In some ways, marketing for the hospitality industry is rather simple. You’re providing a service that people need in order to accomplish something they want to do. Whether they need your services for business or pleasure, you’re a target industry that will always be utilized in your community in some way. What you’ve got to do is communicate to people that you are the best organization possible to meet those needs. That’s where these marketing ideas will become an effective tool for you to use.
It all begins with the quality of service that you can provide. You’ve got to walk the marketing talk that you put out there! When you promote a high level of perceived value, then the expectation is that you’ll provide a similar realized value. Exceed expectations and people will become either positive or negative ambassadors based on their experiences. What makes an experience negative? The inability to match perception with reality.
Hospitality Industry Marketing Strategies
1. Know Your Audience
How well do you know your targeted demographic on a personal level? You’ve got to know your audience today to set yourself apart from the competition. You must prove that you can relate to them not just on a B2C level, but on a person-to-person level. You, as the owner/manager/marketer, must show that you understand your customer at a core level in order for them to be willing to engage with you.
2. Appeal to the Senses
When people are shopping for a quality experience in the hospitality industry, they tend to shop with their eyes first and their hearts second. Appeal to these senses by offering a quality first impression that appeals to what they’d like to see when they utilize your services? That could be everything from the spa you’ve got on-site to the white sand beaches outside your front door. Highlight your best qualities visually because these images speak more than 1000 words of content do.
3. Words Can Craft Images
The way you organize the copy of your marketing campaign will have a direct effect on the results that you see. If you are unorganized with your content and this confuses your customer base, your bookings go down because you’ve created discomfort. Use your content to showcase your services and paint pictures through words about what you can do to create the best results.
4. Video Tours Are Awesome
People want to know what they’re going to get before they buy it from you as much as possible. They want a visual glimpse of the values that you’re promising so they have more confidence in your ability to deliver. Showing off your rooms, facilities, and services through video is a simple way to provide an unspoken guarantee that will pay off with virtually every viewing you receive.
5. Be Consistent
Many think of consistency as an end product, but consistency is spoken to a customer from the first impression they receive. Using different fonts is just one way that you can unconsciously communicate to a customer that they’ll receive an inconsistent result with a purchase. From the size of your photographs to the pricing that you offer, consistency across the board with a formalized style guide is a must-have part of the marketing process.
6. Tell Your Story
People engage more when they see you as being authentic and transparent. The best way to do this is through your unique story that has developed over time in the hospitality industry. It’s not just your experience that people want. They also want your unique perspective. If they can identify with this perspective, then you’ll see more consistent results in your profitability over time.
7. It’s Not About the Ego
One of the most common mistakes that is made is that a marketing campaign focuses on the business instead of the client. Your accomplishments are nice, but how you can solve problems for people who utilize your services is nicer. Make your first focus be the client every single time and you’ll have a client-centered approach that will pay off big.
8. Be Versatile
Don’t load up your marketing strategy with one or two keywords that you emphasize hundreds of times across your campaign. Be versatile and hit up all your strengths. Weave an underlying theme throughout all of your campaigns, but show off all your strengths so you can appeal to your target demographic.
9. Get Local
The emphasis of many hospitality industry companies is to put their marketing into high traffic communities that will send visitors to them. The local community is often ignored and that’s a big mistake. If nothing else, a local emphasis will help pull up your website for online searches that want local results. With no local emphasis, your competitors will be found instead of you.
10. PPC/PPI
Pay per click and pay per impression campaigns can work if they’re managed appropriately. Don’t use broad search terms for your campaign because you’ll end up spending a fortune on advertising that won’t give you sales. Use very specific long tail SEO terms that will let you target people who are searching for what you can explicitly provide. The right ad at the right time will bring someone into your sales funnel.
11. Network With Transportation
For many, getting to your place of business is the biggest obstacle to overcome. If you network with transportation providers that allow visitors to bypass the airport shuttle or the local taxi service, you’ll end up with a better result over time because you’re solving all the problems someone has instead of just a few of them.
12. Keep Updating
Regular updates are important for internet searches because it indicates enhanced value to search engine crawlers. You can’t just change a couple words here and there to call it good. Change your special offers, develop new discounts, and provide weekly information about local events to keep driving the value you can provide home.
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