9 Effective Hotel Marketing Strategies To Attract New Customers

Whether you are new in the Hotel industry or looking for ways to enhance your business, you will always need a strong marketing strategy. No matter how good your services are, you will need some marketing strategy to increase your visibility and attract customers. With the advancement in technology, guests can know about your hotel via the internet. The technology has brought new opportunities for hotel owners to promote their hotels across digital platforms. However, it has also increased the competition among various hotel businesses.

To sail through this, hotel owners are keen on adapting to dynamic and effective hotel marketing strategies. It is important to understand that each marketing strategy differs from the other. While some may help you increase the revenue, others may help you get more and more customers. The below tips will help you attract new customers.

Read on:

1. Introduce Chat-Based Services

Different guests have different needs and want. Understanding those needs and demands can help you give the best services to your guests. For this, you can introduce a chat-based service for your guests. You can interact with them and know what their expectations are. As soon as a customer finds your hotel over the internet and tries to make a booking, you can send personalized emails and notifications. You can encourage the person to put forward their queries through the chat feature. This way you can create a strong impression beforehand and attract more and more customers.

2. Target Local Guests More Often

Targeting local guests is as important as targeting tourists from other states and/or countries. You can target local people to attract them for a staycation, host a small function/event at your hotel, or run a temporary office or a co-living space for those looking for temporary accommodation. This way you will be able to attract customers even during the off-season. It will also generate good revenue for your business.

3. Adapt The Story-Telling Technique

Story-telling is one of the best market strategies to attract new customers. You may launch a campaign to increase the booking rate in your hotel. You may post images and videos of your hotel across the internet. But what adds value to this hard work is how well you can narrate a story to your customers. A good story will help you stand out from your competitors and highlight what makes your hotel different from others.

4. Register Your Hotel With OTAs

The internet is full of several Online Travel Agencies (OTAs). Trivago, Kayak, MakeMyTrip, and the list is long. These OTAs take the first page when a person searches for a hotel at any place. These OTAs invest lots of money to attract visitors to their website for booking a hotel, flight, train, or bus. You need to register your hotel to these OTAs. Once done, the customers can find your hotel through these OTAs, take a virtual tour of the room, and book one for them as per their preferences.

5. Keep A Check On The Reviews And Ratings

In the hospitality industry, ratings and reviews have great place value. They can help you attract and lose customers, depending upon the positive and negative remarks. So why not utilise this for the greater good? You can thank the one who gave good ratings and reviews to your hotel. On the other hand, if someone gave you poor ratings and reviews, you can apologize for not meeting their expectations and promise to improve.

It is important because when new visitors come across your hotel via the internet, they will for sure check the ratings and reviews. If the ratings and reviews aren’t good and you don’t seem to take notice of what people are talking about your hotel, they may never consider staying at your hotel.

6. Build A Great And User-Friendly Website

Building a website is essential to attract new customers in this competitive market. There are plenty of hotels in the market competing against each other to get maximum customers. While you may target your potential guests through traditional forms of marketing, a website can help you target audiences who look for hotels via the internet. A website isn’t enough. You need to ensure it is strong and doesn’t crash now and then. You need to work on the search engine optimization of the website.

7. Interact With Your Audience On Social Media Platforms

One of the best ways to interact with your target customer is by being present on social media platforms. You can post engaging content on your social media platforms. The content that you post needs to be crisp, relevant to your hotel business, and entertaining at the same time. Not only this, but you can also use social media platforms to ask questions, and suggestions and seek advice from your target customer. This way you will be creatively promoting your hotel.

8. Encourage People To Share The Link To Your Website

Social media is a powerful tool that can help in promoting your website. Once you have aced the game of interacting with your target audience through social media, you need to move to the next step. Encourage people to share the link to your website and social media posts. Compelling stories, reels, videos, and quotes can help with this. You can write engaging captions asking people to share them with their friends and family members. This way you will be receiving more traffic hence interested people may book a room in your hotel.

9. Highlight Your USP And Policies

You need to define the USP of your hotel business and highlight your policies. During this pandemic time, many people are open to travelling and staying in hotels, but there are still some people who could be reluctant. You can change their perception by highlighting your USP. You can mention how well your hotel follows the COVID-19 guidelines. You can also let your customers know that your policies are flexible. This way you can grab the attention of your potential guests.