Content marketing really influences the decision to choose a hotel.
Content has its own power. It can make or break your business.
Today, all industries will agree that “content is king”. BUT, not everyone will master it or even implement it.
This blog will talk about content marketing for hotels.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is about creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain your target audience.
In simple words, it is the practice of producing content in the form of text, images and videos and sharing it on different platforms, such as websites or social media channels.
Hotel content marketing is focused on the production of content that your audience needs and likes to consume.
The ultimate goal for hotels that do content marketing is to attract as many people as possible and get more reservations.
The key is to provide useful content that informs, entertains and engages your guests. Also, it is equally necessary to ensure consistency in content creation.
Let’s move forward to the most common and obvious question on your mind.
Why is content marketing important for hotels?
Most of the hotels have to implement a wide range of marketing strategies but somehow they cannot achieve the desired results.
One of the main reasons may be minimal or no use of hotel content marketing.
I won’t exaggerate if I say that content marketing is the missing part of your hotel marketing.
This is precisely how content marketing strengthens the market presence of your accommodation facility.
It educates your customer
Your target audience is travelers; which can be further classified into business, leisure, groups, solo travelers and so on.
A deeper segmentation would lead you to the following basic categories:
Segment 1: Avid travelers, who look forward to exploring different cuisines, cultures, unexplored places and more.
Segment 2: Ordinary tourists, who travel once or twice a year to visit popular destinations.
Now your entire audience would ideally have a lot of questions before booking with you. Obviously, you can’t answer them with your promotional messages.
This is where content marketing comes into play. Through the content, you can answer questions from the audience and guests.
It gives you a competitive advantage
When your hotel produces content, guests start to trust you.
This gives you a huge advantage over your competition, especially if they don’t offer the same services as you.
Your content marketing can show your guests that you consider them more than just reservations. You want to give them a better experience and that’s what you want them to understand.
Make them part of a better story to get more attention. Pictures, virtual tours, videos, texts; use anything and everything you can.
Content marketing educates more than it sells. This will make your guests believe in you and choose you over the competition.
Reduces marketing costs
It is an undeniable fact that hotel marketing requires a huge budget.
Achieving the results you want, might be more challenging than you think. Mainly because the influence of sales and marketing has decreased (or has the customer’s understanding improved?).
Compared to earlier times, consumers are now less likely to respond to print ads or direct mail.
In fact, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional advertising and generates about three times more leads.
Source
It helps in nurturing long-term relationships with clients
Consistently and regularly specifying content gives your guests a reason to come back for more and explore unused areas of your property. This develops a long-lasting and loyal relationship with your guests.
After all, your audience will pay more attention to your content if it connects with and relates to them.
With content like that, you’re not just in it for a one-time sale.
Quality content can introduce travelers to your accommodation, build relationships and generate new leads and bookings—all for a fraction of traditional marketing.
Increases your reputation
Not every guest will leave happy. Guests may complain about poor service, hidden fees or rude employees.
However, with content marketing, you can control your brand’s narrative.
Fresh hotel blogs, videos and good website content will definitely outweigh your negative reviews.
On top of that, there is a chance that your content will rank and appear in searches for your hotel name.
It helps you with SEO
Content marketing paves the way for you to rank higher in search results.
With only website content, it becomes challenging for you to write keyword rich content.
get significant exposure online.
Basically, you MUST do hotel content marketing.
As Robert Rose said,
“Marketing tells the world you’re a rock star, content marketing shows the world you’re the one.””
As I explained earlier, there are different types of content. How do you decide what type of content you should produce?
Let me explain the following:
What types of content can hotels produce and promote?
Currently, online travel agencies are consuming entire search results. They outrank hotel websites, making your brand exposure far less than expected. For this reason, content marketing becomes mandatory.
And let’s not forget the fact that your guests are not only looking for accommodation. Instead, they are looking for a healthy and memorable experience.
They research reviews on Instagram, Facebook, TripAdvisor and Google to make up their minds. They dig deeper than ever before to find what they like.
And that’s why you need to have the right content marketing strategy.
Here are some ideas for producing and promoting content for your property:
Local attractions and events
Let me ask you something. Why do guests visit you? Or rather, why do leisure tourists visit your city?
Simply, explore the city and the culture that your city has to offer.
Suffice it to say that localized content is a big draw for your guests. Even local guides on Google reaffirm this fact.
Travelers are CONSTANTLY looking for rich, engaging, original tips and ideas about your destination. You can (read: SHOULD) provide detailed information by answering all of these questions about local attractions.
This is an excellent marketing opportunity for hotel facilities. Create a welcome guide detailing your location, scenic destinations and the best places to eat, drink and hang out.
Local events can be turned into popular blog posts – what’s coming up, how to enjoy the events and itinerary ideas around popular events. From listening to live music at a fan-favorite pub to touring a tourist attraction, you can customize this guide in unlimited ways.
Hotel Content Marketing Tip : You can also partner with local businesses and offer some of their popular products in your rooms. So guests get a taste of the local (sometimes literally) as soon as they arrive.
Photographs
Fact and reality, visuals attract more attention than content.
As Brain Rules says in one of its articles,
Hear one piece of information. Three days later; you will remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%.
You are experiencing this. Even me.
Content with images is much better than content without. But with RELEVANT pictures.
So when I’m looking to share pictures and videos, I don’t mean old-fashioned and common hotel photos. No, I don’t want you to be mediocre. Be unique and show that uniqueness to your audience. Actually, shout.
For more photography ideas, check out Airbnb. You will see how the accommodation facilities highlight their unique aspect. All pictures try to show what makes their place different.
Makes me want to go there and stay there.
So the key thing is to show and celebrate your differences. Take rich, vivid photos of your accommodation, highlight what makes the rooms different, and focus on the quirks and oddly beautiful things – like scripture or colorful interiors that set your hotel room apart from the competition.
Virtual tours
As the name suggests, virtual tours are actually 360-degree videos that revolve around your accommodation. Your guests get an insight into what your accommodation is like and what they can expect if they book with you.
Today, Generation Z is looking for more such experiences to help them make decisions.
A 360-degree camera can capture an entire room and allow you to set up a self-guided tour where viewers can watch whatever they want.
This helps increase time on site and time invested in your brand, so there are additional benefits.
If you have enough budget, you can even invest in virtual experiences.
Food and other best things
Who doesn’t love to talk about food and similar enjoyable experiences on vacation – or even a business visit?
If you have these services, flaunt them.
Talk about seasonal menus, your spa menu and so on.
If your accommodation facility does not have a spa, write a blog about the best spas in your location.
Expand your food and drink focus to popular local spots – tucked-away restaurants, local foodies, new openings and the best of the bunch.
Travel tips
Travel tips and tricks are something all guests look forward to and are an important part of your hotel’s content writing. Basically, you can create content around:
What should travelers pack?
What will the weather be like?
Is the local water safe to drink?
How to book activities?
How to move?
Travelers have many questions about the destination. Use your blog to answer them and be relevant.
If you don’t have a dedicated content writer or if you don’t produce content regularly, you can also provide an updated list of the best destination blogs to read.
If your hotel is located in a foreign-speaking country, you can also make a list of useful everyday expressions in the language guide.
Behind the scenes
At first, this might seem like an odd choice for an important hotel amenity.
But this is the trend right now.
Companies and even hotels are showing a glimpse of how things work behind the scenes to make their audience more connected.
Content marketing of B&Bs and hostels has blurred the distinction between them and traditional hotels.
People automatically react on an emotional level when they see pictures and descriptions of other people they are about to meet.
So practice a little employee advocacy and use social media – along with your own website – to show happy pictures of enthusiastic hotel staff and why you value them so much.
People are sure to make their booking decisions based on such emotional content (and your staff will appreciate it too).
User Generated Content
User-generated content is a valuable source of social proof – and something your audience completely relies on.
There are several ways to get such quality user-generated content.
Via Guests: Encourage your guests to leave reviews online. Don’t forget to use this content for testimonials! The trend these days is to post a guest selfie on social media platforms. You can later use this content on your social networks.
Influencers: You can partner with influencers in your industry who can attract you through their own content. In return, you must offer them free rooms or other bonuses when you encourage them to write about your hotel. This is a surefire strategy to attract millennial travelers.
Partners: These are the companies you work with for events, catering, supplies, local activities, and so on. If you have a good relationship with these partners, talk about co-creating content to cross-promote your brands.
Tip for hotel content marketing: it’s the era of celebrity culture where fans shower love on their “FAVES”. So if you have a celebrity visiting your town, talk about it. Consider posts like “Meet the celebrity who plays golf at…”
These were some ideas for your hotel content marketing.
Now that you know what types of content you can produce and promote, let’s move on to a content strategy for your hotel.
How to form a content marketing strategy for your hotel?
You can’t just get started with content marketing. Without a well-formulated content marketing strategy, you may not see impressive results. Or worse, you may not be able to DEFINE your results.
Don’t panic. I shared how to do it in this blog.
All you have to do is follow these steps.
Step 1: Understand your target audience
Too many hotels make the mistake of advertising to anyone and everyone. In the end, their message impresses no one.
If you have an accommodation facility for everyone, you will end up staying with no one.
Modern tourists want a personalized service adapted to their wishes. But you can’t have an offer that meets everyone’s needs. So decide which market segment you want to focus on..
To learn more about your type of audience, dig up some historical data and find out what type of guests do you often receive at your hotel ?Are they couples, millennials or business travelers, families and groups?
This is important because all the content you create should be aimed at the target group you decide to serve.
Step 2: Set your hotel content marketing goals
Once you’ve determined your target audience, it’s important to know why you’re creating content for them.
Ask yourself what you want to achieve with the content you publish on the hotel website, blog and social networks?
Sure, you want more bookings, but are they direct bookings or OTA bookings?
Any strategy or plan without a goal is just wishful thinking.
You should set specific goals for each piece of content you create. Without a goal, you may never realize what you have accomplished.
Do you want to increase the visibility of your hotel or strengthen your brand, gain new guests or increase the number of visitors to your website?
So, analyze the requirements of your hotel and set your goals accordingly.
Step 3: Define the tone of your content and stick to it
Writing hotel content is not as easy as it sounds.
You should develop content creation processes – how photos are uploaded to different channels, what size to use, what type of copy goes with them, and so on.
These templates may take a little more time in the beginning, but they will also earn you recognition and save time later.
Moreover, this will make the job easier for more people, or when “introducing” a new one persons – it is much easier if there is a pattern to follow.
Step 4: Tell your story
Storytelling is currently the biggest trend in hotel content marketing.
Stories are interesting and people love them.
Sometimes I can apologize with just one photo. Create your own little everyday stories that convey the characteristics of your property.
Be sure to tell stories about YOUR hotel and not copy the ones you find interesting. , and do not copy others that are interesting to you.
Step 5: Stay active on social media
Use social media in a professional manner.
Although they should be used in a professional manner, this does not mean that you have to have a boring corporate approach.
Social networks offer you the ideal opportunity to present your offer in an informal way, as you may not be able to do on a website.
Take the opportunity to be witty and interesting.
Choose the right voice for social networking. How? Well, remember your research on your target audience. Who are these people, what do they want to hear from you, how can you contact them?
You must have all these answers in your target audience analysis, and if you don’t have it, do the analysis again, very detailed. This will help you tailor your social media messaging to the specific needs and interests of your audience.
Create a content strategy for each social network.
Coordinate marketing distribution of hotel content through various channels. There are several places on the Internet where a potential customer can see your offer: hotel website, social networks, blogs, e-mail, etc.
Design procedures for posting content to those channels: when to post, who should post, and so on.
Step 6: Analyze regularly
Don’t be afraid to look at your analytics. Do this daily, but make sure you know how to read what the data is telling you.
But it’s not enough just to see your analytics. Follow her, follow her. You will be able to use it to make better marketing decisions.
Look at the pages that have more visibility and rank well on Google. Make the most of these content and pages. BUT, make sure it is unique and comprehensive.
Find pages with low traffic, low ranking, high bounce rate. Analyze those pages, try to figure out why they are not performing so well and change them, or eventually delete them.
Conclusion
That’s all I had to say about hotel content marketing.
There is a LOT to cover in content marketing. But, I assure you, it is worth it. And many hotels like yours have proven it.
Don’t forget…
Content isn’t something that just fills up white space on your website. This is what makes your visitors and guests book with you.
This is the voice of your hotel.
Preparation: by S.O.S. English