Today, the internet has become one of the most important channels for digital marketing for hotels, positioning your brand, and generating more reservations or sales.
To help ensure your hotel’s growth—and drawing on our experience—we’ve put together this brief list. Here you’ll find 9 digital marketing strategies for hotels that will deliver clear results.
Table of Contents
Boost Your Search Engine Ranking
One of the most common ways travelers find accommodations is through search engines like Google. All you have to do is type “Hotels in…” to find thousands of options in seconds.
That power makes it practically mandatory for hotels to have a presence on search engines like Google. But it’s not just about having a presence—it’s also about appearing among the top search results.
To achieve this, there’s SEO, which involves implementing various optimizations to improve your search engine rankings. This includes maintaining a blog, using keywords, improving your site’s user experience, and including your link in external blog posts.
Invest in SEM advertising
One trick for appearing in search results faster—and even at the top—is SEM. Basically, SEM is the practice of paying for ads on search engines like Google to improve your website’s visibility.
While this sounds very interesting, you should keep in mind that paying for ads involves two key factors. First, your ad must be relevant and appealing to be competitive.
Second, you need to have a set budget. That way, your ad can compete in the auction—which is how Google, for example, decides who gets that space in the search results.
Create content on TikTok
TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms today. For brands, this translates into greater reach, visibility, and a more active, engaged audience than on other platforms.
In addition, its micro-video content format is very engaging and useful for showcasing a hotel. That’s why, these days, one of the most effective digital marketing strategies for hotels to boost their visibility is to open a TikTok account.
But remember, it’s not just about uploading videos for the sake of it. You need to tell stories and make sure the videos follow a consistent theme, as well as tie them to a call to action—such as inviting your followers to contact you via WhatsApp or make a reservation on your website.
Encourage comments and reviews on OTAs
Reviews are one of the most powerful tools in digital marketing for hotels. After all, people trust another person’s opinion more than they trust what you might promise in your advertising.
It’s very important to encourage your guests to leave reviews on OTAs, social media, search engines, and digital platforms. Keep in mind, however, that these reviews should be positive and as authentic as possible.
That’s why it’s important to provide your guests with a great experience and a wonderful stay before asking them to leave a review. Just imagine what would happen if your guests were upset about the quality of your service and you asked them to leave a review—it would be a disaster!
Focus on the experiences
In line with the previous point, this is another important part of any digital marketing strategy for hotels. When a guest is happy, they won’t hesitate to share it through every possible channel.
For example, if your guest has a great stay, they won’t hesitate to post a video on social media showing off your hotel. This is known as User-Generated Content.
User-generated content (UGC) is just as important, useful, and valuable as positive reviews because it is organic and authentic. To leverage it in digital marketing for hotels, it’s important that users tag or mention you, and that the hotel takes the initiative to share that content.
Conduct content marketing
Content marketing is an important part of digital marketing for hotels because it focuses on providing value rather than just hard selling. This helps people pay attention to you and prevents them from automatically tuning you out, thinking you’re just trying to sell them something.
There are various tactics you can use in content marketing. For example, you can create content related to the destination, such as videos about things to do, things to see, experiences, and so on.
This content should be backed by a clear media strategy. Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram are perfect for this. You can also use content marketing in the form of blog posts and optimize them for SEO.
Build a presence on social media
Of course, your hotel needs to have a social media presence—failing to do so would essentially be a death sentence for your marketing. Plus, you’d be missing out on all the potential the digital market has to offer.
A hotel absolutely must have a presence on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, as these are the most widely used social media platforms today. Plus, these platforms provide very useful digital marketing tools for hotels.
Similarly, you can explore using other platforms, such as Twitter and Pinterest. Remember that these should be part of a strategy—don’t just post for the sake of posting.
Invest in social media ads
Finally, just as with Google, it’s important to consider paying for ads or advertising on social media. The goal is to reach more people and generate more results, such as reservations during the offseason.
Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads are examples of advertising platforms. And they’re a must-have in your hotel marketing plan. On these platforms, you can run advertising campaigns focused on sales or branding, for example.
In addition, social media ads are much more affordable than TV ads, for example. On Facebook, you can run ad campaigns starting at just $1 a day. And they deliver excellent results, along with the ability to target your market.
Do you need help improving your marketing?
If you need help improving your digital marketing for hotels, we can help! Just contact us, and together we’ll improve your property’s search rankings and bookings.
