In the highly competitive hotel industry, optimizing revenue means attracting plenty of attention and generating the right levels of interest from customers. Marketing plays a key role here, and while many hotels handle this internally, others opt to outsource their marketing efforts to a dedicated hotel marketing company. This article will teach you more about hotel marketing and how a marketing company can boost your revenue.

Table of Contents:

What Is Hotel Marketing?

In simple terms, hotel marketing refers to various techniques and strategies that hotels use to advertise and promote their property. The objectives will typically be to build brand awareness, generate more interest, enhance a hotel’s reputation, and ultimately increase bookings.

Hotel marketing can occur online and offline, but the internet-based component has become increasingly important in the age of social media, website bookings, online travel agencies, and search engine optimization.

Why Is Hotel Marketing Important?

Hotel marketing is crucial for long-term success because the hotel industry is extremely competitive. An effective marketing strategy can go a long way towards helping a hotel separate itself from its main rivals, highlight some of its unique features, and generally develop a positive reputation.

Ultimately, however, the value of hotel marketing is in increasing the number of bookings made – both in terms of hotel rooms and other hotel services. This is vital for optimizing financial results.

Table: Importance of Hotel Marketing

Aspect of Importance Description Impact on Hotels
Competitive Differentiation It helps hotels stand out by highlighting unique features and services. Attracts more guests by differentiating the hotel from competitors, enhancing its appeal.
Reputation Building Develops a positive brand image and reputation through targeted marketing efforts. Builds trust and loyalty among potential guests, leading to increased recommendations and repeat visits.
Increased Bookings Directly targets increasing room and service bookings through various marketing channels. Directly impacts revenue, ensuring higher occupancy rates and utilization of hotel services.
Financial Optimization Contributes to the hotel’s financial success by maximizing revenue from rooms and additional services. This leads to improved financial performance and profitability, enabling further investment in the hotel.
Market Presence Ensures the hotel remains visible and top-of-mind in a crowded market. Maintains a steady flow of guests by keeping the hotel relevant and visible to potential customers.
Adaptability and Growth Allows hotels to quickly adapt marketing strategies to changing market trends and guest preferences. Keeps the hotel competitive and capable of capturing emerging market opportunities for growth.

What Are the Benefits of Hiring a Hotel Marketing Company?

For those in the hotel industry, there are numerous reasons to turn to a marketing company specializing in working with hotels, resorts, and other hospitality brands. You will find some of these below:

1. Benefit From Specialist Knowledge

Perhaps the single biggest reason you should consider turning to a hotel marketing company for assistance is that it is their specific area of expertise. This means they are not only marketing specialists but also have first-hand experience in applying their skills to the hotel industry.

With this expertise comes in-depth knowledge of how hotel marketing works, the major tricks of the trade, and wider industry trends. It also means they understand how to deal with industry-specific challenges.

Restaurant Management Company - Benefit From Specialist Knowledge

2. Gain a Fresh, Outside Perspective

Aside from their expertise in this area, you may find the services of a hotel marketing company valuable precisely because they are external to your business. This means they will be able to approach marketing efforts with a fresh, outside perspective and may be able to notice things internal employees cannot.

It can sometimes be difficult for internal employees to see beyond how things are currently done. Outsiders are, therefore, more likely to notice flaws with existing marketing strategies and to point them out to you.

3. Reduce Some of Your Staff Costs

Enlisting the help of hotel marketing experts can help reduce your own staffing costs in several ways. For one, rather than employing somebody full-time to handle these responsibilities, you can pay a hotel marketing company for their work when needed.

Additionally, the professionals working for that company will also already be fully trained and have access to the latest technology. In contrast, you would otherwise have to invest in bringing your own staff up to that level.

4. Optimizing Your Branding Strategy

Effective branding is one of the main ways a hotel can stand out from rivals in the nearby area – and even on a global level. A hotel marketing company can be of enormous help here because they work with hotels of all kinds and have extensive knowledge of the industry and how other hotels brand themselves.

By taking advantage of this knowledge, you can ensure you position your hotel in a way that generates as much interest as possible so that you achieve the best possible financial results in the long run.

5. Help With Your Pre-Opening Strategy

In addition to helping with the branding, hotel marketing experts will also assist with a range of pre-opening services, helping you position your hotel in the right way to attract initial interest and adopt the right marketing approaches so that you hit the ground running.

These pre-opening services can also be useful when a hotel re-brands itself, changes ownership, or re-opens after an extended closure, such as after a major refurbishment project.

6. Assistance With Building a Website

With a hotel, more than almost any other business, having a high-quality website is essential. After all, modern customers research hotels online before booking, and your website is likely to form a large part of their research. A hotel marketing company can assist with this by optimizing your website for success.

A professional hotel marketing company will be able to design your website to put your hotel in a positive light and facilitate as many direct bookings as possible, improving its revenue-generating potential.

7. Distribution Management Success

For those in hotel management, distribution channels form a key part of a marketing strategy. After all, OTAs can make customers aware of your hotel, and the ‘billboard effect’ means customers who see a hotel on an OTA website are more likely to book a room directly with that hotel, too.

An experienced hotel marketer will know the best distribution channels based on brand values, business objectives, hotel type, target audience, and so on, resulting in the best possible exposure.

8. Optimizing Online Marketing Efforts

There are a number of specialist areas of online marketing, of which hotel marketing companies will have a working knowledge and be more likely to keep pace with. Examples include search engine optimization (SEO), search engine advertising (SEA), display advertising, re-marketing, and conversion optimization.

A hotel marketing company will not only understand how to get the most from these various techniques but also have experience in using them to assist hotels and resorts rather than businesses in other industries.

9. Capitalising On Content Marketing

Another area where a hotel marketing company can also excel and deliver real value through high-quality content marketing. This includes everything from email marketing campaigns and social media management to influencer marketing, video marketing, blogging, and copywriting.

The best companies will know how to integrate content marketing with the aforementioned online marketing techniques, attracting more website hits, social media followers, and bookings.

Restaurant Management Company - Capitalising On Content Marketing

10. Management of Your Hotel Reputation

Your hotel will live and die based on its reputation. While your property, services, and staff go a long way toward determining that reputation, a hotel marketing company can play a key role in helping manage it. This might involve managing accounts on review platforms and responding appropriately on social media sites.

According to the State of the Industry Report by RMS, 70.9% of travelers say online content influences their choice of where to stay. A hotel marketing company will know the best methods for generating feedback from satisfied guests and the best approach to responding to criticism and turning negatives into positives.

11. Hitting the Right Notes With PR

Finally, using hotel marketing experts can also pay dividends in public relations. Whether you have a press release that you want to be picked up by as many sources as possible or your hotel has encountered a controversy that needs to be handled delicately, it pays to have some experienced heads around.

In some cases, a hotel marketing company will also be able to assist with PR in languages other than your own, which can be extremely valuable in helping to attract a greater number of international guests.

Outsourcing Hotel Marketing

Although many hotels use marketing companies to handle very specific aspects of their hotel marketing strategy, there is also the possibility of outsourcing hotel marketing, meaning the company would handle all aspects of marketing strategy moving forward to facilitate growth.

If you choose to outsource hotel marketing in this way, you will likely work closely with your chosen hotel marketing company, forming a growth partnership. The advantages of this approach include freeing up more of your own time and ensuring that all aspects of your marketing strategy are consistent and fully aligned.

Must-Read Hotel Marketing Strategies

Keeping up-to-date with the latest and most effective strategies is crucial to get the most out of your hotel marketing efforts. Doing so allows you to reach as wide an audience as possible in ways that are most likely to produce the desired results. You can learn about 10 of the biggest hotel marketing strategies in the article “Essential Hotel Marketing Strategies”.

The Latest Hotel Marketing Trends

In addition to focusing on the latest marketing strategies, it is also important to keep pace with wider hotel marketing trends, including the latest technology in this area, such as voice search, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. You can learn more about these trends in the article “Hotel Marketing; The Latest Trends in the Hotel Industry “.

Hotel Marketing Company FAQs

A hotel marketing specialist will work with a hotel to create and implement strategies that expand brand awareness, generate bookings, and retain customers. They may work with the hotel to carry out market research, develop ad campaigns, create marketing content, and take steps to manage the hotel’s reputation.

As a general rule, hotels will often spend around 4-6% of total revenue on marketing. However, this percentage may be much higher for hotels that are pursuing an aggressive marketing strategy.

The best marketing strategies will have clear objectives and a defined target audience. There should be an emphasis on personalization so marketing messages are as relevant as possible, and it is important to cover different areas, including social media, content marketing, search engine optimization, and paid advertising.

Luxury hotels typically spend around 5-10% of total revenue on marketing. However, the precise figure will depend on the position of the hotel in the market and the level of competition. Spending may be higher if the hotel is new or attempting to reach a new audience. Luxury hotels often spend more on marketing to reinforce their brand image.

Advertising expenditure should account for a significant amount of the overall marketing budget, which is most commonly in the region of 4-6% of total revenue. The precise figure will depend on factors like the hotel’s objectives, market realities, the size of the hotel, and the level of competition.

The hotel industry is extremely competitive, and effective hotel marketing can differentiate revenue management success and failure. For this reason, many owners seek help from a hotel marketing company. These firms can be used to handle specific aspects of marketing or oversee an entire marketing strategy.

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This article is written by:

Martijn Barten

Hi, I am Martijn Barten, founder of Revfine.com. With 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry, I specialize in optimizing revenue by combining revenue management with marketing strategies. I have successfully developed, implemented, and managed revenue management and marketing strategies for individual properties and multi-property portfolios.