush to launch their marketing efforts that they overlook the seemingly obvious question of who those efforts should actually be aimed at. Avert making the same mistake and your own marketing campaigns can end up more appropriate and focused and, as a result, more cost-effective. Do you want to attract families, single travellers, businesspeople? Perhaps even a broad spectrum of travellers?
Publicise crucial details of what exactly your hotel offers
Your hotel could offer a huge number of great features and facilities, but they are unlikely to get you many extra bookings if you fail to sufficiently spread the word about these great features and facilities. Think of even basic details, like those about the rooms, services, breakfast, dining, washing and Internet. Where possible and practical, try not to leave any good amenity unmentioned.
Make sure your marketing content is professionally made
If you walked into a hotel for the first time and noticed straight away that the carpet in the lobby looks stained and torn, it would probably give you the immediate impression that the hotel is sloppily-run. Poor quality marketing content can have a similar effect on people who haven’t even visited your hotel. Your marketing content should therefore be made by people who genuinely know how to make it good.
If you haven’t already, set up a website for your hotel
The hotel management system provider eviivo recently conducted a survey of 500 people in the UK and Ireland (click here to read it) and found that 74% of them would be deterred from booking at a hotel or B&B if it didn’t have a website. This clearly indicates that, in such a fiercely competitive sector, not having a website simply isn’t an option.
Spend time making your hotel’s website functional and useful
Having a poor quality website can be almost as harmful to your hotel’s chances; 68% of the above mentioned survey’s respondents said that such a website would also put them off making a booking. The website should allow for online bookings, as 73% of the survey respondents reported making all or most of their hotel or B&B bookings over the Internet.
Regularly post new, high quality content online
Whether you do it through your hotel’s website, on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, or even on other company’s blogs as a guest contributor, this strategy can help keep potential and current guests of your hotel interested and informed. A blog on your hotel’s website can be especially useful here, and allow for good content on a pleasing variety of subjects.
Think about the local picture
While on the subject of that blog, why not take account of what’s going on in the hotel’s local area with many of the new posts you add? If, for example, there’s some kind of festival about to take place, or a big name musician or comedian is set to perform at the nearby theatre, you could advertise it. The objective here is to be useful and so boost your hotel’s reputation for being useful.
Regularly advertise new special offers from your hotel
You could also use that blog, plus your hotel’s social media channels, to let people know when your hotel has a new and exciting special offer available. This can be especially effective for seasonal offers, like those for Easter, Halloween or Christmas.
Set up a hotel management system to ease updating
The regular posting of interesting content on your hotel’s website can help to maintain public interest in what you have to offer. However, when you stick to posting this content manually, it can be too easy to get tied up in knots and make slip-ups, thus potentially ruining the content. An online hotel management system from a company like Little Hotelier can make updates easier.
Invite guests to review your hotel on travel websites
You are likely already very familiar with websites like TripAdvisor and Yelp, where people can post reviews of different attractions and amenities, including hotels. Encourage your guests to report their experiences of your hotel by posting to such sites, and then respond to each and every review with your thanks or hopes for a better experience next time. This can be good for reputation management.
