Summertime’s finally here – your busiest season as a hotelier! A few weeks ago, we gave some advice on what kind of campaign elements to make sure you implemented in order to maximise all that roasting hot summertime revenue. As we step a bit further into this sweet season, we’re advising on what else, as part of your overall strategy, you need to consider in order to make sure you’re attracting customers like bees to honey.
The first step in your summer campaign creation is to develop your summer rate plan. Nail down who exactly you’re targeting and come up with a rate plan that is full of compelling elements that will be genuinely valuable. What features would make their stay more enjoyable? Don’t worry about anything gimmicky, just focus on the necessities eg for families, think child-friendly features. Make your offer appealing enough to attract customers away from the OTA-hive and over to your hotel’s direct-hive… it’s sweeter! For customers to truly consider booking direct, they’ll need to see decent value, a discount, or exclusive features they wouldn’t find available on an OTA site, only your hotel website. Ensure the offer has full availability – it’s no use if it can’t be availed of! This is a seasonal offer, so it needs to run for the entire summer. If you need more in-depth help crafting a solid rate plan, look no further! If your audience happens to be families, take a quick look at our handy checklist for all you need to know.
Your summer rate plan and corresponding website / landing page content need to be best friends – truly in sync, finishing each-other’s sentences and complementing one another effortlessly. Your language, features, images – everything relating to your summer rate plan on-site should be clear and consistent. Speaking of imagery, keep your visuals rich with colour and intrigue. The right imagery has the power to change a piece of marketing from bland and forgetful, to vibrant and interesting. No fancy photography at your fingertips? Free community-based stock image sites like unsplash are perfect for unique, eye-catching pictures that will help make an impact.
No use denying it – none of this is any good without a tangible push across a mix of digital channels. What you invest in will come down to what works best for your property, and the more you spend, the more you’ll get back. Be realistic when you’re setting budgets – it’s just as important to invest financially as it is creatively – without the spend, your beautiful campaign will pretty much go to waste. Consider a campaign utilising Facebook and Google advertising for example. It depends on your audience and how many customers you want to reach, but your dedicated Facebook ad campaign should spend a minimum of around €10 per day for you to see decent return. With Google ads, it all depends on your budget, but consider bumper ads – more on these here. Be consistent here, too – another reminder that this campaign is seasonal, so it should run for longer than a week or two! It’s worth the investment.
OTAs have their place in your strategy for sure. They serve a purpose, but prioritise your property – keep your carefully crafted summertime rate plan for your own website. Ring-fence your best-seller rooms – something that should always be done, but especially this season! Put a minimum length stay restriction on stock gone to OTAs on weekends during the summertime if you know they’re likely to sell out.
Echoing a previous point, you also want to make sure you have full availability, so if your offer is around family rooms for example, minimise the number of family rooms you give to OTAs.
As always, contact us at hello@netaffinity.com for more information or advice on any of the above!
