Why Hotels Need an Effective Inbound Marketing Strategy in 2017
Inbound Marketing is the “radar” of the Hotel and involves absorbing information like customer research, competitive intelligence, industry analysis, trends, economic signals and competitive activity as well as documenting requirements and setting product strategy.
With Social Media, New Media and new technology Inbound Marketing have for many brands become the most effective marketing method for doing business online. Instead of the old outbound marketing methods of buying ads, buying email lists, and praying for leads, inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product, where they naturally want to be.
By aligning the content, you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight over time.
With inbound marketing on the rise, the popularity of Content Management has exploded into a widespread phenomenon.
Today most brands have a Content Management strategy in place. For 2017 it will become crucial that Hotels makes a shift towards implementing an effective Inbound Marketing Strategy that supports your Hotels Content Management strategies.
Inbound Marketing Strategy and Content Management strategies
From a personal perspective, I have over the years pretty much treated Inbound Marketing and Content Management as two separate entities. I had separate strategies that addressed how I was going to approach these two entities.
I had the great opportunity to assist several Hotels in 2016 with their Social Media tasks. This taught me some valuable lessons.
Most of the Hotels had a very good picture of traditional Outbound Marketing strategies. Outbound marketing is the opposite of Inbound marketing, where the customers find you, mostly through various paid and natural search engine marketing efforts.
Outbound marketing constitutes most marketing budgets for many Hotels. This is often experienced through interruptive marketing techniques. Traditional marketing techniques may interrupt a moment in our lives or daily routine.
For many years Hotel reviews have been interruptive. A given TripAdvisor review could influence the reviewer to select a different Hotel. But these types of interruptions either negative or positive were not life-changing.
Today all businesses, in general, must adjust to more disruptive markets. Disruptive marketing of any sort will shift the paradigm with consumers you are targeting to act through your marketing or promotion.
A disruptive brand has one of two goals: design its product or service to match the demand of an emerging market, or re-shape an existing product or service to meet the demand of customers unsatisfied by the current offering. Which create a new shift for all of us where we start to emphasize the new and renewed customers.
Combining Inbound Marketing and Content Management strategies is the best way today to turn consumers into customers and promoters of your Hotel.
The Inbound Marketing Methodology
Today we all live in a disruptive market where Social Media influence the consumers on their path to purchase. We see some reports indicate that as much as 75 percent of consumers visit Facebook during the pre-shopping planning stage in pursuit of recommendations from friends and family. While we still see, the majority take some days to plan their purchases as much as a one-third plan only a few hours before. This is a trend that we will continue to see growing in 2017.
Since I experience a disconnect between Inbound Marketing and Content Management both on a personal level and with the Hotels I worked with I will make some shifts in 2017 myself that reflect this.
I will start to dedicate more of my time to educating and train Hotels on topics that help close the gap between Inbound Marketing and Content Management through my Social Media Consulting service.
Attract: The first objective of this shift is to focus on bringing the right traffic to your Hotels website.
Convert: The second objective is to turn visitors into leads.
Close: The third objective will be to turn leads into new and renewed customers.
Delight: The fourth objective Is where I connect the dots between Inbound Marketing and Content Management. Here I turn Hotels into savvy Inbound brands that continue to surprise and delight their customers with remarkable content and service (hopefully upselling them) and turning them into happy promoters of your products and services.
By publishing the right content in the right place at the right time, your marketing becomes relevant and helpful to your customers, not interruptive. Now that’s marketing people can love.
Conclusion
Over several years I had various Social Media roles. I learned from failures, mistakes, feedback, live training, events, books, courses, friends, family, mentors, Hotels, my community, accountability, mastermind group, BNI, my wife, and successes. For me, learning will always be an ongoing process. What I learned is what keep me going, and I look forward to sharing new adventures and knowledge with you all in 2017.
For me, a new shift will help me dedicate my time and money where matters for the Hotels that I will assist in 2017. The overall goal here is for all of us to save time and money.
By focusing on the things, I know best and educate Hotels on these topics will help me generate more valuable and relevant leads for your Hotel.
It is a shift that emphasizes more effective Social Selling where the content assists consumers in their pre-shopping process. We will use content that educates leads that are ready to make a booking decision and educate more hesitant leads.
You will start to see this shift take place here on my blog during January. I already made some minor content changes that are in place already.
I look forward to collaborating, connect and work with you all in 2017. Wish you all a Happy and Prosperous 2017!!
When your Hotel serves your community they will reward you back with serving you.
From a Hotel and Social Media Consultant’s standpoint, the Social Media Community can offer Hotels a one-stop-shop for managing their Social Media marketing such as the community infrastructure, database, listening functionality, profile management, collaboration, content marketing and management, and of course, the analytics.
A Social Media Community will help your Hotel to grow smarter and faster when you focus on the value proposition and collaborate in effective ways.
If your Hotel need help to put it all together then make sure to let us know.
With the right team behind your Social Media efforts, it can become cost-effective and generate a new revenue stream for your Hotel.
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT AND FACEBOOK ADVERTISING FOR HOTELS
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About the author
Are Morch is the founder and owner of Are Morch – Hotel Marketing Coach. Get more from Are on Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Pinterest | Instagram| Podcast