We entered the digital era many years ago, but the hospitality industry realised the magnanimity of digital marketing in the last decade. Since then, almost every hotel business is investing big in digital marketing to gain a competitive edge. And today, digital marketing is set to transform the hotel industry by changing the dynamics of revenue management, customer behaviour, and profitability.
Let’s delve a little deeper in understanding how digital marketing is impacting the hotel industry and how you can use this understanding to grow your hotel business:
1. Data-Driven Reporting
Customers leave a trail of data the moment they book the hotel to the moment they check out. So, the hotel industry eventually collects an enviable volume and variety of data over time that gives actionable insights.
Big Data is now a part of every digital marketing strategy, the insights of which can be used to tackle a new market segment, give customers a personalised experience, or optimise the room charges.
2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning
AI can extremely personalise your marketing efforts. And that’s what the hotel industry needs – customer personalisation. With the help of AI, you can predict what your customer likes and wants. That gives you enough power to influence and persuade the customer to use your services.
AI uses automated analytical algorithms to gather information about the customer in real-time and analyses it to provide services and offers tailored to customers’ preferences.
The whole idea of marketing is to attract and retain customers and AI can do that job extremely well. The best part of AI is that it can understand the human context and use algorithms to enhance capabilities by either updating or improving itself. Machine learning is just an advanced version of AI.
3. Massive Use of Social Media
Social media is a place where people share and discuss their vacation memories. And that’s exactly the place hotels should be at. In this current digital age, your social media marketing strategy should aim at users across all social networking channels including Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
4. Personalised Customer Experience
The sure-fire way to win a customer is to leverage data to personalise the experience for them. Some of the most effective personalisation methods are:
- Personalising marketing messages by automating your email messages,
- Capturing and leveraging social network data by instituting social logins, and
- Using whatever information is available such as booking date, preferences, check-in information, etc., to create a customised experience onsite.
The more personalisation in the customer’s experience, the more effective will be your marketing efforts.
5. Retargeting the Customers
Many times, customers abandon the booking funnel midway. You can try to get their attention back by retargeting them. Catch up with them on other online marketing channels through paid search ads, prompts and more.
Wrap up
The hotel industry is growing, and the brands that invest in digital marketing will have a competitive advantage. The future of digital marketing for the hotel industry is exciting. If you don’t make digital marketing an indispensable part of the marketing strategy in the current technology era, you are at the risk of losing out to the competition.
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