7 Hotel Marketing Solutions to Get Your Customers Coming Back

The hotel industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that is incredibly competitive. With new players in the hospitality industry like Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeToGo, you need to prioritize effective and value-driven marketing activities.

Additionally, with more and more competitors claiming larger portions of the market, it’s important to deploy marketing that nurtures first-time visitors into lifelong customers. The fact is, building a raving following of loyal customers is a quick way to achieve major brand recognition. It’s how some of the largest multinational hotels and resorts have succeeded for so long – nurturing customers into lifelong brand advocates!

Does your hotel or resort have what it takes to create a brand worth remembering? In our experience as an industry-leading text marketing provider, we know what works and what doesn’t when it comes to marketing. To maximize your marketing effectiveness and create a loyal following of high-value customers, check out these top hotel marketing solutions.

7 Hotel Marketing Solutions to Build Customer Loyalty

The following marketing strategies are designed to help you build a following of loyal customers. Leverage our expertise to build highly effective marketing campaigns.

1. Email Marketing Platform

Email marketing is a high-ROI strategy that hotels should be leveraging. With the right planning, you can start running effective campaigns quickly. Email campaigns are used at every stage of your guest’s lifecycle. You can nurture them from new guest to loyal customer easily with targeted emails.

1. Before Customers Book: You can send emails to help nurture guests and convince them that your hotel is the right one for them.
2. After Customers Book: You can send emails that include information related to check-in times, amenities, and more.
3. During the Stay: You can recommend local attractions and events, remind guests about on-site events at your hotel, and share information like where to find towels and when check-out times are.
4. After the Stay: Emails can help you gather reviews and feedback from your guests. You can also provide additional information about your loyalty program and encourage them to book their next stay with you.

2. TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel website. Featuring helpful travel information and reviews, TripAdvisor is a one-stop for first-time flyers and seasoned travelers alike. The company has amassed over 600 million reviews from nearly 50 countries and in dozens of different languages.

A positive listing can easily encourage more guests to choose your hotel. According to TripAdvisor, 93% of hoteliers said that online traveler reviews are important for the future of their business. TripAdvisor’s site ranks your hotel listing by popularity. Your ranking is based on the quality, quantity, recency, and consistency of your reviews.

1. Quality: The average score that guests give your hotel.
2. Quantity: Refers to the number of reviews that you receive.
3. Recency: When you received your most recent reviews.
4. Consistency: Reflects business performance relative to others in its location.

To encourage positive reviews, try incentivizing guests. For example, include quick links to your TripAdvisor page in your email signature. Share positive reviews on social media and ask followers to leave their own feedback.

3. Text Marketing Platform

Our internal studies reveal that recipients read 98% of messages sent from our platform — compared to 21% of emails. Other research shows that people read 90% of text messages within three minutes of receipt.

Text messages can be used to share offers and last-minute deals with your guests as well as keep them engaged with your hotel between visits. Being able to stay in frequent, valuable, communication with your guests after they leave is crucial if you want to turn them from one-visit guests into loyal, lifelong customers.

Many different mobile marketing platforms promise to make it easy for your guests to communicate using mobile-friendly websites or apps for Android and iPhones. However, none of those are as simple as text messages. Guests can communicate with you using technology that they already have — their phones.

By using technology your guests are comfortable with, you make it easy for them to stay up-to-date on the latest promotions and events happening at your hotel. Text messaging allows you to stay top-of-mind and helps encourage repeat business from loyal customers.

4. Text Polls

Polls are an easy way to develop an effective and affordable strategy for generating customer engagement, building brand awareness, and staying connected with guests after they leave. Text message marketing is an incredibly effective way to conduct your customer satisfaction polls. To get started, you simply:

1. Build your survey questions.
2. Send out a text message to your guests inviting them to participate.
3. Wait for their responses.

Your guests don’t need any special devices or software to participate. They can easily respond to the messages they receive, and our software will collect their responses in a way that’s easy for you to review.

5. Text-To-Landline

Text messaging can be used to allow your guests to connect with your staff quickly.

Instead of having to figure out the right extension and use the outdated in-room phone to call the front desk, guests can use their mobile phones to send a message. They can conveniently do things like:

• Order room service or place orders with on-site restaurants.
• Request services like extra towels, wakeup calls, or late checkouts.
• Alert the valets when they need their car.
• Register for special extras like spa appointments, events, or other on-site activities.

You can receive these text messages using your existing business number, so guests don’t have to memorize a new number. Text-to-Landline doesn’t require you to make any changes to your existing voice service. You will simply login to your portal at EZ Texting to view and respond to your messages.

6. Social Marketing Solution

Creating a social presence is a great way to make yourself known online. You can put the right content out, at the right time, and in the right place with a strategic plan for social marketing.

However, you still need to get your guests to follow you. The simplest way to start a social relationship with your guests is to give them an incentive like a freebie or hotel swag if they follow you on Facebook or Instagram when they check in or out.

As you’re crafting your strategy, keep one thing in mind — guests aren’t simply looking for a place to stay. They are looking for an experience. Share photos and posts that help them visualize their stay with you.

7. Loyalty Programs

Travelers have a wide selection of options in this crowded hospitality market. With so many competitors, you not only have to create a satisfactory experience, but you also have to build loyalty, so they keep coming back.

When a customer is loyal to you, they are more likely to choose your hotel over all others. To craft a successful loyalty program:

• Ensure that the perks you’re offering are valuable to your guests.
• Include offerings that help to build a successful customer experience — such as a free night stay after they’ve booked a certain number of visits.
• Consider offering additional gifts on their loyalty anniversary.

Loyalty perks don’t have to be expensive for your hotel, they just need to make your guests feel like a VIP.

Build Your Hotel's Text Marketing Playbook

Hotels are squarely-situated in one of the most competitive industries around. You need to be able to find marketing campaigns that work, build a playbook, and deliver varied and effective campaigns again and again.

We’ve helped over 210,000 customers win big results with their text message marketing using the strategies found in our Text Marketing Playbook for Hotels and Resorts. Inside, you’ll find ready-to-go templates that help you get more reservations and boost guest experience. Download your copy today.

Photo: Adobe Stock/Kadmy