Here’s this week’s top 5 tips from around the web on those little ways you can tweak your marketing approach to ramp up trust, loyalty and, ultimately, conversions. These articles address reviews – where to have them, how to deal with them and what makes them important -, ways to thrive as OTAs continue to merge, and the importance of video marketing and retargeting.
Most of these are pretty simple to implement, but they can have a huge impact on how your potential guests view your brand and your hotel.
Check it out:
1. Can Negative Reviews Increase Conversions?
Turning the tide after a negative review doesn’t have to be putting some sleazy PR spin on the review to make it seem like you were always in the right. Sometimes it’s about accepting you were wrong and rectifying the situation.
Contrary to popular belief, accepting the faults in your business and not deleting or spinning negative reviews can actually help increase your overall conversions and lift sales.
2. Effect of TripAdvisor Reviews on Bookings
While we know that travel reviews influence traveler decisions—95% of travelers regularly use travel reviews to make booking decisions—the impact of reviews on hotels goes much further than just making the final cut.
Conducted by TrustYou in cooperation with AccorHotels and Germany’s premier academic and research institution, the Statistical Consulting Unit of LMU Munich, this study looks at all kinds of factors, from timeframe to brand to geography, in an effort to understand just how much reviews influence your potential guests.
3. How Hotels can Survive and Thrive OTA Mega Mergers
A recent study by HVS titled ‘OTAs – A Hotel’s Friend or Foe’ may instil some anxiety among hoteliers as they are busy looking ahead at the 2016 budget planning. With the recent acquisitions of Travelocity and Orbitz, Expedia and Priceline have now secured positions as the two most powerful OTAs. Must hoteliers increase their dependency on OTAs, with limited leverage to negotiate on such issues as commissions and rate parity?
Not at all. Savvy hoteliers will look at this news as an opportunity to reinvent their relationships with both third-party suppliers and their hotel guests. The key to regaining this control lies in focusing on three areas: diversification, negotiation, and targeting.
4. How and Why to Market Your Property With YouTube
Hoteliers who invest in video marketing are poised for success. Think With Google created a white paper in 2014 highlighting the growth of travel-related YouTube views in the past years. Two out of three US consumers watch online travel videos when they’re planning a trip. Simply put, hoteliers who don’t invest in video are leaving money on the table.
Many hoteliers believe that video marketing is too difficult. But, chances are, you already have the tools you need to get started. An iPhone or Android camera and software such as iMovie or Movie Maker are adequate tools to create quality videos.
5. Want An Instant Revenue Spike? Recapture Abandoned Bookings
After all the money spent in online hotel marketing just to bring people to our property websites, a tiny percentage actually end up booking a room. In fact, studies have shown that the actual conversion rate on hospitality websites is a measly two percent.
While these figures are alarming, this now means there is a massive opportunity to regain those lost visitors and reservations. Hotels investing in recovery technology are transforming abandoned reservations into big revenue opportunities.
