How to Attract More Guests to Your Hotel?
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How to Attract More Guests to Your Hotel?
Depending on the location that your hotel is situated in, you may have seasonal visitors (a tourist hotspot or a home of a major event) or attract people all-year-round (cities like LA or NY). Regardless of which one is true in your scenario, attracting guests to your hotel is a never-ending effort and your marketing and customer attraction are a 24/7 job. Just because the peak of the season is 6 months from now doesn’t mean that people won’t start looking for offers one of these days or even go for first-minute booking in order to save money. With that in mind, here are some tips on how to attract more guests to your hotel.
1. Sell an experience, not a room
Before we even start, you need to understand that in the world of marketing, it’s always much smarter to focus on selling an experience, instead of just trying to have your room booked. This is why depersonalizing the space, yet, making it seem warm is the right way to go when creating images of your hotel. The same thing goes when creating a written content. What you aim at is an increased immersion in the story, so that you can allow your visitors to imagine themselves in a room or a holiday. No matter how objectively superior you believe you are to your competitors, an emotional response from your visitors is always a safer bet.
2. Urge your visitors to leave positive reviews
A vast majority of people do a research prior to booking a room. Due to the fact that they’re usually doing this half-way across the country, their research capacities are fairly limited. The most efficient method they have is to look for some user reviews. Let’s be completely honest, no one is unbiased when describing their own hotel (or business, in general), which is why your potential visitors will look for a tad more objective and credible source. So, at the checkout, ask your guests if they’ve got any complaints, tell them to come again and ask them to leave a review if they’ve had a positive experience.
3. Create return visitors
While a lot of people travel in order to try out something new, there are some guests who keep returning to the same place year after year. Funny enough, by doing something to break a routine, these people develop a new habit, albeit a less frequent one. Nonetheless, this is something that can play strongly in your favour. The biggest challenge here lies in the fact that you need to stay on their mind even when they get back home. The most reliable way to do so is with the help of souvenirs and mementos like branded pins of your hotel. Companies like The Pin Factory specialize in manufacturing custom lapel pins, which is a creative and innovative way to solve this issue.
4. Utilize social media
Another thing you need to understand is the incredible power of the social media and its potential to make your hotel much more popular than it currently is. Aside from existing in one more environment and allowing your audience to reach you through yet another channel, by becoming active on social media you’re also utilizing the strength of your community. Regular guests of your hotel are likely to share your content amongst their relatives and friends, thus acting as your brand ambassadors. Moreover, if your website has a social media account (let’s say an Instagram account), your guests can tag you on their vacation photographs, thus promoting your business in an organic and frugal manner.
5. Word of mouth (WOM) marketing
At the very end, you need to understand that when it comes to holiday and lodging choices, a lot of people make choices based on suggestions that the people they know make. Imagine a scenario where a person goes on a holiday and stays in your hotel. If you manage to provide them with an outstanding service, they’re likely to talk about this when they get back home.
This means that your reputation as a business grows in the eyes of their friends, relatives and co-workers. As for those who see WOM marketing as something unreliable, when it comes to this industry, things definitely aren’t so. In fact, people are bound to talk about the vacation they’ve just returned from and in this narrative, it’s absolutely impossible for them to skip mentioning their lodging.
In conclusion
The major advantage of these five marketing techniques lies in the fact that they increase the number of guests in your hotel, without drastically increasing the overhead. This means that, no matter what standpoint you assume, you’re always facing a positive ROI. Lastly, each of these ideas gives you a lot of maneuvering space, as well as the opportunity to fully express your creativity and flexibility.
