You go the extra mile to treat your guests during their stay at your hotel or self-catering property. Those who stay wake feeling refreshed, love exploring nearby sites and enjoy their stay. But you feel you could be doing more to increase your bookings.
Thankfully there are various ways you can market your guest experience, celebrate your USPs and highlight the little details that make yours a ‘must-return’ property.
Keen to grow your sales and welcome new guests? Great! Let’s check out five ways to attract more check-ins via digital and printed content.
1. A Welcoming Website
Sell your guest experience with a well-written website. Here you can entice guests on a global scale with welcoming words. Structure them in sections such as your homepage, about page and room description pages. By widening the potential pool of customers beyond the reach of local press or word of mouth, you can appeal to international tourists too. However, unlike OTAs, third-party accommodation websites or comparison sites, you’ll have full control over the written content shown.
That being said, websites today need to earn their keep. They require a consistent tone of voice that perfectly reflects your brand and evokes the feeling when staying at your hotel or property. Indeed, SEO and keyword research will help your website reach more potential customers in the first place. Ensuring that your website not only reads well but works hard for your business.
2. Behind the Scenes Blog Posts
Ooh, those homely touches that make your rooms or property stand out. From comfy beds and fresh flowers to the tasteful décor, you know your business will leave guests with fond memories. Maybe your property is located in an enviable position for visitors to the area too. These attractive selling points may seem obvious to you, but those unfamiliar with your accommodation will probably be unaware of what makes your business special.
A blog helps achieve two vital marketing tasks. Firstly, it offers you a way to communicate regularly with potential (and past) guests, letting them know of promotional offers, nearby events and onsite facilities. Secondly, a blog is ‘food’ for search engines, where keywords, page meta descriptions and other search engine optimisation techniques help to boost your site’s ranking. In other words, your website can appear higher in [insert preferred search engine’s] results.
Ending with a compelling call to action where readers learn how to contact you (or click a link to book directly) is another gentle ‘nudge’ to choose your business over the competition.
3. Simply Social Media Posts
Once you have your website in place with several engaging and information-rich blogs, being active on social media helps to drive further traffic to your website. With 60% of people using social media to choose their travel destination, it's still not too late to adopt this ever-growing marketing method. You could even argue it’s vital.
Daily posting on social media platforms keeps your hospitality business at the forefront of potential guests’ minds. Possible topics include snapshots with inviting descriptions/captions of your accommodation, local area guides or glowing reviews from past holidaymakers. Just remember to add your brand’s personality in your posts.
4. Conversational Newsletters
Newsletters are a form of email that people willingly sign up to receive. This makes them particularly valuable when attracting new and repeat bookings as they’ve already shown an interest in your hospitality business. They can be personalised with the person’s name which helps to create a feeling of a 1-2-1 conversation, helping to move them further down the sales funnel.
Here, you can tempt potential tourists or those travelling for business with links to relevant blogs. You can go behind the scenes and discuss upcoming promotions, new facilities, press coverage and upcoming onsite or local events, keeping subscribers in the loop.
Newsletters make great business sense too. One New York Times report highlighted how every $1 spent on email marketing (which includes newsletters) saw an ROI of $38.
5. Beautifully Written Brochures and Welcome Packs
Ever unpacked in a new city or rural idyll and wondered ‘what to do next’? This is where a professionally written welcome pack (or in-room brochure) can steer them in the direction of local restaurants and shops.
Offering an extra layer of customer service, these printed items are especially appreciated in non-hotel settings where staff are usually offsite. Solo travellers, families and couples all enjoy having an overview of what’s on their doorstep, with room here to highlight homely extras such as board games, cooking utensils and extra blankets.
Informative and engaging, a printed brochure or welcome pack is a nice finishing touch that guests will remember.
Compelling Content that Says ‘Book Me’
The ideas outlined above show the possibilities for hotel and self-catering accommodation marketing. An experienced copywriter can take these and other projects off your hands should you feel stuck or lack the time to produce this content personally.
Call +44 (0)7846979625 or email hello@wordorchard.co.uk to discover how our witty wordsmiths can help your hospitality business flourish.