Digital marketing for hotels: A complete guide in 2024

Digital marketing for hotels

Many folks in the hotel industry are unaware or have little experience in hotel digital marketing. However, with the change in consumer behavior and how people interact and find new businesses, it is crucial to have a digital presence for businesses in all niches, especially in the hotel industry with tremendous competition.

In this new digital era, where consumers rely more on social media to know about the new brands and products, you need to understand that most people would consider you and even follow you if you have a good online presence.

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Instagram now has over 1 billion active monthly users, including 500 million who daily access their stories (Instagram, 2019). Social media platforms could be an excellent opportunity to showcase and excite the consumers about your hotel and attract them to have a tour to yours. A report by ‘SproutSocial’ says that around 73% of consumers want to see social media posts concerning discounts and sales, out of which 60% of consumers want to see posts showcasing new products and services. 

The simplest thing to excel in marketing is to follow what consumers like. As the world is digitalized and people prefer to communicate with brands online, it is essential to be available for them by solving their queries related to your service, showcasing yourself, and reminding them about you constantly to have loyalty.

Here are the things to keep in mind for your digital marketing strategy for hotels:

1. An amazing website to promote your digital marketing efforts

Considering you have hooked your potential customer's attention on social media, they would like to visit your website to have a feel for what you could offer. Your website is the first experience you are selling to your consumers. Hence you must design a website that resonates with the experience you are selling to your people. For example, you could emphasize the healthcare, security, features, and relevant images and videos on your website to convince the customer about your extraordinary services.

A simple static website is not enough. It would be best if you also elaborated on all the possible queries that might come into the potential buyer's mind. For example, you could talk about the location and the features available in the area of your hotel. You could also talk about the crime rate and climatic conditions of the place near your hotel to add a shield of relevancy and trustworthiness.

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2. Focus on SEO- it is a must

While you must have a booking option within your website,  you have substantial traffic competitors, being OTAs like Booking.com.

Lucky for you, you could outmatch them with a good SEO strategy, as this is the best way to drive more traffic.

First, you should focus on local SEO to get close visitors to know more about your amenities. Also, focus on the digital marketing funnel.

But, if you wish to aim for foreigners and more people within your country, upgrading your SEO game will drive more bookings for your hotel.

We'll give you a list of recommendations for each critical factor for this organic strategy.

On-page SEO.

Since we talked about your website, it's also crucial that your whole page is optimized; for this goal, the main thing is to offer visitors content that answers their frequent questions and enhances their experience for their destination.

For this process, it's good to perform keyword research to get a clear idea of the most common topics your customers are interested in. Usually, when talking about hotels, common queries have to do:

• Tours
• Activities to do with children
• Beaches
• Historical or natural places to visit

You could use tools like Google keyword planner, SemRush, Ahrefs, KWfinder, etc., to search for keywords that match the intent of your business and are in trend. 

Of course, remember to highlight all your hotel's services, including its amenities, facilities, activities within the hotel and any other tourist attractions you offer.

Remember to accompany all this information with images or videos showing your vacation site's full potential.

Among the most effective types of content for your website, you have blogs or videos in which you can discuss topics of interest or even show the experience of users who visit your hotel.

Off-Page SEO.

When you have already done a good optimization of your content on the page, now you have to wait for this to take effect outside of it. This part is what we call Off-Page SEO, and it refers to how your page begins to gain authority within your niche.

How do you achieve this?

If your content is valuable to your audience or people interested in your niche, they may start to mention you both in their reviews and on their pages as a valid source of information.

On the one hand, we have Google reviews, one of the first places visitors visit before visiting a hotel.

To build a good review strategy for your hotel, first of all, it is good that your tourist experience is enjoyable for your guests. But, once they finish their visit, it is necessary that you seek to contact them to kindly ask them to leave their honest review on the web, and thus, both Google and users begin to trust your business.

On the other hand, if you gain a lot of notoriety from users, other pages about tourism may think of mentioning you on their page. Can you imagine being placed in "The Best Places to Stay in 2023"?

This would be a great victory for your place.

It is also good to make alliances with travel influencers, offering them stays at your hotel. By asking them for mentions in their stories in return or for them to apply a good influencer marketing strategy for your hotel, you increase your chances that their fan base will be interested in your hotel.

As you gain more notoriety and authority for all of these, you can be sure that Google will continue to place you in the SERPs for your niche queries.

Mobile Optimization.

Did you know that 35% of users make bookings through their mobiles?

We constantly focus on mobile marketing for every niche; logically, the hotel industry is no exception.

As smartphones make consumer and appointment actions easier, it becomes imperative for hotels to start focusing on having a mobile version of their websites or, even more, an app. When you add this to your marketing arsenal, you make it much easier for visitors to access your hotel, which could raise the number of newcomers.

Within all these SEO upgrades, it's highly critical to have excellent technical SEO, which means your site is easy to navigate and use.

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3. Social Media Strategy for hotels to showcase themselves to the wide audience

Facebook

Potential hotel customers could probably search for awesome hotels on social media using proper hashtags. Facebook is still the king of social media as it has the maximum number of monthly active users. You could make use of a Facebook page to spread brand awareness. Facebook ads could be a great option to retarget visitors who landed on your website. 

It would be best to focus on having positive reviews to instill confidence and trust in potential guests. A good ad campaign on Facebook could get you many inquiries and form submissions and help you target an audience who might be potentially interested in visiting the area in which your hotel is situated. One of our clients who had a great focus on e-commerce SEO got extraordinary results when they included Facebook as a part of their campaign.

Instagram

Instagram allows you to demonstrate the high quality of your hotel with images and exciting reels. With roughly one billion monthly active users, Instagram belongs to the most popular social network worldwide.

You must identify your target audience group on Instagram and their traits, demography, etc. Once you understand your target audience, you must post content that appeals to your target audience. For example, you could post images and videos on Instagram showcasing the features and luxuries of your hotel. It would help if you remembered that consistency is the key on Instagram. You cannot reach a million mark in a day or two, but if you be consistent with your social media marketing techniques, that number isn't too far.

Advertisement on Instagram is similar to that of Facebook. You could sponsor your content to a highly targeted audience to leverage the most out of every dollar spent. You could also use user-generated content and engage with users in the comment section to strengthen the bond that you two share. You must put the right caption, use hashtags, understand the right time to post with the help of insights to get maximum visibility.

X - Twitter

The former Twitter, rebranded as "X," is a valuable social network for hotel establishments since its real-time response allows you to build a closer relationship with users. As a microblogging platform, "X" is more instantaneous and comfortable with the interaction between the hotel and its visitors. Therefore, we recommend using this platform as an extension of customer service for your establishment.

In case of receiving a good review within the platform, a simple RT with a thank you comment will be enough to thank the visitor. In the meantime, in the same way, if the message is a complaint or an inconvenience, your team can address it more quickly and fix it.

Although throughout the article, we mention Google as your source of reviews, you should know that X also helps you evaluate the conversation topic around your hotel experience, so keep an eye on it from time to time.

The way to use X is similar to what you can apply to the aforementioned social networks: you can post images and videos about your installations and the odd reviews from your guests.

Another great use of X is that this platform is excellent for covering events in your city, which can significantly help your hotel complex.

Suppose your hotel is in the city where the Tomorrowland music festival will be; this year, 2023, it was in Belgium. So, you know that thousands of foreigners will attend this celebration, and if your hotel instinct kicks in, it's because you know that these foreigners will need a place to stay. Therefore, it is an excellent option to join the topic of conversation around these massive events and offer these travellers a comfortable place to stay to enjoy these events comfortably.

TikTok

Since the world of hospitality is full of luxuries, fun, relaxation, good buffets and dream facilities, obviously, a 100% visual platform like TikTok can be appealing to your audience.

Unlike partially visual networks such as Instagram and Facebook, TikTok is more about not-so-produced videos that show more of the reality of your hotel.

On Instagram, you'd like videos to have fancy production, but you can afford to be more spontaneous on TikTok. This spontaneous style goes hand in hand with the way of being of the younger generations - Gen Z and Millennials - who today value more than brands are relatable, only luxury, and that's it.

Now, TikTok has an X-like opportunity for interaction, where responding to your users is more straightforward, and by doing so, you can increase your chances of going viral or being seen by more people. By simply sharing your users' videos, you can continue to spread your brand message to the vast number of users on TikTok.

Of course, this is the right platform to use with influencers since TikTokers are celebrities with an incredible reach on the social network. You can take advantage of planning a challenge with these that will create a trend around your hotel complex.

4. Remarketing is one of the most vital parts of your digital marketing strategy

Remarketing is the strategy to engage with the visitors who have abandoned your hotel's website page at any given point. When you retarget your website visitors, you remind them about your presence and direct them to visit your site again. The digital world is competitive, and to let your visitors remember you, you have to take remarketing as one of the most important parts of your digital marketing strategy.

In the hotel industry, you could use remarketing ads to remind your users about your brand, offer a discount, engage and drive a booking in no time. You must use a strong campaign idea that offers great deals to your previous visitors or ask them to sign up for the newsletter. At any given time, your ad must not annoy the viewer. Be calm and subtle with your marketing.

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5. Influencer Marketing: How to leverage it in the hotel industry?

Partnering with travel influencers can provide a real-life experience to the new potential customers of the hotel through user-generated content on social media. They give an idea and sense of excitement to the future customers by engaging personally and building trustworthiness. 

It would help if you kept in mind that engagement is far more important than reach. Also, it would be best if you had an idea of who your ideal customer is following, and hence you should make your strategic partnership plans. Here is a complete guide on Amazon Listing Optimization.

6. Online reviews play an important role in the hotel industry

The power of word of mouth recommendations has been around for centuries, but in the digital world, it has become even more influential, particularly when it comes to traveling and finding a place to stay. A staggering 80% of people report that they regularly or always read reviews before booking a hotel, and over 50% say that they would never book a place without any reviews.

There are numerous platforms where travelers can leave their feedback, including Tripadvisor, Google reviews, Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Trivago, and Facebook. With so many options, it is crucial for hotels and other accommodation providers to keep track of their online reputation and respond to feedback, both positive and negative, in order to stay ahead of the competition and provide the best possible customer experience.Staying in a bad hotel room is a big no-no and it's not surprising that 9 out of 10 travelers won't book a hotel if they see the word "dirty" in online reviews. Owning a hotel can be tough and there will always be some unhappy guests. But if you communicate well with them, you can solve most problems before they turn into a big complaint on an online review site. 

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7. Email Marketing is still an important channel for building trust

The main reason for doing hotel email marketing is to build your brand. You're connecting with your email subscribers, chatting with them and making sure they remember you when it comes time for them to book a stay. Now, not every email you send will result in a booking, but that's okay! Just by sending these emails, you'll stay top of mind for your subscribers. Even if they don't choose to book with you right away, they'll remember you for their next visit. Emails are a great way to add a personal touch to your engagement with even your existing customers. They make your guests feel appreciated and valued every step of the way, from the moment they book to long after they've left. Your booking confirmation emails are the first step in creating an amazing experience for your guests. Show them what sets your property apart by highlighting your special features and offering a tempting upgrade option. You should always try to make a lasting first impression that they won't forget.

At the same time, your departure emails to guests should include all the important details, like their total bill and confirmation of payment. But most importantly, make sure to express your gratitude for having them as your guests and choosing to stay with you. Just like your welcome emails, these departure emails can go a long way in making your guests feel valued and appreciated. Sending emails after their departure is a great way to keep them coming back to your property. Have a proper digital marketing funnel in place.

8. Use the user-generated content to share the actual experience of a customer

People are more likely to engage with content that's shared by other customers. Integrating user-generated content (UGC) into your advertising can greatly increase its performance. This can even influence the online purchasing behavior of your customers. By using referral marketing and creating a positive brand image, you can enjoy the benefits of free-of-cost, high-quality content creation. This will also help with enhanced reputation management for your hotel or restaurant.

Your customers have the potential to be your strongest advocates and sales people. User-generated images that showcase your product are like a free and powerful advertising campaign, often even more impactful than paid advertising. These users have the power to increase brand awareness to their followers and audiences that your brand may have difficulty reaching on its own. To tap into this potential, consider launching a branded hashtag campaign. Encourage your audience to create relevant content featuring your hashtag for the chance to be featured on your brand's social media or website. This not only increases brand exposure, but also makes your customers feel valued and appreciated.

One of the most important aspects of user-generated content (UGC) is its ability to encourage consumers to engage in conversation about products, including their pain points, what changes they desire, and what they like about the product. This is essentially a free and honest survey, giving brands valuable insights into their customer personas, journeys, and the updates that may be needed in their products. Moreover, UGC creates a platform for individuals to connect with others who share similar interests, thereby fostering a stronger and more unified community. Check these companies adapting to cultural differences examples.

9. Include your hotel in top Online Travel Agencies.

Of course, you need a booking option on your website; it's a must, and you should take advantage of it. Setting this aside, you can miss the opportunity to take your hotel to OTA listings, as many travellers prefer to book via these websites.

According to StratosJets, approximately 700 million people will book online by 2023. Still, 41% of travellers pick online travel agencies as the best choice, while around 20% prefer travel agents, says Hospitalitynet. Some of the reasons people prefer online agencies are:

• OTAs are more secure
• Convenient
• Offer loyalty programs
• These sites have credible reviews that make it easier for them to choose the right hotel.

Looking at these statistics, it's no wonder you should run fast to list your hotel on these sites, as you could be missing a lot of travellers.

According to research by PATA, among the top OTAs worldwide, we find  Booking.com, Expedia and Trip.com, who captured 40% of the global travel market.

10. Promote your loyalty program.

In digital marketing, we always say it is better to keep several loyal customers happy than to spend the entire budget looking for new ones.

You will not stop inviting new tourists to stay at your hotel, but those who prefer you as their first option must have special treatment.

For this reason, loyalty programs are always the low-hanging fruit tactic for hotels because they can make visitors want to return thanks to future benefits that they may have, making your hotel complex one in which it is worth investing.

For that, you must promote in all your networks those EXTRAS that all those users who are faithful to your complex receive, and in this way, encourage those who do not yet belong to this "hotel elite" to want to be part of it.

It is using the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) in your favor, through which you make these people understand that it is worth it to continue coming to your hotel.

To give you an extra tip, we want to connect with something from the previous tip title, which has to do with bookings from your website.

While OTAs are still valuable for your hotel's digital marketing, it's good to say that, according to Phocuswright, direct hotel bookings will surpass OTAs this year - this is why we emphasize having the option for your website and even an app if you can afford it. Even more, Hospitalitynet says that 29% of travellers prefer direct travel reservations for reasons like:

• Ask for extra amenities (28%)

• Get the best price (21%)

• Avail of loyalty programs (21%)

• Negotiate better prices (18%)

• Find direct booking benefits (11%)

In any case, don't discriminate if you find clients through OTAs or your direct website, but always remark how much better it will be for them to book with the second option. Ultimately, travellers, business people and younger generations avoid booking through hotel websites because they say "it's complicated." In this case, your goal is to make an effort to make the process as seamless and straightforward as possible.

Remember that you're selling a place to relax; it shouldn't feel like a bureaucratic process.

Conclusion

Digital marketing for hotels needs strategic planning aligned with the business's goals and objectives. Your digital marketing strategy would play a vital role in revenue generation, creating more brand awareness, and improving branding. 

You must ensure that all the digital marketing channels are put to maximum use, and your every guest is served with a more personalized ad campaign.

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