Remember the last time you picked up a flyer or a travel brochure to plan a trip? Does it seem like a distant memory?
Let’s face it – these outdated ways for holiday planning or even booking a meal at a city hotel have few takers. Contemporary guests prefer going online to discover their travel, stay, entertainment or dining inspiration and recommendations. Hotel companies are, therefore, doing everything they can to stand out from the crowded milieu and engage users throughout their online journey.
This is where user-generated content or UGC becomes a game changer. Here, people create text, videos, images and reviews about the brand and its offering, rather than the other way around. The latter can then share this content on their social media accounts, website and other marketing channels. It has higher perceived trust value, since this is generated by users who have enjoyed the services.
SPEAKING THE GUESTS’ LINGO
Guests today expect more than just a good nights’ sleep or meal at a hotel; they seek an experience. Hospitality brands are progressively marketing their ability to provide an enlivened and heightened experience in addition to factors like price, and convenience, using content as the lynchpin.
The right content marketing strategies can help hotel companies build long-term relationships with their
guests and communities, generate leads and boost sales. According to Megha Garg, Marketing and Communications Manager at DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Bangalore, successful content marketing depends on providing valuable assets, like blogs, posts, videos or reviews, which informs and entertains.
Secondly, it is important to deliver it consistently across various marketing channels to attract and retain customers. This establishes reliability and fosters engagement. While on the face of it, it might look like an easy task, many hotel brands have failed in their visibility management attempts.
A recent Semrush survey of 1,500 organisations found that while 85% had a content marketing strategy, just over 10% rated it as excellent.
Garg blamed this letdown on excessive promotional messaging. “Unfortunately, most hotels fail to understand that good content should be light on the sales pitch. An occasional outreach to promote new offerings or amenities is better appreciated,” she pointed out.
Effective content marketing can increase marketing leads, both in quantity and quality, yielding six times more results than sponsored ads or other paid digital media methods. However, its value is often misplaced or viewed as of secondary importance.
According to Garg, brands should refrain from leveraging as a sales platform. This concept should be applied to all types of content, especially in the early stages of the customer journey. She advised that a sales pitch should come much later when a customer’s trust is gained and a positive brand reputation is established with them. This strategy also helps grow audience and reach new leads.
THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS
Over the past few years, tourist travel behaviour and expectation has tremendously changed. In the midst of fierce competition, there are different mediums to deliver content and hotels may want to rethink how to get the most out of it.
Many companies presume that since content marketing strategies often have positive fallout, it will result in increased responses. They often reshuffle their marketing mix, positioning this above traditional activities.
When they do not get the desired RoI, the blame falls squarely on this concept, which Garg stated is most
unfortunate. Instead, she believed that they should evaluate the best option keeping prevailing market situations in perspective.
“The purpose of marketing has always been to generate revenue by influencing consumers to take action.
Until now, marketers would go for an omnichannel approach that enabled a brand to leverage the unique benefits of content and traditional marketing. However, following the pandemic, the former has become the frontrunner, since it is more effective, easier to accomplish and more reasonably priced,” she explained.
In short, content marketing has to be distinctive from content advertising. While these concepts are constantly evolving, marketers need to understand that all advertising strategies technically fall under content marketing, but it is not the other way round.
Hotels use content to constantly engage with their guests, but they need to do it without the pretext of selling. Talking about her hotel, “We create content on our channels that allow our guests to read, comment, share, thereby, promising more reach, and engagement compared to other native promotional methods,” Garg stated.
GIVE AND TAKE
Social media is an engagement platform that always users to communicate with brands and vice versa. Unfortunately, most hotel companies approach it with the precepts of traditional marketing strategies, which is one-way communication oriented.
Of course, conventional marketing still works with some audience, especially the older demography and local crowd to an extent. However, if companies want to reach out to a larger group of people with cost-effective messaging, content marketing remains a safer bet.
Garg illustrated this point with the Virtual Cake Mixing Ceremony hosted by DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Bangalore last November. Keeping in mind that all celebrations had to conform to norms of smaller gatherings and socially distancing protocols, the hotel designed a virtual concept to usher in its Christmas festivities.
It sent food enthusiasts and influencers in the city a cake mixing kit well ahead of the event, which contained massive varieties of candied fruits, assorted nuts, and all alcoholic beverages with a glass jar to mix it all up. The fruit soaking ceremony was organised online amidst great cheer and fervour.
Post the virtual event, the hotel brought back the mixing jars from the bloggers’ homes and emptied it into large containers. The Executive Chef baked batches of plum cake, which was delivered to these digital influencers along with a Christmas Hamper in December.
The local food enthusiasts received this online event with great enthusiasm and promoted it extensively across their social media channels. DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Bangalore further shared and cross-promoted their content on its channels. This collaboration was a win-win for both, the hotel and influencers, underscoring how intelligent content marketing has been more than just a sales pitch.
BUILDING A FRAMEWORK
Words play a vital role in conveying any messaging and content marketing is no exception. Marketers need to construct a framework for customer engagement that can also build relationships while using this
approach.
The first step towards creating a robust content strategy is keeping the target audience at front and center
always. Upon achieving this, they should direct all their efforts in building the customer’s trust that the content is designed exclusively for them. “By determining the brand’s story and producing information that appeals to and interests users, marketers can see soon get an idea how efficiently their audience is responding on online platforms. This is will be evident by the way they share, re-post, or engage with, the content. Building this base is key to developing meaningful digital relationships,” Garg pointed out.
While promoting the brand is important, listening to customers is equally crucial for any business to thrive in the long run. Having conversations with guests online via comments or private messaging, asking for their feedback and addressing their concerns goes a long way in building a healthy connection with them.
Normally, content marketing can take up to six months to show results. However, the good news is that once this juggernaut begins, it has a persistent, and compounding, rate of return. In short, the more eye-catching and heart warming content curated and the longer it exists, the higher the chances of returns will be.
