Inbound marketing, branded content, storytelling; the new strategy to reach your future guests.
Keep these concepts if you don't know them yet, they are the key to the new marketing for your hotel. Experiences and stories are gaining strength against the aggressiveness of traditional advertising.
A paradigm shift is emerging in the world of hotel marketing. Less aggressive, based on experience, emotions, storytelling and long-haul. Far from action-reaction and immediate return, the trend is to build a story that seduces the guest in order to establish a relationship with them based on commitment, trust and loyalty.
From GuestPro we want to give you some keys to get started, if you have not yet done so, in this type of marketing based on communication with the customer by establishing a relationship away from direct advertising and interruption.
Inbound vs Outbound marketing
We are talking about Inbound marketing which, unlike Outbound marketing (direct marketing, which shows the value of the product to convince you to buy it) is less intrusive and uses strategies and techniques to voluntarily attract the consumer and establish a relationship of trust with them.
One of the techniques used in this type of marketing is BRANDED CONTENT or content marketing: Let's tell stories.
One of the highlights of this inbound marketing strategy is undoubtedly the content, we are in the age of content creation. Whoever has a good story wins the game. This technique is based on building the brand of the company, in this case the hotel, providing it with values, we will never say that our hotel "is the best", "with the best views", we are not going to sell the hotel directly, as the current client is aware that they are trying to sell them something, they are perfectly aware of this type of strategy and now they do not allow themselves to be manipulated by this type of aggressive marketing.
The loss of confidence in this type of message among today's public, especially millennials, has been replaced by a commitment to products and experiences from companies that know how to identify and share their values. The price of the hotel is no longer as important as the fact that it has a philosophy, values and principles similar to those of the client. We must seduce, persuade, fascinate; create bridges with our potential clients through content.
For example, the growing concern for sustainability and respect for the environment when choosing a holiday must be taken very seriously by the tourism industry, which will have to incorporate this value into the story it is going to tell. Engaging the customer through branded content is the key to branded content.
But how do we do it?
Theory sometimes tends to simplify things. OK, so we're clear about all this inbound and content creation, but how do we do it, where do we start?
Let's take it one step at a time. Before starting to design our line of communication in content creation, we must be clear about a series of aspects.
Firstly, the hotelier must establish the values with which he wants to be identified. In this sense, it is essential to carry out a preliminary work that will be the basis on which to carry out the different marketing actions: research and detect what your hotel's future guests are looking for. And, remember, the content you are going to create does not have to be specifically about the establishment, but about topics that interest your target audience and in which the hotel is synonymous with positive values and ideas.
Once this "field work" has been done and we have detected what we are going to highlight about the hotel's philosophy, the type of holiday and/or stay we offer..., it is very important to choose the medium in which we will find our target client/guest and the format of the communication. It can be videos, blog posts, publications, podcasts... Both on the hotel's website, on social networks, in the sector's media, on tourist portals, in general media.
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels
STORYTELLING, the value of telling stories:
Once we know what we want to transmit, in what format and through which channels, the time comes to create this immersive content that will position us. It must be a creative content focused on going viral to achieve maximum dissemination. Being shared, improving the hotel's online reputation linked to positive values will help strengthen the brand. All focused on capturing the attention of customers who sympathise with the values of the brand to achieve greater loyalty and get a longer-term customer.
At this point, we refer to the importance of storytelling in this so-called "experience economy". Storytelling emphasises the importance of storytelling and the facts that inspire, storytelling to connect emotionally with the customer. Tourism in general is in itself a great creator of stories through the experiences of travellers and it is in these experiences that we will find inspiration to build stories that capture the interest of new adventurers.
The hotel is a common setting in fiction, films and TV series often take place in hotels, where they even become an integral part of the story. So it should not be difficult to create good stories about our hotels, don't you think? Telling a good story will help you to showcase your hotel and you can create an emotional bond with the customer. It must be a narrative connected to reality, and it must be a link between the hotel's image on the web, its website and its employees, it must interrelate all the hotel's communication, connect it to its values. For this reason, it is important that you involve the staff in its creation and dissemination so that they also identify with the hotel's values and thus transmit it to guests naturally. A good story will always be well received and shared creating the much desired virality that will position the hotel and make you achieve your goal: to reach new customers.
GuestPro offers you some tools to create this type of content such as the webkit with blog option or our CRM which is a perfect tool to seek the complicity of customers who can contribute to viralize it. In addition, in our marketing department we have a team specialised in content that will advise you in the process of creation and dissemination.
Cover photo by Joshua Miranda on Pexels
