When we talk about content marketing, we are referring to the relevant and valuable content you create on a consistent basis to attract and retain your audience.
Ultimately, the goal of your content strategy is to drive customers to take action, such as booking a room with you. (tweet this) The content you create is what will turn your hotel into a really successful one.
So, let’s uncover why today’s hoteliers need an engaging content strategy.
What is Content?
According to MailChimp, content marketing is the development and distribution of relevant and useful content. Before we talk about your pivotal content strategy, here are the types of unique content we are talking about.
- Blog content on your website
- Social media content
- Email marketing content
- Video content
- Newsletters
- White Papers
- SEO – what you do on your website to optimize keywords.
- Pay-per-click – you need great content for your ads.
- Podcasts
Whichever medium you choose, your content should be appropriate for the audience. It should also engage your audience and build loyalty. Now, here’s why you need an engaging content strategy.
It Helps You Generate Leads
You want to create content that engages and converts. As you use your content strategy to drive traffic to your website, you’ll notice your bookings rise.
You can drive people to your website with content such as email and social media marketing.
Your educational, engaging, and useful content helps build trust while making people more comfortable booking with your hotel.
Through ongoing relationship building, you’ll generate more leads and increase your revenue.
It Helps You Increase Sales
Your content strategy needs to be full-bodied. Yes, it needs to drive traffic to your website and help you get more leads. But most importantly, it needs to generate sales. (tweet this)
So, once people land on your website, you need to have the right kind of content to make the sale. For example, you need to include content that now helps them book a room. This might include:
- Content that solves their need.
- Enough content that you answer all their questions about your hotel, rooms, and amenities. This content should solve their problem.
- Content that provides a solution and helps them make a decision to book a room.
To create this kind of content, you need to know your target audience, help them with their pain points, and provide the right kind of information to get the reservation.
It Increases Your Website Traffic
In order to boost your search engine optimization (SEO), you need a superb content strategy. When you have a strong content strategy, you will attract more people to your website and, ultimately, more customers to your hotel.
If you provide the right content, you offer solutions for people. For example, if your hotel has an extra special amenity, blog about it. Then, when potential customers are searching for that amenity, your blog will show up on a search engine results page.
Educational as well as informative content that your target audience is interested in is key to your strategy. By consistently creating good content that answers search queries, your website pops up more often in organic search. It generally lands higher on the search page, ultimately sending more traffic to your website.
You may also find that with an increase in good content, you may get requests from other higher authority websites and blogs for backlinks from their websites. This again makes Google happy and lands your website in a more prominent position on search results pages.
Bottom line – the right kind of content sends more people to your hotel website.
It Increases Customer Loyalty
You probably know that loyal customers are invaluable. Not only do they return to your hotel over and over again, but they also share your property with friends, family, and co-workers.
So, by providing your hotel lodgers with the right content, you encourage their ongoing loyalty. They trust you more and see your hotel as a part of their lives.
It Enhances Your Digital Authority
As more and more people click on your website to view your blogs or watch your videos, you continue to build your digital authority.
Google sees your website as a place to send people, so you’ll find you also rise in the search engine results pages.
It Increases Your Social Media Following
Social media has never been more important, and you may know the value of content on your social platforms.
Beautiful imagery, engaging videos, and content that informs are generally where you want to go with your content strategy. Skip the hard sell.
Social media is for relationship and community building. As you build more and better content, your follower count will grow, and you will also notice more comments and shares on your posts.
To gain and retain social media followers, it’s vital to have an engaging content strategy.
What’s Next for Content Strategy?
Content is king, and it is the future of your hotel’s marketing. Content marketing is definitely a place where hoteliers should concentrate their time.
Add your content strategy to your overall marketing strategy. You’ll find that your return on investment is exponential.
So, how do you get started? Make it simple and follow these steps:
- Identify your target audience (you may have more than one)
- Choose your formats (you may also have more than one)
- Decide your distribution platforms (for example – your website, social media, email marketing, etc.)
- Choose a schedule that works for you.
- Test what’s working and revise as necessary.
You are now ready to put your content strategy to work for your hotel!
We are your hotel digital advertising specialists, and we can help you create engaging content on your hotel website. We help you take your website to the top. Along with your website, we can create a winning social media marketing strategy that also ties back into your website. As website design and redesign experts, we can also create a new or refreshed website accessible to all. And we can also help with search engine marketing, online booking, online listings, and social media marketing. We are here to help. Contact us today for your consultation!
Image: Yuliya Pankevich and mark champs on Unsplash
