Being a hotel owner, you might have tried every offline marketing campaign to attract new customers and retain existing customers. As we all know, In offline marketing campaigns you would have even paid commissions to the taxi drivers for bringing in tourists and new arrivals to the city.
To retain the existing customers, you would have to understand the few psychological behaviors of customers, like
- How was their stay?
- Did they miss anything?
- Would they love any more amenities?
- Was the stay budget-friendly?
- How was the food?
- Would self accommodation interest them?
By understanding your customers’ feedback, you would have to change the environment, attract similar customers etc… This is the final stage after your customer is ready to vacate the hotel. So, What about the first stage? How do you attract customers? you’re in the right place to learn about it.
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Types of Hotel Customers
There are only two types of people who visit hotels and the way they visit a specific hotel for a stay can be categorized into two categories
- Retaining Customers
These customers return to your hotel due to the service you offered, cleanliness, good air, budget-friendly, and value for customer satisfaction. Indeed these customers will be returning until your hotel gets a bad reputation or even bad news will push away the existing customers to find some other new hotels. These are loyal customers and the loyalty is earned through their satisfaction.
- Potential Customers
These potential customers are none other than
- Tourists
- Digital Nomads
- Employees traveling for work purpose
In the current technological adaptation, having a website and running google ads is the only possible way to attract new customers. If you have been around 30 – 40 years before, you couldn’t have seen more than 3 hotels per city while some have less cost and are budget-friendly and others with high luxurious style with separate chambers for the customer. Today, you can come across a hotel on every 2nd or 3rd street waiting for a customer.
"Google Ads help us reach out to your customers or audiences searching for hotels online. Anyone can place Google Ads, it’s that simple. But the logical question is, Are you reaching your targeted Audience? Are you gaining the expected ROI?" Know More
What do Customers Require before booking a room in a hotel?
As we said above, the potential customers are the ones who choose a hotel by the
- Reviews
- Popularity
- Deals
- An elegant style of the room
- Cleanliness (Mandatory)
- Food (Self Catering or served)
- Budget ( Only Incase of complications )
That’s a so-called long list of customer expectations and queries to be answered before they book a room in a hotel. Without a website, you can’t answer every query a customer has and you don’t need to pay more for Google Ads than you pay as commission for getting new customers.
How does a website bring in new customers for the hotel?
People nowadays rely largely on the internet to find information. For individuals seeking a hotel, your website is the first place where potential customers can learn about the hotel’s values, popularity, reviews, and facilities, among other things.
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Here are the key aspects of having a website for your hotel
Promote Hotel Value
Developing a strong brand identity is vital in the hotel sector, since it may aid with booking sales and income. Hotel value represents customer satisfaction, popularity, and prime location.
When it comes to the website, creating a strong online presence will help you create brand value and even help you in gaining more customers. You have to make sure your customers are satisfied and hotel reputation is in the top result, which appears when someone googles searches for a reputed hotel. Having your hotel website ensures that your hotel has its place to establish the hotel’s brand image.
Attracting Customers with Good Deals
Not every hotel which wants to have brand reputation and value will be willing to hold a placard to show the hotel deals. Using a website and google ads, promoting the deals helps you gain more customers and doesn’t malign the name of the hotel in the way it is done.
Increase Hotel Visibility
In offline marketing campaigns, only 10-20% of what you have spent gained the expected ROI. With a Website and Google ads, you can create strong visibility online in specific locations, specific groups of customers, and to customers with specific requirements. The possibility of reaching directly to the customer with a website is more than 80% and using Google Ads you can reach 100% of customers whoever is searching for a hotel in a specific location or with a specific requirement.
Showcasing Hotel interior
Important of all is the Hotel Interior, people love to see their rooms before booking like foods served, hotel cleanliness, balcony, outdoor view etc… This kinda expectation wasn’t really in the past, but now showing the interior and along with amenities has become mandatory or necessary to attract a wide range of customers. People don’t intend to visit every hotel to check how their rooms look, rather they would like to see it first hand before booking the room.
Faster Booking
Similar to faster checkouts in Ecommerce Stores, faster booking has helped many hotels to gain new customers. Faster booking works in two ways,
- Booking in Hotel Website
- Booking through Hotel Booking Channels
Having your website filled with necessary details, interesting content, and keeping the brand value high throughout, helps a customer make a decision immediately rather than lingering over to find similar hotels. Even if the booking is through “Hotel Booking Channels”, before booking a room every customer goes through the website to find the relevant details related to their requirements and expectations.
24*7 Customer Support
With a website, your customers can get more information related to their stay and what you offer. There are one in a hundred chances to receive a customer without going through your hotel website, but the probability of keeping your customers notified about the hotel deals, new additions to amenities, and available hotel rooms is possible only through the website with a single click.
What we have said above are just the key purposes of having a website for the hotel, which helps to convert a lead into a customer. We have mentioned Google ads few times, as we pointed out the ways to get in new customers, well here are the ways to get in potential customers to your hotel
Google Ads
To acquire influence over Google Ads, you must first understand who your customers are. Who and where your customers are, are the targeted groups to whom you wish to convert into a customer or create brand recognition.
Secondly, you should have a
Goal – why do you need Google Ads? It might be the most apparent question. However, if you’re determined or prepared ahead of time, it will save you a lot of money. It can range from bringing in new customers to increasing hotel brand value online.
Social Media Presence
Social media presence allows you to get new visitors through numerous channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, among others. Using social media and posting often for your target audience can help you raise the rank of your website in SERPs and find new customers through social media platforms.
Goal – What do you want to gain through social media presence ? It’s a common question to think about, Whom you’re posting to and what you’re trying to gain ? will help you target specific group of audience who loves to have some good vacation in a good hotel. When I mentioned good hotel, people love how they’re treated and what they’re given for what they pay. So understanding your audience and posting frequently will help you rank your website as well as gain good amount of audiences waiting to book your hotel for their next vacation.
Social Media Advertising
Social Media Advertising helps you target certain category of audiences through social media platform. You can target specific group of people who follow wanderlust hashtags or people who love travelling etc.. So it’s more like investing in ads where your audiences are.
Get in touch
Based on what you have read above, you might have tonnes of questions and an odd number of confusions about “where to start” “how this will be helpful in the long run”. Well UTDS Optimal Choice is always there to help you streamline your idea and give you preferred options. We are UTDS Optimal Choice, a Google Partner in Tirana, Albania. We offer full design, build and marketing services to our clients. Working with customers of all sizes across the United Kingdom and the United States. Get in touch with us at contact@utds.al
