Every hotel is different in some way, but how can you illustrate this to guests and potential guests? Well, the best strategy is to use content marketing. Through your content marketing strategy you can communicate with your audience and share with them engaging content about your hotel, the local area, nearby events and well, anything really.
It’s important that before you start churning out content, you have a solid content marketing strategy in place. Creating content is so much more than just writing something to fill up your website or blog. You need to use it to capture the attention of your audience and engage with consumers, making them see you as an important part of their holiday experience. So, instead of just writing articles for the sake of it, think of creative ways to inspire guests to stay with you, rather than with your competitors. You’ll want your content marketing strategy to extend to your hotel’s website copy, social media content and blog to ensure that your brand message is consistent across all channels and to make your content as transparent as possible for your consumers.
When you’re creating the copy for your website, you need to keep in mind that you’re not the only website a person will visit when they’re searching for a hotel. In fact, the average traveller visits 22 travel-related websites during the research and planning phase, according to GFK Global. With this in mind, you need to make sure that your website copy can grab the reader’s attention from the minute they land on your site. Images are still hugely important, but it’s the words that will really draw someone in and give them a sense of how you can accommodate their holiday needs and really add to their experience.
So before you start writing, what tone do you want to use? Are you targeting millennials or families? Your target audience should really make a difference to how you communicate. If you are only trying to attract younger visitors, then communicate with them in a way that they’ll respond to.
The top mistake that hotels make when creating their copy is to sound too generic, which can then come across as very robot-like. This makes it hard for readers to engage with what is written and will put them off. Another common mistake that hotels can often make is to provide vague information in their copy which does not provide any value to the reader. You want to keep your copy clear and descriptive, so try to include your hotel’s unique selling points and try to describe the experience that guests can have if they book with you. Now that you’ve established a tone for the content you create and written the bulk of your copy for your website, you need to think about how you will develop this strategy for your social media and your blog. Much of the content that you’ve already written can be used for social media, you just need to develop a strategy to deliver it.
Think about the questions that potential customers might ask and create posts that can answer these queries. Where can customers park nearby? Do you offer free breakfast? Does your hotel have WiFi? By making this information readily available, customers will be more informed and will therefore feel more confident when making a booking.
Social media is often daunting at first, so create a content calendar to keep it organised. Plan one month ahead what content you’re going to deliver, and then you can add to it any news or information that is relevant on a day-to-day basis.Make sure that you’re including posts about local news and events that will be relevant to guests too, as this is the type of information that can really add to their stay.Most of your content will go on your blog, which can really boost your website traffic if carefully managed. If you don’t know where to start with establishing your hotel’s blog, gather a list of topics that you think might interest potential guests. The list can include topics relating to big events in the area like festivals, concerts and sporting events, as well as local restaurants and attractions.
Remember that your hotel blog isn’t just competing with other hotels who are blogging, but it is also competing against travel blogs, food blogs and other hospitality related blog sites. You want to stand out, so you need to make sure that your content is valuable and published on a regular basis. So, now it’s time to get cracking with creating your content strategy. Remember who your audience is and try to be creative. Then make sure you track engagement so that you can see what’s working and what’s not. Happy writing!
