Top reasons for hospitality industry to start online marketing

Hospitality industry is a challenging and competitive industry where only the best survive. Sources reveal that more than 42% of the website traffic and close to 16% of the hotel booking were done through mobile devices in the first half of 2014. We live in a multi-device world where people are connected even while on the move. They browse and buy online from at any time and from anywhere. Therefore, hoteliers need to have a digital marketing team who can roll out optimal browsing experience regardless of the device a consumer uses.

Capture and enhance mobile traffic- People search anytime and anywhere using their smartphones or similar mobile devices. Statistics reveal that close to 80% of the local searches using mobile devices are converted into sales. Therefore, you need to choose an online market strategy that would entice the customers to reserve a table or book a room. Apart from that the search engine giant, Google has rolled out a strategy where mobile-friendly websites are ranked higher in the Search Engine Rank Page (SERP).

Direct customer engagement - Before a customer books a hotel, he/she does a lot of research on various channels through multiple devices, desktop or smartphones. As per the statistics of Google, an average length in days that a customer takes before he finalizes on a purchase is 24 days and the number of times he visits the concerned website before closing on his purchase is 21.6 days. A hotelier should have a foolproof online marketing strategy in place. That is he must be aware that it’s not possible to make a conversion with just a single website visit or simply using only type of marketing initiative. To reach out to the potential customers, the online marketers should use multiple channels such as SEO, email marketing, social media and so on, to promote a campaign.

Drive traffic to corporate website- Researches reveal that websites have to be search engine optimized as they are responsible for bringing in 50% of the traffic. A wise hotelier would include SEM and SEO strategies as a part of their online marketing strategy and allocate budget for the same. Marketing strategy should include an interactive Facebook business page to communicate with the customers and potential customers directly. Corporate updates such as promotional packages or off-season discounts should be uploaded on the Facebook page, so it reaches the customers quickly and directly. This creates brand awareness and invokes certain level of curiosity in the customers that makes them want to visit the website of the hotel.

To create better relationship with the customers- When a customer reserves a table or books a room for his stay, the marketing team should use that opportunity to build customer relationship. The digital marketing team should start of by sending a follow-up email thanking the customer for using their service. Regularly updating the customer with special and personalized offers through email marketing help to build a relationship and in the long run retain them too. Invite them to submit reviews on the hotel website to make them final that their opinions are valuable.

It is a smart move for the hospitality industry to leverage online marketing to attract and retain the contemporary customer.

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