Armin Gögele, last updated on 22.02.2022
Hotel promotion refers to all activities undertaken by a hotel to market its services and increase revenue. The focus is on achieving the highest possible occupancy of rooms at the best possible rates. However, a marketing campaign can also aim to increase brand awareness (branding), generate new customer contacts (lead generation), increase the value of a customer over time (customer lifetime value) and strengthen the relationship between the guest and the hotel (guest loyalty).
Methods of hotel marketing
There are many ways to market a hotel online. First and foremost is direct marketing. In direct marketing, the customer is targeted and his or her wishes and needs are specifically addressed. In this way, strong sales increases can be achieved quickly. In contrast to this is the general brand structure with media and PR work. This increases awareness of the hotel itself. Branding and PR are long-term growth strategies in marketing.
Direct marketing for hotels
Direct marketing for hotels has many advantages over less targeted marketing. Is there a major event in town? Does the hotel have a lot of older guests because it is located in a well-known resort area? All of these audiences can be segmented and directly targeted with advertising, such as coupons, to encourage them to book.
Direct marketing to increase direct bookings
Direct marketing can also be used to increase direct bookings. For hotels, this has the advantage of making them less dependent on major booking portals (OTAs) and of establishing a relationship with the customer from the outset.
Direct marketing techniques for hotels
There are many different direct marketing methods that may be suitable for a hotel:
- Newsletter marketing via email or traditional mail to guests.
- Performance marketing with targeted advertising on search engines and social media
- SEO marketing, which addresses the topics of the target group through texts and blog articles
- Messenger marketing via WhatsApp, Facebook or an autoresponder on the website
The focus is always on engaging the customer directly with information that is relevant to them. Because of the relevance of the information and the tailored offer, direct marketing for hotels is an opportunity to achieve a very good ROI.