Being a leader is one thing; being a great leader is a whole new ball game. To stay at the forefront of innovation, creativity and ahead of your competitors, you need to learn the skills required to be a great leader when marketing your hotel.
The Core Fundamentals of Why Your Hotel Exists
If you take a close look at hotel marketing, there are a variety of tactics that you can implement to stay popular amongst your clientele. There are straightforward marketing tools that have been around for a while, like email marketing, offering packages, loyalty programmes, newsletters, and the list goes on.
Now, take a few steps back and start at the beginning of all this; where would a hotel marketing team be? Well, they’d be at their origin. They’d be right back at why they started their whole enterprise, the core fundamentals of why their hotel exists.
Once you go back and understand what you stand for as a hotel, you can only truly know how you can be a leader. You can only lead, once you know who you are.
5 Key Recipes that Lead to a Successful Hotel Marketing Strategy
The leadership qualities can be summed up in a few key recipes that lead to a successful hotel marketing strategy, which you’ll find below.
First things first, to lead, you need to know where you are going. In short, you need:
1. Vision
You need to know where you want to go. To know where you want to go, you also need to determine how to get there. With which goals, values and beliefs. As a Hotel Marketing Manager or owner of your hotel, you need to define your goals and ensure that everyone in the team upholds these.
In addition to recognising and outlining the goals, you also need to be able to inspire others to follow suit. It makes very little sense to have values and beliefs that aren’t shared by the whole team. The entire team needs to stand behind the hotel’s vision as every member is an integral part of the entire hotel ecosystem. It’s the act of outlining a clear mission and mission statement that will serve as the communal thread that everyone in the team can depend on and turn to in moments of doubt.
You may want to keep in mind that the goals that form your vision need to be motivational and offer solace during challenging times for the team. Problems arising are unavoidable in the hotel industry; however, with a clear vision and concrete values and beliefs to hold on to, navigating troubled waters becomes a breeze.
2. Flexibility
The biggest expense and the biggest asset in the hospitality industry are its people.
People are what make an average hotel a great hotel. Leading people correctly is a sure way to become a market leader as a whole hotel. It is essential to give everyone in the team the core knowledge they need, like the above-mentioned vision and mission statement, but simultaneously give them the space and flexibility to act independently.
As a leader, you need to trust that you have trained your staff as best you can, that you have provided them with all the necessary materials to offer exemplary service and that they are true professionals in their own right and will therefore make decisions that benefit the hotel, and not tarnish it.
You have to be flexible in your approach as each team member you engage with is their own person. Communicating honestly with them and letting them know that you trust them and you’re happy to see how they tackle a challenge can give them immense reassurance and improve confidence.
3. Be an Example
A sure way to the road to success is to lead by example.
If you have set up a list of goals and values that the rest of the team needs to follow, it is important that you not only also follow these but that you embody them.
The best kind of leader is willing to do any task, no matter how small. As a great leader, you need never ask a colleague to do something you wouldn’t do.
A leader needs to exude a sense of willingness at every turn constantly. This will inspire and motivate team members to also want to jump in and start swimming at every new prospect. It will also show that you are relatable. A relatable leader is a beloved leader, and a beloved leader is someone who can be a market-leading great leader.
4. Show Vulnerability
It is essential to be self-aware and to be able to communicate in these areas well.
Typically, when you think of a great leader, you think of someone who oozes confidence and strides through corridors instead of simply walking.
This is a misconceived idea of what a great leader is. Someone with the ability to lead a whole team to the next level of business is someone who can communicate their weaknesses and also ask for assistance when they need it. An example of this:
As the world has changed and becomes more digital, you have identified that you really struggle with tech. You’re a leader in your area of expertise with 25 years of experience. You may want to communicate this to an intern or a young, new person in the team. This will demonstrate to everyone in the team that you are not afraid to point out the areas where you feel you lack expertise.
It will show the team that you are self-aware enough to identify where you know you don’t have enough knowledge. You have the skills to communicate these areas of difficulty in a way that does not belittle your standing but rather sheds light on where you could benefit from assistance.
It will also demonstrate that you don’t need to know everything to be a great leader. You need to know a few things and be a true expert. However, you also need to know where to delegate.
It will give your team faith as they will no longer be so ashamed of the things that they perhaps also don’t feel they’re good enough in yet; it will allow them to identify these areas and pass these tasks on to someone with more experience or skill. Thus improving the output of the whole team in a positive way.
5. Creativity
As a leader, you need to be able to think outside of the box.
The hotel industry is a tough industry that often feels saturated and demands high levels of excellent service. If you want to be a market leader, then you need to come up with ideas that excite. Your guests deserve to have creative, unique, cutting edge, and forward-thinking service. It is your responsibility to create an environment where creative ideas can be shared.
The whole team can get involved in sharing ideas and coming up with things. It is your job to have a safe space for everyone’s ideas to be applauded, even if not all of them are used. The way to do this is to lead with honesty and an open-door policy.
If your team knows you as kind, fair and honest, they will be more likely to share ideas with you and the rest of the team. Why? Well, because they know that even if their idea is not taken on board, it will at least not be ridiculed.
An open-door policy will also give you a vote of confidence as a leader because the team knows that you are approachable and always there for them.
If you run a team with your back, who trusts you and whom you trust, who can share ideas freely and let their creative juices flow, you have a winning strategy for clever marketing through proper leadership.
Go and be a great leader
Being a great leader is not a job for the faint-hearted. It will require immense amounts of understanding, control, flexibility, transparency, and creativity daily. However, it will also probably be the most rewarding thing to pursue. Imagine having a team of people you work with, who look up to you, whom you create a shared mission for and a shared beat to which everyone in the team moves.
It can come with its challenges, but what doesn’t, right? If you’re going to lead, you may as well do so in an exemplary fashion. Go and be a great leader by implementing these key tips.
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