A Complete Guide to Marketing Strategy for Hotel

Want to Learn More About Hotel Marketing Strategies? Marketing plays a crucial role in helping hotels to maximise bookings and revenue. It is the main way in which those in the hotel industry are able to reach out to potential customers, conveying their unique selling proposition and brand values.

Marketing plays a crucial role in helping hotels to maximise bookings and revenue. It is the main way in which those in the hotel industry are able to reach out to potential customers, conveying their unique selling proposition and brand values.

Marking on price is one of the most powerful of all hotel marketing strategies. The simple idea is that you are offering your guests a ‘deal’, for the cost of the room, a room they probably cannot afford. This could be a bargain basement room or a luxurious room, the price difference will be minimal. The trick is to offer this deal to your guests on a frequent basis, so that they become comfortable with the fact that sometimes you can offer a great deal – and therefore they are also comfortable with the fact that the hotel frequently offers great deals.

If you are running out of room in the budget you are using to advertise in the travel sections of national newspapers, don’t just crank up the rate. Find an outlet which is more suitable for the hotel you are marketing. The Readers Digest Travel section is one example, where luxury hotels can advertise for a reasonable marketing budget. Subterranean (beneath the ground) advertising is another popular option, where many hotels within the same brand will advertise. The unusual sometimes helps even more.

The key to hotel marketing is to regularly and consistently advertise with as many outlets as possible. This not only helps to keep your hotel top of mind to potential bookers, it also helps to develop new and repeat customers over time as well as encourage word-of-mouth referrals. Marketing strategies are traditionally split into several types, and it is best for hotels to use more than one marketing strategy at the same time, so as to increase the chances for booking over a period of time. Here are some examples of hotel marketing strategies.

Barly Bird Pricing

Early bird pricing is an easy and effective way to book more guests. The concept is fairly simple, firstly you try and establish a regular price at which you would like to see customers to stay. If they book this price you are quite happy, however if they book the full rate you do not want them there. The hotel can offer a discount on a promotional rate for a particular time of the year, for instance Christmas time, offering a discounted rate between a specific minimum and maximum rate.

One of the things you should consider when defining a price you would be happy for customers to stay is to not over-price your rooms. For instance if you are offering just the price of the room you are trying to avoid the idea that they will have to make extra effort to stay there.

Not only is early bird pricing a very simple, effective way of marketing your hotel, it is also good for your business’s finances. If people book a discounted rate, their hospitality will ultimately cost less to house them as they are bringing their customers with them. This is a very solid in-house factor you can pull on to make your hotel more profitable.

Consider the luxuries of early bird pricing when you are marketing to your customers – surely your customers are not going to ask for a discounted rate for a hotel room. They have the travel sections of the Sunday paper, along with hundreds of other outlets to choose from. You are simply too good to be true.

Breakfast

A lot of hotels offer what is known as Full English breakfasts. The idea is that you offer a full breakfast – to include all of the normal breakfast ingredients such as fruit, cereals, breads, juices, pastry etc. The main difference you can offer by simply including a continental breakfast is that you are including western breakfasts as well as the standard breakfast items.

Conversely, if you can offer an early breakfast you can offer a discounted rate for those who require to leave the hotel earlier than normal. Many people will be delighted if they are offered a discount off the normal rate for their hotel room – and will see the offer as a great one. It is also an effective way of spreading word-of-mouth referrals about your hotel.

An example of the power of early breakfast is when you ask for their full name. If your hotel is classy and has been catered well by your staff, you can ask for their full name, when they book the room online. This will gain you a new client (and make their stay in the hotel more enjoyable), as they will feel as if they are important to you.

Breakfast for lunch

Many hotels offer a reduced rate for those lunching in their hotel – in the same way that an early breakfast can be offered for those leaving earlier. If you booklet the room for breakfast at break-neck speed and offer a reduced rate only at breakfast time, your customers will begin to have doubts as to their booking.

One way to gain a bite to eat is to offer a healthy tasting buffet breakfast in place of a full breakfast. This makes your guests feel special – and offers them something to eat before they leave to go out on the town. What better way is there for your customers to leave the hotel than a happy one, with a full stomach!

In-house and In-room food

An in-house chef provides an excellent way to increase the quality of the food you offer your customers. If you want your food to be excellent, it is best to focus on your chef, rather than waiters. Featured in the hotel brochure and happy when it is mentioned in conversation, this will make you appear exceptional and will gain you the respect of your customers – many of whom will be thinking to themselves, “If they can afford their food, they must be doing something right.”

The same is true of your room facilities. Do not be afraid of a little luxury like an in-room t.v. or an in-house hairdresser, when you know they will bring with them a degree of comfort and luxury.

The next time you are in a hotel that offers an early bird, a discounted rate for lunch or a full English breakfast for breakfast, try and see how it is being advertised – is it the best example of a hotel marketing strategy you have ever seen? Maybe yours is the best – now you can share your hotel marketing strategy.

As you can see from the above, hotel marketing is very important – and if you don’t have a hotel marketing strategy or a promotional code to use for your own hotel, you need to have one quickly!

A hotel marketing strategy can take a large amount of time to formulate – but this can be done in a small amount of time if you have everything ready before you begin.

It makes the most sense to have a hotel marketing strategy immediately you have undergone a little property research and see how your business will fare.

Remember that your main intention in property investment is to make your hotel more profitable. Sure, your operation of your hotel will not just be on budget – but you will be able to charge more, increase occupancy and make more money off you hotel than you ever thought possible.

A Successful Hotel Marketing Strategy

Market your hotel

Marketing is a little like marketing your home. You are going to put a lot of effort and time into it so that it will look its best – so why not do cost effective things to make it look its best?

Marketing your hotel is going to cost you by way of time and money. You ideally want to be careful not to overspend, but you probably want to be more than willing to invest money into your marketing strategy so that it does not run out of steam.

What Makes a Hotel Entertainment Marketing Strategy Work Well

If you are going to market your hotel through your local nightclub or entertainment venue, then you are going to have to look into how much you are going to charge your customers per night. I can help you determine this as I am a well versed in pricing game.