Marketing - Hotello

3 best SEO practices to increase your property’s visibility

Posted on 14 January 202129 August 2022 by Nicolas Audiffren

Moreover, keep in mind that your website’s position takes into consideration several criterias, defined by the algorithm and filters of the search engine. It also varies depending on the context and the nature of the search. For example, search engines will rate the accessibility of your site, if your website’s map is simple and clear and if the navigation is fast and logical. Furthermore, it will take into consideration the relevance of the information by measuring the user’s experience, especially if your website’s pages provide answers to searches made by Internet users. Finally, the loading speed of your website’s pages and its responsiveness are two elements to consider to improve your user experience.

Optimize your website

The first good SEO practice is to optimize your property’s website in order to make it more responsive. In other words, its design must support different mobile devices such as computers, phones and tablets, whether it’s an Apple or Android, as well as different web browsers. Being web responsive means ensuring that texts and images resize and adapt to the device used and that call to actions buttons are easily clickable. Thus, the more responsive your website is, the more it will facilitate the booking experience for travelers and will encourage them to finalize their online reservation.

Moreover, make sure your website pages load quickly to avoid Internet users leaving your website and that your bounce rate becomes too high. Bounce rate is an important marketing metric to analyze as it represents the percentage of visitors who arrive on your website and immediately leave it, without visiting another page. On average, the bounce rate is about 50%, but it depends on the analyzed sector.

We also advise you to keep URLs and HTML elements short and straight to the point to increase your website traffic. Thus, be sure to give a descriptive name to images and a description similar to the text alternative. In addition, keep in mind that updating titles, descriptions and meta descriptions of your pages, while integrating keywords, will increase the click rate of your results on Google and improve your SEO. These are elements that Googlebots read first and it helps them to better understand your website’s content.

It would be relevant to add internal links that would redirect visitors to other pages as well as external links that would take them to other websites. This will help increase your presence on search engines. Therefore, make sure not to redirect users to a 404 error page or to broken links as it could impact your user experience, cause you to lose potential bookings and affect your ranking on various search engines.

Improve your content

To improve your SEO and increase your visibility on search engines, you must offer attractive and unique content that meets Internet users’ expectations. Your content should be kept simple, clear and understandable if you want to catch the attention of visitors and keep them on your website as long as possible. For example, you can use good quality photos and videos that might answer travelers’ expectations. You can also write relevant and informative blog posts about what’s new at your hotel, current hospitality trends, travel tips and events related to your property. You can even write about your industry and your geographic area. Furthermore, it could be beneficial to optimize your content but remember that over-optimization can be penalized by Google.

Thus, it’s inevitable to focus on keywords. Try to put yourself in your potential customers’ shoes who search on Google. Target keywords or sentences associated and produce content related to those keywords. Moreover, take into account the search volume of your geographic area. This could help you know how many times a sentence is searched per month.

Using social media to share your website or blog’s content and promote your customer reviews will also be useful to improve your SEO. Google will evaluate your presence on these social platforms. Highlighting your customers’ opinions is an excellent way for you to gain Internet users’ trust, but also guarantee the quality of your services. Therefore, keep in mind that your average rating is not enough to appear at the top of organic results. You should also take into consideration several criteria such as the quantity of reviews, their publication date as well as the quality of your answers.

Use Google My Business

Having a Google My Business profile is essential if you want to increase your visibility on Google, boost your property’s SEO and work on your brand image. This is why it’s important to check the consistency of the information provided on Google My Business account. Make sure of the accuracy of your property’s name, its geographical location area, prices, contacts, the link to your website, services offered (free wifi, access for people with reduced mobility, vegetarian menu, valet service, pets friendly. ) make sure to include your property’s photos, which have to be classified by specific albums. Moreover, don’t forget to add your property’s description with the maximum number of relevant keywords in order to encourage potential customers to click on the call-to-action button “Visit the website”, “Call” or “Book now”. To increase your visibility, you can also create posts on Google My Business to inform travelers about various events, promotions, packages and activities related to your property and of course, respond to reviews left by customers whether they are positive or negative.

In conclusion, having a strong SEO or natural referencing strategy is beneficial for any property wishing to improve its visibility on search engines. Furthermore, having good SEO practices will also increase traffic to your website and will sometimes convert it into direct bookings.

Adapting your social media strategy in times of post-crisis

Posted on 28 September 202029 August 2022 by Laura Yee Kui Choi

strategie-reseaux-sociaux — Adapting your social media strategy in times of post-crisis

Perform a post-crisis assessment

Before planning any post-crisis strategy, it’s important to analyze your social platforms and determine which ones are the most active, what types of content were used during the crisis period, which actions were most appreciated and created most interactions. Take advantage of your powerful tools to consult activity reports, statistics, results obtained from the crisis period and compare it with the pre-crisis period’s ones. For example, you can analyze several performance indicators such as the number of followers, impressions, visits, interactions and the engagement rate.

Adjust your social media strategy

Getting back to normal can raise a lot of questions. This is why you need to identify new travelers’ needs and expectations in order to redefine your goals and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Start by reviewing all planned posts and campaigns to adapt your communication in the current context. Make a distinction between content that is reusable and content which is better not to use anymore.

Furthermore, remember that you need to stay authentic and true to your brand identity and values. Your social media platforms are a showcase for your property. You need to be honest, transparent and must help your audience feel listened and reassured. As a matter of fact, if you want to win your audience’s trust, they must feel that you fully understand their current situation. To do so, your goal should not focus only on your social media traffic but on the level of interaction and engagement. Be innovative, agile and show that you can adapt quickly. Before creating content, ask yourself the following questions: Is it relevant? Is it adapted to my audience’s reality? Also, favor the creation of positive, useful and original content such as videos, lives, Instagram videos, stories and IGTV. Only refer credible and reliable sources to avoid misinformation. For example, you can post a thank you video highlighting your employees, guests, partners and everyone else who helped you through the crisis as well as people who encouraged you to move forward. You can also use Instagram’s IGTV lives, stories and videos to announce your resumption of activity. Enhance all the measures set up and efforts made by your teams not only to ensure your guest’ safety and comfort, but also that they get an outstanding customer experience.

Using influencer marketing is also a good idea for your communication strategy. Of course, influencers are great brand ambassadors and they will help you reach a larger audience, gain more visibility and quickly generate more interactions.

Set up a social media management policy

Even if the situation changes quickly and it is impossible to predict a crisis, you can always prepare your emergency social media strategy. Furthermore, make sure you have an updated list of emergency contacts in the event of a crisis: those in charge of social media, guests, partners and staff members. Prepare useful technical sheets in order to connect to these platforms promptly and identify main guidelines that define the extent of the crisis, determine the property’s operations that are likely to be most affected, as well as a specific communication plan dedicated to all of your employees.

Keep in mind that a property should not remain silent and inactive during times of crisis and post-crisis. Even in hard times you should keep informing, reassuring and listening to your audience and your team.

Track your social media regularly

Tracking your social media regularly will help you spot quickly good or bad reviews as well as comments. It is important to be very responsive and answer every comment, otherwise it could damage your property’s reputation. Indeed, not giving an answer gives the impression that you are neglecting your audience. To do so, do not hesitate to thank a guest for leaving a positive review on your page or offer him a solution in case of a bad experience during their stay.

Also, it is interesting to take a look at the different types of audiences you have on your social media and analyze it with different indicators, such as age, socio-professional category, location in order to compare it with your hotel PMS’ data. If there is a big gap between your audience and your guest’s profiles, a campaign adjustment would be recommended. Indeed, if the content you published interests your audience, but does not generate bookings, you should adapt your message or your offers in order to persuade your followers to book a stay.

Social media are not just simple communication channels, they allow a property to communicate and strengthen long-term trust with its community, particularly by informing them, reassuring them and offering them support.

Even if crisis and post-crisis periods are not the most profitable, they force hoteliers to adapt to the current reality and innovate. Therefore, forget about making excessive publicity and take this opportunity to humanize your brand and favor a strong relationship with your audience!

5 best practices for email marketing

Posted on 14 September 20201 October 2021 by Laura Yee Kui Choi

Thereby, email marketing is a powerful tool if used wisely and could be 40 times more effective than content posted on social media. This marketing strategy helps you communicate with a large audience in a targeted way and therefore, initiates, maintains and consolidates your relationship with your guests and prospects.

Moreover, email marketing is very popular, since over 280 billion emails are sent everyday. To make it effective, your message must stand out by being relevant and personalized. Finally, email marketing is an inexpensive solution compared to the cost of marketing actions such as Google Adwords, social media campaigns or even content creation used to improve your organic positioning.

After defining your objectives, your targets and your performance i ndicators allowing you to measure the effectiveness of your strategy, here are some good practices to follow!

Focus on content

First of all, you can use your Hotel PMS to better segment your database by targeting and personalizing your emails. You also have the possibility to create contact lists based on several criterias such as the language, the city, the amount of stays spent in your property, the number of points accumulated, the type of stay, the price of stay, the package purchased and many more.

Furthermore, it’s very important to focus on quality rather than quantity. To keep your reader’s attention, your message should take less than 1 minute to read. To be effective, your main message should be included in the subject line and the main title of your email. It is proven that 47% of readers choose whether or not to open an email, depending on its subject. This is why it is important to avoid excessively long email subject, exceeding 60 characters. In the case where your open rate is not as high as you would like it to be, you should try to change your email subject, do an A/B test or try to change your approach by adding something more original.

The most important information should be prioritized and placed at the top of your email. Good content is short, punchy, straight to the point and should encourage your customers and prospects to make a reservation at your property. For example, you could put the highlight on exclusive promotions, attractive activities’ discounts or interesting statistics that would pique their curiosity. Try to personalize your content as much as possible so your readers will feel privileged and special. Additionally, you can include personalized tags, emojis or references to a previous stay depending on your target.

Your content must be as easy to read as possible: favor a line spacing of 1,5, use bullets or dashes. Your font should be standardized and secured “web safe”, such as Arial, Times New Romans, Georgia or Verdana. For a property, keep in mind that you need to make your readers dream, most importantly by using good quality pictures. Readers should be able to imagine themself at your property. The content and images should make them want to be there.

Finally, remember that even if you have good quality content, if your email subject doesn’t interest your readers, they won’t open your email and never have the opportunity to read your content.

Make call-to-action buttons visible

About call-to-action buttons, they are used to encourage readers to act, whether it’s to make a reservation on your website or get more information about your services. Therefore, favor a simple, clean and attractive design that will highlight your property. Also, your call-to-action button must be clear, visible, easily clickable and should stand out from your content. Overall, the recommended size of a call-to-action button is minimally 44 x 44 inches. Moreover, the position and the text are also strategic and should encourage your readers to click.

Keep in mind that these buttons have to be correctly redirected to your website or to your booking engine, depending on the result you want. Since it is a web experience, putting a phone number inside your call-to-action will disrupt the user experience and often distract your readers’ attention.

Choose colors that catch the eye

Your design reflects your property’s graphic identity. It also makes it easy for your readers to recognize you. If you want to pique your readers’ curiosity in seconds, it is better to choose simple, non-aggressive and contrasting colors for the text and your email’s background. Note that there are two types of contrast: the positive contrast, which consists of having a light color on a dark background, and the negative contrast, with dark color on a light background.

Use animated GIFs

Your readers love to see beautiful images so why not use them for your newsletters? Indeed, animated images, also called GIFs, bring life to your emails. It is very representative, expressive and has the power to transmit a message immediately. Thus, make sure that your GIFs are not too voluminous so it won’t impact your email’s loading. Furthermore, avoid using an image in the background, so it doesn’t saturate your newsletter. Choose a plain colour to help your readers focusing on your content.

Promote mobile optimization

Over 50% of people use their smartphones or tablets to read emails. Thus, 80% of those same people will no longer open newsletters if they are not displayed correctly on their mobile phones. This is why it is essential to test and ensure that your emails are responsive and adapt to different devices. We recommend your newsletter to be no larger than 600 pixels in width, so it can properly be displayed on different electronic devices.

Keep in mind that the easier it is to open and read your newsletters, the more engagement towards your database you will get.

Before sending your newsletter, make sure to test on different messaging services, since they don’t use the same deliverability options. These tests will allow you to verify if everything is optimized and will prevent your readers from encountering challenges in viewing your emails. Otherwise, they could end-up unsubscribing from your newsletters. Making tests will also allow you to check links and make sure that each of them redirects to the correct page. Plus, you can perform A/B testing to find out which email subject line would get a better open rate. Isn’t it fantastic?

Using influencer marketing to promote your property

Posted on 20 July 202029 August 2022 by Laura Yee Kui Choi

Therefore, their role is to promote your property but also to influence the travelers’ purchasing decision while remaining transparent as much as possible. However, always keep in mind the main goal of using this new promotion method : increasing your property’s reputation and the number of bookings. To do so, be sure to calculate the return on investment you could get before starting this process.

marketing-influence-hotellerie — Using influencer marketing to promote your property

Why including influencers in your digital marketing strategy?

To start with, there are different types of influencers: nano-influencers (less than 10K followers), micro-influencers (more than 10K followers), macro-influencers (more than 100K followers) and celebrities (over 500K followers). They are considered as true experts specialized in a particular niche and also opinion leaders. Also, they use communication channels such as blogs and social media like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and especially Instagram which has proven to be a very effective tool. Indeed, Instagram is the ideal social platform to highlight a concept of visual storytelling. In 2017, there were over 13 million of sponsored posts on Instagram.

Moreover, it is proven that 85% of consumers will trust influencers and follow their recommendation rather than those directly given by a brand. Same for Millennials, 8 out of 10 confirm the important role of influencers in their buying process. To do so, the influencers’ role is to enhance your property and to reassure individuals in their purchasing process. A good influencer is a spontaneous and authentic person who likes to share experiences whether good or bad. Seen as a real expert, influencers’ content such as blog posts, Youtube videos, Facebook and Instagram posts on several properties help travelers in their decision-making process. So remember to highlight your property’s overall experience with all services offered but also the experience lived by travelers either with the use of new technologies such as check-in kiosks, room service robot or even with personalized atmospheres using automation.
As a result, influencer marketing is a real advantage because it allows you to strengthen the e-reputation and visibility of your property, to increase your credibility, to engage your community on your social media, to generate traffic on your website and therefore to increase your sales via your online booking engine. Don’t forget that the best influencers are those who will succeed in having full confidence of their followers and those who will persuade them to change their purchasing behavior, therefore book a stay within your property. Finally, when an influencer stays at your property, it will be very important to identify him well, for example by using the VIP function of your property management system (PMS).

How to make sure you collaborate with the right influencers?

In general, partnering with an influencer isn’t free. Before offering a stay, free services or a financial compensation, you must plan your influence marketing campaign. Start by defining the campaign objectives and also the budget allocated. Furthermore, define the selection of criteria that will help you choose your brand ambassador. It is very important to favor partnerships with influencers who match your values and your target customers so people can identify to them. For example, you can ask yourself the following questions: Why would I choose this influencer? Does he share the same values as us? Does its audience match with our targeted clientele? Does the influencer’s content is suitable for our property? It is true that we don’t become influencers overnight, so make sure that the person chosen has an excellent reputation, a large audience on several social media platforms, a high engagement rate as well as excellent technical knowledge and technologies of social media. Also, choose an influencer who fits your property’s concept because it’s very important that his personality is in line with your concept if you want to get the most of your partnership and investment.

8 out of 10 consumers trust an influencer rather than brand advertising campaigns. Thus, 59% of companies plan to increase their marketing budget dedicated to influence marketing campaigns.

And you? Are you ready to use influencer marketing to promote your property?

Your property’s e-reputation on Instagram

Posted on 20 February 202028 September 2021 by Nicolas Audiffren

Hotels have now understood the importance of integrating Instagram to their marketing strategy, whether it be to build their brand or to consolidate their online reputation. Managing one’s online reputation on social media has now become a necessity, as it allows companies to better communicate and exchange with Instagram users, while improving their products and services.

What is the online reputation?

The notion of online reputation emerged in the 2000s and designates a company, brand, person’s image perceived online through search engines, review platforms, social media and other online platforms. Similar to an online word-of-mouth, internet users’ comments have a significant impact on your property. Your online reputation can thus be both positive or negative, or even neutral. It is therefore crucial to understand that this online reputation contributes to your property’s real reputation as well as its overall image.

The online-reputation can have an important effect on your hotel and its attractivity. For example, a good online reputation can generate more bookings and thus a higher occupancy, with no further action required on your part. Thus, the more positive comments you have online, the more people will want to stay with you and in return leave online reviews.

How to boost your online reputation using Instagram?

First of all, you need to clearly define your objectives and your strategy. You can then focus your reflections around a few questions:

WHY: What are your true objectives?
WHO: Which product or service do you wish to promote, what are their main characteristics, what are they used for, who is your target audience?
WHAT: What is the message you wish to broadcast, which information and content do you wish to share?
WHERE: Which supports, platforms and communication channels do you want to use?
HOW: Which levers are to be used?
HOW MUCH: What is your budget allocation for this strategy?

Social media allow companies to have greater visibility. It has been shown that 8 out of 10 users follow a brand on Instagram. Moreover, approximately 80% of Instagram users use this platform to find out more about a product or service, which shows this social medium’s significant influence. Instagram actually has one of the highest visitor rates, behind Facebook and Twitter. So why not take advantage of this to strengthen your online reputation?

There exist many ways in which you can boost your online reputation as a hotel. Firstly, make sure to regularly post relevant content. For example, you can upload publications promoting your company’s values, your staff, your new products and services, or even share picture or reviews from your clients. This will help to grow the community following your brand and create close links with your followers.

It is also important to interact with your followers on a regular basis, whether it be by using comments, likes or sharing their content. This exchange allows you to collect positive comments from online users while making your brand friendly. This shows you truly care about your community. There is no need to embellish your interactions, be authentic and loyal to your company’s image and values.

Later on, you can also partner up with influencers. An influencer is a person with a large number of followers who regularly posts content on their social media. There are many types of influencers: nano-influencers (less than 10 K followers) micro-influencers (over 10 K followers), macro-influencers (over 100 K followers) and celebrities (over 500 K followers). The influencer your partner up with will be responsible to create content on your behalf and boost your online visibility, by talking about your products and services to their community.

It is essential to partner up with influencers who correspond to your values as a brand so that their community can identify to your brand as well. Choose influencers who have an interesting engagement for you, and have an audience that corresponds to your target market. The chosen influencers will be your brand ambassadors, which will allow you to strengthen your notoriety within their community and create a trusting relationship with your followers, potential or current clients. You can also use hashtags in order to strengthen the feeling of belonging for your community.

By publishing many pictures, live videos through Instagram Story, or lengthier videos using IGTV, you can also promote your products and services in a more original fashion. The goal behind these publications is to share emotions through different visuals, to create desire for your products and services, and to knit stronger links with your followers. It would be wise to communicate in a friendly and exclusive manner, while staying true to your brand’s identity. In fact, your followers should be able to identify with the content you post, and most importantly, they should be able to understand what you expect of them such as sharing their own experience after staying with you.

How to measure your online reputation on Instagram?

While one’s online reputation may be a variable which is difficult to quantify and measure accurately, it is important to do so. The choice your performance indicators mainly depends on your goals and the communication channels you wish to use. Prior to paying for any applications, you should start by analyzing your social media’s data. There are two types of data: quantitative and qualitative.

Quantitative data is usually described by the number of likes, shares or followers, your publications’ audience, conversion rate and click-rate. Be careful however as these indicators’ usefulness is limited. Indeed, your social media visibility is not necessarily a sign of influence, and the search engines’ referencing tends to be highly personalized nowadays.

On the other hand, you have qualitative data such as positive, negative or neutral comments, hashtags and recommendations shared by the users. These qualitative indicators are difficult to analyze, as any qualitative statement is subjective, and each person has their own vision of things.

To conclude, a property’s online reputation is an element that should be closely monitored. While it may have positive impacts such as a boost in sales and the growth of the company, it is the company’s responsibility to manage their online reputation on social media, as a negative online reputation can also lead to a bad buzz or a crisis situation.

The role of Instagram in the hospitality industry

Posted on 18 January 202030 March 2023 by Laura Yee Kui Choi

In fact, this social media platform provides a good opportunity for hotel managers to boost their popularity and engage with more people. First, they can use Instagram to instantaneously build and consolidate their online reputation, by using a “story-telling” approach centered around their brand. Then, they can use this social media platform to sell their services and build their own community using interactions (likes, comments, shares), stories, buzz-words and contests. According to Forrester Research (2014), using Instagram allows you to boost your engagement per follower 58 more times than by using Facebook and 120 more times than by using Twitter.

Building your online reputation (e-reputation)

The e-reputation is represented by the information provided by the internet about a person or a brand through social media, blogs, collaborative websites, online chat forums or knowledge sharing platforms. Nowadays, we live in a highly connected world where the e-reputation has a significant online word-of-mouth effect which is able to positively or negatively impact one’s opinion. We use social media to get information on a company, and immediately believe what we read online. Therefore, a good or bad reputation online will have a direct impact on a company’s sales and their clients’ trust.

Today, building one’s online identity is quick, whether it be by using search engines allowing the company to be featured on the very first page, by using social media to attract potential clients, by fostering a close-knit relationship with the clients and building loyalty or by starting open-ended discussions on social media through blogs and forums. You can also consolidate your e-reputation using online opinion websites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp and Google reviews or by reaching out to influencers.

You may be wondering what is an influencer. It is simply someone who has a large number of followers and who shares content on social media, such as photos, videos, articles or podcasts. Upon agreeing on a partnership with you, the influencer will create content on your behalf and boost your visibility, by talking about your products and services. This allows you to improve your image, your credibility and even your SEO if the influencer is present on multiple social media platforms. Influencers are therefore beneficial for companies, but it is important to only partner up with influencers who mirror the company’s brand and values.

A hotel’s e-reputation can be boosted if multiple influencers post about the hotel. This way, potential clients will notice that many influencers have stayed at the hotel and this will generate a notion of popularity and will trigger their wish to live this trendy experience.

Improving sales

Instagram also allows a company to improve their sales. A study showed that 8 in 10 users follow the account of at least one of their favorite brands and that 14% of users would buy directly from Instagram.

As a starting point, one can insert a link in the “biography” section which will redirect the users to the company’s own website. Additionally, users have the opportunity to reach the company using the direct message feature or by communicating using e-mail and/or telephone by clicking the call-to-action button located on the company’s profile. The company can also have an online shop allowing the users to browse through current offers and get information on rates and availabilities. For a hotel, improving sales can be done by using the booking engine. Instagram posts can feature a link redirecting to the hotel’s online booking engine. An active presence on social media combined with the opportunity to book online will incite customers to book directly with the hotel without having to go through OTAs, therefore maximizing your income.

Building a community

Instagram is undoubtedly a key tool when it comes to creating one’s community. Instagram encourages users to publish content, to share their personal experience and mostly to generate emotional interactions. Companies do not hesitate to repost the users’ content and create buzz-words in order to attract potential clients or engage and build loyalty with their existing community. Generally speaking, a buzz-word is short and easy to memorize to facilitate interactions between users. A community’s engagement is usually a key element when it comes to one’s perception of your popularity. This perception of your popularity is more often than not generated by the users than by you. Building a large and loyal community is crucial in order broadcast the diversity of the stays offered at your hotel and the overall experience you provide.

In a highly connected and fast-evolving world, every brand uses content to convince individuals to buy their products or services. It is therefore important for companies to publish high-quality, targeted, authentic and attractive content for their followers. It is also key to have a constant and active presence on social media such as Instagram by publishing content and interacting with your community on a regular basis.

Tips to create a strong brand for your hotel

Posted on 10 September 201915 June 2022 by Nicolas Audiffren

Rely on your hotel’s unique story

In order to build a strong link with your clientele, share your story with them. People enjoy these types of stories and this allows you to connect with them personally.

On your website, dedicate a page outlining your story, your values and your ambitions. Clients like to know what drives you, what motivates you to offer your services and experiences. Share with them why your hotel was created, when it was established and how it evolved over time. If you know quirky facts about how your hotel was built, its location or any other aspects you can think of, this is the time to share them and make your website’s visitors smile.

It can also be of interest to write a few lines about the people who established your hotel, mention those who took part in important projects, or feature famous celebrities who have stayed with you.

Does the area where your hotel is located have a unique history? Take the opportunity to discuss it and explain why your hotel is part of this historic landscape.

In addition to sharing these facts on your website, you can create small “Did you know” leaflets that you can put on display at your front desk or on the nightstands in your rooms. This way your clients can learn about the story your hotel wishes to communicate and they may want to share it with their friends and family, who will then hear about your hotel.

All these elements are part of your story and it is useful to bring them into light in order to build an outstanding and unique reputation.

Reflect an image that corresponds to what you offer

The image you reflect outside your hotel is as important as the services your offer. Your image must therefore correspond to the type of accommodation you offer and carry your hotel’s spirit.

If your hotel is known for its natural environment and outdoor recreations, your communications should have an energetic visual which reminds of your clients of nature and a vocabulary rich with outdoor activities. On the other hand, if your hotel is a temple for relaxation, massages, spa and yoga, your image should reflect well-being, peace and quiet.

It is crucial to use these tricks because if your external image does not reflect your hotel’s ambiance and identity, your clients could be disappointed.

Social media are a key ally when it comes to strengthening your reputation. Use them to communicate any news concerning your hotel, share articles or interesting facts about your field and, most importantly, highlight your clients’ pictures and comments. When your clients share their experience on your social media, they give you credibility and liven up your pages. These publications reassure clients who are inquiring about your hotel and give an idea of the type of stay they can expect upon booking with you.

When a potential client is looking for a hotel, they will most likely read the comments left by your previous guests. This is why it is particularly important to share your clients’ comments and impressions on your social media. This way, if a client has an issue they would like to raise, your future clients will see how responsive and caring you are and how you take remedial actions to offer the best possible experience.

You should seriously consider choosing a PMS connected to online booking platforms which can immediately display your room availabilities on social media. You can then take advantage of the potential clients browsing your social media to convert them into guests, if the comments they read satisfy them. Offering an improved customer experience helps to facilitate the booking process.

Take care of your e-reputation (online reputation)

If you wish to strengthen your brand, it is important that you take care of your e-reputation. This reputation directly influences your income as it plays a key role for the people booking a room online. Comparisons across different hotels consist of much more than just rates. Internet users review comments and your overall grade could be increased or decreased depending on if your competitors have a better overall appreciation across various online booking platforms. This is why you should keep an eye on the quality of your services in order for your e-reputation to be positive and advantageous.

With these tricks you should be able to build a strong brand which will make your hotel thrive!

Tips to reduce the online booking abandonment

Posted on 18 August 201929 August 2022 by Laura Yee Kui Choi

Justify your rates

Some potential clients abandon their online booking because your rates do not correspond to their budget. However, a potential client could have a large enough budget to afford to stay at your hotel, but they might not find added value by picking your hotel. With your marketing strategies, it is crucial to work on your hotel’s image in order to showcase what makes your hotel unique. Do not hesitate to share your story and show off the one-of-a-kind aspects of your hotel on your website. By doing so, potential clients will immediately notice this added value and will be willing to pay the price in order to stay with you. Thus, they will not abandon their booking at the last minute.

Improve user experience on your website

In order to avoid potential client abandoning their booking due to a long and complicated booking process, make sure your online user experience is clear and concise. In the hospitality industry, we always strive to provide the best customer experience and this should be reflected on your website. You should test your online booking experience to ensure it is simple, short and efficient. Online reservations through smartphones and tablets are on the rise, so make sure your booking process runs smoothly on these devices as well. First, ensure your “Book now” button is clearly visible and stands out. Then, your booking engine should only ask the potential client the necessary information in order to process the booking. Keep in mind that the more fields to fill and information to provide, the more likely this client is to abandon their booking. It is therefore important to keep the mandatory fields to a minimum and remove all the unnecessary fields. Every field removed will boost the number of bookings, and you can still ask your client some further information once their booking is complete. You can obviously test your online booking process yourself, but you might want to ask your friends and family to test it as well, to see if they find anything confusing or complicated. This will give you a better idea of the elements you need to improve on in order to provide a simple and smooth experience which will maximize your bookings. You can also add a live chat feature on your website. With this tool, you will be able to answer any of your clients question in real time, and they will be able to complete their booking without having to contact you by e-mail and then wait for your reply.

Use your booking engine’s features

Your booking engine certainly contains some features which you can exploit in order to turn website visitors into clients. For example, creating last minute deals could encourage a potential client with a small budget to stay with you at a low rate at an early date. The presale feature could encourage clients wishing to stay with you at a later date to finalize their booking by taking advantage of a discounted rate. Promotional codes may also trigger an impulse buy for a potential client. Booking engines also offer the option of displaying the number of rooms left available for their chosen date. This stress marketing technique can trigger potential clients to take a quick decision and finalize their booking.

Play with your cancellation policies

Some potential clients abandon their online booking as they have to discuss it with the people travelling with them first and see whether or not your hotel corresponds to their criteria. By offering a flexible cancellation policy, you could see your conversion rate improve. This will allow potential clients to guarantee their booking while they discuss it with their peers. It is likely that even if they find a cheaper accommodation, having to cancel their booking at your hotel will discourage them from booking another accommodation. Keep in mind that a more flexible cancellation policy does not necessarily mean that more clients will cancel their booking. It can simply give a peace of mind to indecisive clients and thus entice them to book. This technique will allow you to generate more bookings while maintaining a policy on the rooms you have left.

Many reasons can cause potential clients to abandon their booking. Make sure to avoid those on which you can act, especially by justifying your rates and optimizing your online user experience. You could be surprised of how simple actions like these could boost your direct bookings.

How to use promotional codes efficiently

Posted on 26 June 201930 September 2021 by Nicolas Audiffren

Promotional codes advantages

Their main advantage is how they are easily shared. You can decide to share these codes or to restrict how you share them according to their popularity and your own objectives. This will allow you to keep your performance indicators under control, such as the ADR or the occupancy. You can measure the efficiency of a promotional code at any time, as your booking engine will be able to indicate the number of bookings placed using that specific code.

It can also be interesting to have multiple promotional codes available during the same period, depending on the type of customer you want to attract. You will then be able to measure their popularity based on the number of times they were used to place a booking. Promotional codes are usually transferable between users, but a code intended for a specific person should not. However, a code offering a discount can be shared between friends and family. Thus, a small group of people can take the decision to place a booking and stay at your hotel together with this specific code. In this case, the effect of the promotional code is amplified.

When to use promotional codes?

A promotional code is designed to offer a specific discount to a specific clientele, whether it be to build their loyalty or to classify them. Hence the promotional code most often preferred is the one that offers a discount on their next stay. This code is usually linked to a thank-you e-mail following their stay and wishes to build their loyalty. During quieter seasons, we often use promotional codes offering large discounts which we then share on different platforms. For example, if you do not want your usual clientele to benefit from the discount, you can share the code on social media, but only for those who are not already following your page. This campaign will allow people who did not know about you and had never stayed with you to discover your hotel.

If you want to bring back clients, the easiest way to do so is by using e-mail marketing. Sending a newsletter will allow you to reach all the clientele already signed up to your mailing list within your hotel management software. If you have already identified a clientele within your database which often books when offered great discounts, you can easily give them a promotional code yielding a lower rate in order to encourage them to stay with you again.

If you have a list of clients who have stayed with you having booked a package with many options, the promotional code that you make available to them could, for example, only apply for a full package deal. The segmentation of the data collected by your PMS will allow you to take multiple actions on the different types of clientele, aiming to offer the best promotional code for the type of clientele, with a price which will entice them to book again.

Promotional codes are an excellent way to carry out marketing actions in order to boost your occupancy without having too great of an impact on your key performance indicators. You can have multiple goals, such as building customer loyalty or gaining new customers. Promotional codes are a great way to make yourself known or for previous guests to rediscover your hotel.

Learn more about the star button in the hospitality industry

Posted on 28 May 201930 September 2021 by Nicolas Audiffren

Although we can find buttons almost everywhere, they always have the same role: To trigger a consumer’s reaction. In the hospitality industry, there exists a star button amongst these called the “Book now” button. This button allows internet users to efficiently place a booking for your hotel online. Here is what you need to know about the different aspects of the “Book now” button in order to maximize its potential and boost your online bookings.

Its role

The “Book now” button is, without a doubt, the most important feature of a hotel’s website. It allows you to immediately convert a visitor into a client and to guide an internet user towards a booking platform, which will then lead them to pick out the different components of their stay and place a booking. Thus, your “Book now” button has an immediate impact on your online bookings. Its efficiency is therefore key if you want to retain your clients instead of letting them book through an OTA or a competitor.

Its location

As odd as it can seem, the location of a button plays a significant role. The location must be visible and easy to access for the internet user at all times. It must always be present on their screen, no matter which page the internet user is on, in order to allow them to book no matter how far along they have progressed in their decision process. By having your booking button easily accessible at all times, the potential client will not need to search through the many different pages of your website for it. This eliminates the possibility of them giving up and booking elsewhere.

Its content

That is the text within the button. Instead of going for the usual “Book now”, you could be creative in order to stand out from the competition, and use a different type of wording. In any case, the text should make it crystal clear that the user has to click in that specific spot to start their booking process. Therefore, you can perform A/B test on different communication channels with different content as for example “Plan your next stay”, “Book your next stay”, “Check availabilities”.

Its aspect

The colour of the button needs to match with your website’s colour chart but also with the nature of its role. As the primary goal is to make it visible, you need to pick a colour which will easily differentiate itself from the rest of the website, or at least use shades which will make it stand out, such as complementary colours.
You also need to take into account the font of the writing on the button. A font consisting of capital letters will differ from one consisting of lower-case letters. In addition, using a different font than the ones present on your website can be aesthetically pleasing, as long as it is coordinated with your colour chart and the internet user does not think they will end up on a different website by clicking on it.

Its link

The “Book now” button should have a link leading to a booking platform. A button which links the user elsewhere, such as an application form, could possibly frustrate them and lead them to exit your website. The button’s link should imperatively lead towards a booking platform with a pre-determined length of stay and number of guests, calculated according to their corresponding average within your hotel. This will simplify the internet user’s experience. If your “Book now” button is located on a page displaying a particular package, it would be wise for the button to be linked to the package’s booking page and not the general booking process page.

Its use

The “Book now” button is used throughout your website, but it can also be used in your various communications, such as your e-mail marketing campaigns. Your newsletter could easily contain the “Book now” button as a call-to-action feature. Once again, its efficiency is tightly linked to the different factors mentioned above.
For your marketing campaigns, it is essential for you to make sure that the link you use properly re-directs to the desired page. Additionally, the “Book now” button implies a web experience. Thus, a “Call now to book” button should be banned from your web communications. This is counter-productive for any marketing campaign you wish to lead, as the user receiving the newsletter expects a web experience and probably does not want to book over the telephone.
The “Book now” button can also be used on social media. Some social networks even give you the opportunity to directly incorporate it onto your webpage. Social media can be an excellent way to promote your offers, as they are specifically designed for users to keep using them. Do not forget to use suitable links for each campaign such that you can easily measure your campaigns’ efficiency.

An optimized and strategically designed “Book now” button will allow you to make a difference when it comes to your website’s success. You should seriously consider this option during your campaigns. We advise you to invest in this special button, as it will allow you to thrive!