How To Attract More Hotel Guests With Data-Driven Digital Marketing Services

For modern-day hoteliers to find success, it’s high time to bid a fond farewell to the days of running ill-informed, shot-in-the-dark ad campaigns and best-guessing at what will motivate traveler bookings. As the most prosperous properties and travel brands have discovered, in the information age, data can be a monumental difference-maker. By using powerful, data-driven digital services, hoteliers can set their hotel marketing strategies apart, drive more bookings — and boost their profits.

7 Powerful Ways You Can Rev Up Your Hotel’s Digital Marketing Strategy With Data

Traveler data is easier than ever to access in the digital age. By harnessing data-driven marketing services, hoteliers can adjust their ideas and strategies to more effectively connect with their target audiences — and move them to act.

Here are seven key ways you should be leveraging data to make your hotel or hospitality brand’s marketing efforts more effective:

1. Boost Your Consumer Understanding

By analyzing consumer data, you can gain a wealth of valuable information about its prospective customers, including their demographics, interests, behaviors, search histories, past purchases and much more. All of this knowledge can help you develop a better understanding of your audience—so be sure you’re collecting it, analyzing it, and using it to more effectively target and connect with your prospects.

2. Segment Your Audiences

Using the information gathered in the step above, divide your audience into segments based on common characteristics. Then, tailor your brand communications to these distinct groups so that your messaging is more likely to resonate with recipients. For example, you can serve family travelers with ads that include free water park passes with a hotel room booking. Or to fill empty rooms when you have a surplus, you could send travelers living within a short driving distance of your property last-minute offers on discounted accommodations.

3. Identify Hospitality Trends

Keeping a close eye on guest and industry data can also help your hotel or hospitality brand identify trending preferences and patterns among consumers and industry-wide. For instance, data could help your brand ascertain that certain demographics are especially attracted to eco-friendly offerings or that an upcoming event in your area is drawing large numbers of visitors fitting a particular persona. Once you’ve gathered such insights, use them to adjust your strategies in ways that capitalize on the hotel guest trends you’ve identified.

4. Personalize Your Content

We’re all more likely to act on messaging that closely aligns with our own interests and preferences. Led by data, you can personalize your brand communications to boost the likelihood of catching individual consumers’ interest and spurring their engagement. Use tactics such as sending personalized booking incentives like room upgrades to customers based on their search history and past bookings, or offering dining discounts to guests who have frequented your hotel’s on-property restaurant.

In what is arguably the biggest current trend in digital marketing strategies for hotel and hospitality brands, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven personalization is enabling hoteliers to more effectively communicate with prospective guests and anticipate their preferences. For example, AI-powered chatbots on hotel websites can provide 24/7 answers to consumers’ questions, while AI-driven analytics can be used to make customized room recommendations to prospective guests during the online booking process.

5. Optimize Your Campaigns

Data can also help your hotel or hospitality brand boost the performance of its digital marketing services, often in real time. Use analytics tools to monitor how your email, social media, paid search, and other hotel marketing campaigns are performing, and then use this data to adjust and optimize your strategies. For example, if a particular PPC ad within a set being used for a campaign is bringing significantly more traffic to your website, you may want to devote more of the campaign budget to that ad. (Conversely, if another ad in the set is underperforming, it may be a good move to tweak and A/B test that ad to improve it or to stop spending on it altogether.) In another example, if a particular topic or offer in your email marketing campaigns consistently draws more interest than others, you may want to think of ways to send more emails on that topic or on closely related ones.

6. Manage Your Pricing

By closely monitoring indicators such as search trends, booking volumes, and competitor pricing in real time, you can identify seasonal fluctuations and other high- and low-demand periods on the upcoming calendar. Then, armed with this demand-forecasting information, you can better employ revenue management to adjust your hotel brand’s room rates accordingly. This can help you foster increased occupancy during slower periods and maximized revenues when your area’s and your property’s accommodations are in higher demand. 

7. Elevate Guest Experiences

Data helps your hotel brand not only attract more guests, but also treat them to better experiences at your property when they stay there — and keep them coming back. For example, using the data you’ve collected on guests’ interests, you could recommend nearby attractions and events that might make their stays more enjoyable. When an art lover checks in, for instance, reception could let him or her know about a nearby art gallery that’s getting rave reviews. Collecting and consulting information on guests’ previous stays can also help you elevate their experiences with your brand. If a returning guest has requested extra towels or pillows in his or her room during previous stays, for example, make a note on the guest’s reservation and have them automatically waiting in the room upon arrival.

Driving More Success — Across Every Channel — With Data

Executing the most effective hotel marketing campaigns requires employing a range of digital marketing services, channels, and strategies wisely, from SEO/PPC, social media, and content marketing to email campaigns, influencer marketing, online reputation management, and beyond. In all of these important areas, data can foster better targeting and more resonant messaging — and drive drastically improved results. If your hotel or hospitality brand isn’t unlocking the insights data can provide to elevate its marketing efforts, it’s likely the competition is … and it could prove costly. Don’t wait — tap into the treasure trove of actionable insights that data can provide today.Is your hospitality brand seeking an ad agency that specializes in digital marketing services for hotels and can transform your data into powerful, actionable insights? At TravelBoom, our analytics experts are adept at diving into your brand’s raw numbers and identifying key details to power more effective hotel marketing strategies and ideas — and then deliver more bookings for your property. Connect with us today to discuss how we can help you leverage data to boost the effectiveness of all your brand’s marketing efforts.

About TravelBoom Marketing

TravelBoom specializes in developing and executing customized data-driven marketing solutions that drive direct bookings and growth for its clients. With over 25 years of experience in digital marketing for travel and hotels, TravelBoom leverages advanced data science and analytics to uncover insights and develop strategies that greatly enhance results for our clients and reduce reliance on third-party channels. TravelBoom is also host of the world’s #1 ranked Hotel Marketing Podcast and its quarterly Traveler Sentiment Study both of which can be found at www.travelboommarketing.com.