Maintaining a steady flow of bookings is one of the biggest challenges that hotel owners and managers face in their daily business operations.
It can be challenging to keep your rooms filled, and it can be even more challenging if you operate in an area with an extended off-season.
While hotel owners have a variety of marketing strategies at their disposal, content marketing is the most effective. Through blog, social media, and video content, you can connect with your audience early in their purchasing journey and inspire them with a variety of helpful assets.
This post will explore hotel content marketing. It will cover its benefits and how you can begin leveraging it to generate consistent year-round bookings for your accommodation.
What is Hotel Content Marketing?
Hotel content marketing promotes your property to travellers through useful, entertaining, and informative content.
This means more than creating a blog post and throwing it up on your business website.
Effective content marketing requires a strategy. It requires studying your target audience, analyzing the market, and researching popular questions. Only then can you create a plan that generates leads and converts them into loyal customers.
When done properly, content marketing is one of the best ways to build your brand authority. Through it, you expose your hotel to potential customers throughout their purchasing journey, making you the obvious choice when booking their stay.
What Does Content Marketing Mean for Hotels?
Hotel content marketing can take many forms. It includes videos, blogs, newsletters, social media posts, magazines, and travel guides. While each medium offers a great starting point, the most effective campaigns use a combination of strategies.
A hotel blog is the perfect place to start. You can host it on your website and use it to target search queries and attract leads through effective blog SEO.
Think in terms of ultimate guides for your destination, best of listicles, and guides for attractions or events that are popular with visiting tourists. From there, you can repurpose the blog posts into various formats, including social media campaigns, long- and short-form videos, and email newsletters.
Still, working with an experienced content marketing expert is the best way to ensure you are getting the most out of your content production. Skip the guesswork and send us a message today to tap into six years of hotel content marketing experience.
Why Does Hotel Content Marketing Matter?
Hotel content marketing is a top lead-generation tool and should be part of every accommodation provider’s marketing strategy.
All trips, be it for business or recreation, begin with researching a destination.
Visitors want to know the top attractions, the best restaurants, and upcoming festivals. And they want to know how to experience it all. By creating content around these popular queries, you can connect with your ideal client early in their research process.
The more content you create through your blog, on social media, or both, the more likely a potential lead is to be exposed to your brand. The more they are exposed to your brand, the more likely they are to recognize and book your hotel when making their purchasing decision.
Characteristics of Effective Hotel Content Marketing
We know content marketing can generate leads for your hotel. Now, let’s take a closer look at how to run a campaign that gets consistent bookings.
1. Have a Defined Strategy
The most common mistake many hotels make is to throw out as much content as they can, hoping it catches on. More often than not, it doesn’t, and this content creation becomes a huge waste of time and effort.
A well-planned content marketing strategy produces exponentially better results with significantly less content.
Do your due diligence.
Before publishing, define your target audience. Then, do keyword research. Finally, plan a content calendar to reach your goals.
2. Target a Specific Audience
The second most common mistake hotels make when publishing content is lacking a target audience. Every piece of hotel content should target a specific type of traveller, be it business, luxury, solo, or couples.
This is because different types of travellers have different needs.
Business travellers require professional services. As such, content targeting this niche should be focused on these queries, such as “Top Coworking Spaces in X” or “Popular Meeting Venues in X.”
Similarly, solo travellers may want tips on meeting like-minded visitors, while couples may seek romantic dinner spots or date night ideas. Each piece of content should be as targeted as possible to promote your stay for that type of traveller.
Now, a campaign can target a variety of demographics as a whole, but each piece of content within the campaign should have a clearly defined target audience.
3. Keep Content Informative
Hotel content marketing walks the line between professional and travel writing.
Traditional content writing is concise and filled with informative content. But as a travel service, you also want your writing to sell your destination. This requires descriptive imagery to paint the ideal holiday spot.
But while it is okay to have some fun in your writing, you want to stay focused.
The first goal of any piece of content in your marketing strategy is to provide valuable information. Include some imagery, but ensure each sentence has a purpose and provides insightful tips, tricks, or advice for visiting your destination.
4. Focus on Engaging Writing
While it is important to deliver informative content, you also want it to engage your audience. This is where traditional storytelling elements come in.
Use your content to craft an experience for your audience. Share travel stories. Highlight the destination’s history and attractions. Show how your audience could spend their ideal holiday.
In your content strategy, include personalized elements about your hotel. Highlight its features, staff, and guest experiences. This will create an emotional connection with your audience when they book their stay.
5. Make it SEO-Friendly
When creating marketing content, you want to make sure it is as accessible to your audience as possible. Doing this requires good SEO.
This includes doing proper keyword research before creating content. Then, incorporating on-page elements and promotions after its publication.
Without proper SEO, your content risks not being featured in relevant Google searches. This results in missing out on a large volume of potential leads and reduced conversions for your hotel.
6. Include Visual Content
While persuasive writing may be the backbone of a content marketing campaign, it is often the visuals that grab a reader’s attention.
The great thing about hotel content marketing is that you have plenty of visual content to incorporate.
Take photos of popular attractions, restaurants, and festivals within your city and use them across your blog, social media, and email content.
Even easier, include photos of your hotel. Show your audience the special amenities and services you offer to accentuate the benefits of booking your stay.
7. Update Frequently
Committing to frequent updates is the key to producing exponential results through content marketing. There are two ways to do this.
- Updating your feeds with fresh content on a regular schedule.
- Updating old content with new information to maintain relevance.
Google and other search engines prioritize active websites and social feeds. As such, you want to stick to a regular publication schedule. We recommend publishing at least three times a week for social media feeds and at least twice a month for blogs.
Of course, the more you publish, the more content these search engines have to display and the better results they will produce.
For example, after a year of Kurt’sCopy’s Content Marketing Starter Plan, Cameo Hotel & Suites experienced a 376% increase in website traffic. This came after just 24 newly published blog posts throughout the year.
In the campaign’s second year, we continued publishing two new blog posts per month. But we also updated the previous year’s posts to keep them relevant and to maintain our search engine rankings.
After another month of the campaign, traffic increased by another 42% for a total 580% increase since the start of the campaign.
The more content you produce and the longer you can maintain its relevance, the more exposure your hotel will gain and the more bookings you will generate throughout the year.
How to Create a Hotel Content Marketing Strategy?
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to content marketing. Still, these are a few steps you can take to start crafting the ideal strategy that meets your specific goals.
- Conduct Research – Take your time to analyze your market. Learn who your target audience is and what platforms they consume content on, and begin planning the best ways to reach them.
- Craft Compelling Narratives – Focus on engaging writing while packing in plenty of information. You can do this through compelling narratives that guide readers through an ideal visit to your destination, including a stay in your hotel.
- Insert Relevant Photos – Use relevant images to make your content appealing. Include captivating photos and videos.
- Optimize Content – Review your content and ensure it is optimized for search engines and readers, including a captivating title, headers, and meta descriptions.
- Include CTA – Remember to include a call to action within your content. CTAs can appear at any point in the content, but one should always be added at the end.
- Maintain A Regular Publication Schedule – Establish a regular publication schedule with hard deadlines for each piece of content. As a rule of thumb, aim for at least three social media posts per week or at least two monthly blog posts.
While this is a great place to start, effective content marketing strategies require adjustments and adapting to data. To do this, you need someone familiar with performance analytics to make these data-driven decisions.
At Kurt’sCopy, we have six years of experience. We monitor content marketing campaigns and plan our content strategies every three months. This ensures we can adapt to changes in the industry, market, or data.
9 Hotel Content Marketing Ideas to Convert More Guests
There are many different types of content marketing. These are the nine most powerful mediums for hotels and other travel-based services.
1. Blogs
Blog posts are the backbone of any content marketing campaign. Engaging blog posts boost your online visibility, rank on search engines, and connect with your audience. Even better, blog posts can easily be repurposed to several mediums throughout your content marketing strategy.
2. Emails
Leveraging your blog and guests to build an email list opens up the potential for email marketing. Emails let you connect directly with your audience. They are a great way to encourage return visits with special offers, loyalty programs, or prize giveaways.
3. Newsletters
Another great use for your email list is building an emotional connection with your audience. Use a weekly, monthly, or quarterly newsletter to keep your audience informed. Share hotel updates, upcoming events, and travel stories to encourage return visits.
4. Social Media Posts
Many travellers use social media as inspiration when planning their trips. Publishing content on these platforms that showcases your hotel can be a great way to attract bookings. As a travel-based service, Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok are the best social media platforms for reaching your ideal customers.
5. Videos
In 2022, video accounted for 65% of all internet traffic, and it’s only growing. This means converting your blog posts and travel guides into video content is one of the best ways to have them reach larger audiences. YouTube is an excellent platform for publishing long-form content that can easily be repurposed into short-form videos better suited for TikTok.
6. Brochures
Modern content marketing is predominantly digital. However, traditional print marketing still has its place. Think about roadside stop brochure stands. Along popular routes, these stands get tons of exposure and often inform visitors of upcoming hotels a little further down the road.
7. Magazines
Building on top of brochures, magazines are an even more powerful marketing tool. An annual hotel magazine builds brand loyalty over time and establishes your accommodation option as a favourite destination for many travellers.
8. Infographics
Infographics aren’t a content marketing source within themselves, but they can be added to other outlets to increase engagement. Infographics are three times more likely to be shared than other forms of content, increasing your overall exposure.
9. Podcasts
While rare, hotel podcasts allow audiences to consume content on the go. Podcasts don’t have to be huge. They can be brief five to ten-minute episodes highlighting a feature of your hotel or the destination. You can deliver a recent blog post or video content in an audio format to increase its exposure.
How to Use Content Marketing for Hotels to Increase Bookings?
If you are new to hotel content marketing, start with a blog. Conduct keyword research around ideas that interest your ideal customer and start creating content around those queries. Over time, these will develop traffic to your website and bookings for your stay.
Still, this is the very basics of content marketing. Follow the steps below to begin your comprehensive content marketing campaign and generate year-round bookings.
- Create a Buyer Profile – Include your age ranges, interests, and pain points for each demographic you are targeting.
- Conduct Keyword Research – Use SEO tools to discover what your audience is searching online.
- Define Your Content Strategy – Create a content calendar. It should target relevant keywords and include publication schedules and deadlines.
- Start With a Blog Post – Craft an engaging and informative blog post, optimize it for search engines, and publish it on your hotel website.
- Repurpose for Social Media – Break your blog post into bite-sized packages and post them on relevant social media channels.
- Build Your Email List – Encourage your audience to sign up for your email list during stays and through CTA’s on blog and social media posts.
- Start a Newsletter – Leverage your email list with an effective email marketing campaign, including a weekly, monthly, or quarterly newsletter.
- Keep Publishing – As a rule of thumb, start with three weekly posts on social media platforms and twice a month on blogs.
An effective content marketing campaign needs consistent management to plan, execute, and analyze performance. Doing it right requires a lot of experience. Save yourself the stress and begin enjoying steady bookings with Kurt’sCopy Content Marketing Packages. Fill out this form today and receive a tailored campaign proposal within five days.
Kurt Norris is the founder of Kurt’sCopy, where he helps B2B, e-commerce, SaaS, and local businesses craft compelling content and SEO strategies that deliver measurable results. With over six years of experience, Kurt specializes in creating data-driven campaigns that drive traffic, increase conversions, and establish brand authority.
