COVID-19 changed the face of hospitality marketing; rather than showcase their accommodation and dining deals, hoteliers highlighted their hygiene protocols to assure them guests that their premises were safe. From accommodation providers, they assumed the role of instructors; educating guests about their latest safety measures through email marketing, social media and content marketing.
Aeijaz Sodawala, CEO of eZee Technosys tells Vinita Bhatia how using the constantly evolving opportunities like social media, content marketing and influencers, they can attract user attention and target a wider audience.
While content marketing requires planning and analysis to establish an emotional connection with the guests, they can use the equally effective influencer and email marketing.
92% respondents of the 2020 Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report found influencer marketing highly effective. How can influencers help hoteliers?
Influencer marketing is relatively cost-effective and offers substantial benefits. Influencers have the power to impact purchasing decisions through their authority, knowledge, position and relationship with people. Their target audience depends on their expertise in a particular industry.
For instance, travellers and gourmands rely on bloggers’ experiences and trust their recommendations. Hotels offer the latetr perks, like exclusive stays and food, and in turn, they review the property and post videos, which attracts their audience to visit it. This is a win-win for hospitality businesses, influencers and customers.
Travellers and gourmands rely on experiences of influencers and trust their recommendations.
What criteria should hoteliers have while choosing influencers to ensure that the brand ethos is uncompromised?Â
Influencer marketing has moved ahead of mere photographs; they focus on long-term content, how-to videos, demos and photo stories and more. Making a series of social media posts is ideal rather than stopping at just one.
While selecting an influencer, assessing whether they serve the same guest segment as the property is vital. Next is their reach on various social platforms. Moreover, one can examine their pattern of content creation, guest personas they apply, how often they post, etc. Once found suitable, hoteliers can connect with them to plan property promotion.
Furthermore, brands should promote content created by the influencer to reach more customers. They should help their influencer partners with campaign-specific goals and be a part of their content planning phase to ensure inclusivity, transparency and accuracy of brand details.
How can hoteliers use branded videos as an effective marketing method to promote their brand, while highlighting the ‘ins and outs’ of their business operations?Â
Videos have higher engagement than images and textual content. YouTube marketing is the king of targeting significant traffic as well as potential guests. In-motion videos of a hotel are more likely to attract guests than still pictures.
Further, hotels can publish this on their social channels’ cover or profile photos. This helps guests understand minute details about their property better, including its ambience, facilities and location, before even visiting it. This online business promotion could result in a hike in bookings and enhanced conversion rate.
At the same time, low-quality visuals and poor videos can disillusion the audience. Hotels also need to factor the added overheads of video making and editing. Zostel is one hostel chain that has figured and implemented video marketing well to engage its customers and attract a new user base online. Â
Do ‘behind the scenes’ (BTS) sneak-peeks of restaurants or hotels help customers better appreciate the precautionary measures taken by brands, encouraging them to increase their purchases?Â
BTS are often short, crisp videos of activities or events. For the hospitality industry, it is a great way to influence guest purchase decisions. Showing their precautionary measures, compliance of government guidelines and hygiene practices an increase the trust of guests planning their visit to the property. In fact, this trend, which started before the pandemic, is growing rapidly now.
How can hoteliers communicate their hotel’s hygiene and safety efforts not as a selling point for customers but as part of their DNA?
Showcasing their COVID-19 safety readiness has become more of a necessity than a promotional effort. Hotels chains use use technologies like GoSTOPS, Evolve Back, City Nites and Aquastar to share thorough COVID-19 updates on their websites.
Since guests are keen to gather all the information related to their safety, hotels can oblige by featuring comprehensive infographics that depict on-premise compliance to healthcare protocols. Virtual reality is an emerging technology that allows hotels to offer free guided or virtual tours of the property. Hoteliers can utilize it opportunity to engage with guests most effectively. With VR, guests can examine safety standards and experience their planned stay from their home.
How can adopting these technologies help hoteliers reach a wider customer base with more flexibility and also shift quickly according to marketplace changes?
Digital customer engagement is inevitable today. Technology infrastructure is mandatory in the hospitality businesses and will help hoteliers stay competitive, retain their customers and target prospective guests.
Today, end-to-end hotel operations are carried out via smart, interactive applications. Even for the unanticipated market disruptions, technology will empower accommodation units to adapt to new demands, serve customers effectively and continue doing business.
