Mistakes may be made in any phase of hotel management. However, marketing mistakes would cost you a dear. Marketing mistakes lead to more and more vacant rooms, while meaning that the budget allocated for marketing is being wasted or inefficiently spent.
Hotel runners and professionals, who are aware of the value of each penny channeled into marketing, work day and night to avoid any mistakes and to maximize marketing efficiency. In order to help you get your ambitious work worth, we have, as HotelRunner, compiled the most common marketing mistakes encountered in accommodation industry.
Based on numberless examples, our compilation deserves some account so that you could avoid same mistakes and maximize your marketing success…
Ineffective website
A website is your most important tool: It is under your complete control and it constitutes the foundation for all your other marketing activities. Unless your website meets the industry’s requirements, it would block other marketing channels and significantly decrease the amount of your direct online reservations. If the rate of your online reservations is below 10%-15%, it means either your website is not helping you or you are not managing it properly. It’s alright, though. HotelRunner can help you through the both problems.
Focusing on merely new customers
Accessing new customers is among the priorities of most hotels. This is no mistake unless it means you’d forget your previous guests. In accommodation industry, customer loyalty plays a significant role in occupancy and profitability rates. For further information about this aspect of customer relations, we recommend you to have a look at our previous article on customer loyalty.
Not investing enough in your brand
While planning to make a reservation in a hotel they have not experienced before, customers today first try to get to know that hotel. That’s why they mainly look through the Internet and the comments posted on travel pages. Therefore, your facility’s online reputation can act as a factor with direct influence on your success. You could significantly increase your online reservation rates, through studies with the aim of promoting your brand and creating strong brand recognition. If you care for your brand, you might find our article on reputation management published on HotelRunner blog helpful.
Working towards an unnecessarily large target group
Most hotels address to the needs of a specific target group. Some hotels are more preferable for families with children, while some may cater better to professionals on a business trip. If your promotion activities are limited with a budget, the biggest mistake would be your futile attempts to convey your message to an unnecessarily generalized target group. Instead, you need to specify the target group you aim at and work directly towards this specific group. If your target group is already wide, you may need to divide them in specific segments so that you can tailor your marketing activities to each unique segment. This is how you can convey messages suited to specific segments of your target group and see your marketing activities pay dividends.
Your most reliable guide for marketing and management of your hotel, HotelRunner is designed to offer you the most efficient outputs without falling into those traps. Sign up today and start increasing your sales immediately.
