The Dont's of online hotel marketing

The Dont’s of Online Hotel Marketing


If you are going to enter the world of online hotel marketing, you need to know what is good and what isn’t. Here at Boostly, we’ve come up with 8 things NOT to do when marketing your company online.

1. Don’t reply to reviews instantly

No one likes getting negative reviews, but don’t respond there and then or let yourself get angry. It’s best not to reply to reviews straight away when you are emotional. Take the time to reach out to the customer and even phone them if you have their details. This personal approach is likelier to succeed. Words can be misinterpreted when you can’t hear the writer's tone of voice, so it’s always best to speak to the complainer instead of just sitting behind your computer. We've covered this in more detail here.

Tip: Don’t leave a HUGE response – keep your reply short and sweet.

 

 

2. Don’t oversell on social media

The Dont's of online hotel marketing
Nobody signs into social media to be sold to, so don’t use it to hard-sell your hotel. Social media is for being relaxed, sociable, and human. Adopt the 80/20 rule when posting on Facebook. If you go for a more relaxed approach, customers won’t even notice that you're advertising.

 

 

3. Don’t purchase a mailing list

You should build your mailing list organically, using competitions, adverts, and post-sale follow-up emails to encourage people to subscribe. Most companies used for e-shots, such as MailChimp, actually prohibit sending emails to purchased lists. So don’t purchase mailing lists from sketchy 30-million-subscriber opt-in emails or from other companies’ “third party” special offers.

 

 

4. Everything isn’t always free

The Dont's of online hotel marketing
Did you know that only 5% of your followers will actually see your Facebook page? You have to pay for more reach, so you need to figure out how much each customer is worth and spend that on a Facebook campaign. There has been a decline in organic Facebook reach due to there being too much content in people’s newsfeeds. Worse, Facebook only shows the content they think will interest the person viewing it rather than all content. That slice of preferred posts won't always include your business's updates. You have to spend money to make money.

 

 

5. Be flexible

You can’t keep trying something that worked once a long time ago. Be flexible and continually modify your strategy. Check out the competition and social media management trends, but don’t copy their ideas, just adopt their techniques. When do they post? What do they post? How often do they post?

 

 

6. Don’t forget to have a strategy

It’s a huge mistake to have no strategy when marketing digitally. You need to learn all the tactics and techniques of the online world in order to make the most of it when promoting your hotel. A strategy gives you a goal and a plan for reaching it.

 

7. Don’t ignore your audience

The Dont's of online hotel marketing
Not only is it bad customer service to ignore your audience on social media, but it's bad marketing, too. If people comment on one of your posts or mention you in one of theirs, it’s always a good idea to reply and let them know that their custom is appreciated.

 

 

8. Quality not quantity

Social media marketing is time-consuming, so it is a good idea to only sign up for the social media sites that you are going to use.  Unless you have a team of people to update each platform on a regular basis, you probably won’t have time for more than a handful of the main forms of social media, for example, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Nothing looks worse to a potential customer than a social media account that hasn’t been updated recently. It looks better to have excellent content on a few sites than rubbish content on loads of sites. Why not consider using IFTTT to manage your social media posts? We have more information on IFTTT here.

 

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