In the hospitality industry social media marketing plays a vital part in the strategy of any hotel wishing to connect effectively with guests, expand sales, and enhance its reputation. Smart use of social media helps a hotel stand out from the competition and encourages new and repeat business.
An increasingly important part of social media campaigns is built around Influencers - whose content and values are promoted across their own and other channels: Their opinions can inform and change the opinions of others and are vital in hotel Influencer Marketing.
The benefits of hotel influencers marketing
Influencers come in many shapes and sizes, but we’re not talking about ‘Macro Megastars’ whose posts are seen by hundreds of thousands of followers. After all, few hotels would be able to deal with the increased traffic following the endorsement of a major celebrity!
Hospitality Influencers must be knowledgeable and credible in their field and attract a demographic which is appropriate for your hotel. ‘Micro Influencers’ with ten to fifty thousand followers sharing their opinion of your hotel, can result in a significant uptick in business. Every individual guest is also a ‘Mini Influencer’ with their informal posts on social media spreading word-of-mouth about the excellence of your offering.
The decision to work with Influencers must be carefully considered by looking at the following criteria:
- Reaching a wider target audience
The hospitality Influencer must be capable of reaching a wider audience than your hotel is currently in contact with. They should align with, reinforce and amplify your message, rather than simply duplicating it.
- Improving brand awareness
One of the greatest assets of any hotel is its brand and reputation, so an Influencer must support your existing brand values and how you project them. If elegance is one of your key values, then of course your chosen Influencer should embody that. If your brand is founded on great leisure and sporting facilities, then your Influencer must be active and healthy.
- Reaching and building niche markets
Working with hospitality Influencers is primarily about growing your existing market but it can also create new niche markets, built around the interests of the Influencer. Are they known as an artist, or a historian, or a cook? Building activities, events and offers around the influencer’s talents can attract different demographics to your hotel.
- Building credibility
Keeping the match between the hotel’s brand values and the perceived values of the Influencer is vital and must be credible. If the Influencer and hotel fit together then the proposition is believable. Without credibility the result can look like ‘just advertising,’ and credibility can take time to build.
- Increasing bookings
Deploying an Influencer program will lead to greater awareness of your hotel and its brand values. This will drive enquiries and engagement with your hotel directly through your own website and booking engine, leading to greater occupancy and profitability. Sounds simple? Essentially it is, if you keep front of mind the following points.
Creating a hotel influencer program
Defining your demographic is key to any successful hotel marketing strategy. You have to know who you are aiming at, and you already know your existing guests from direct experience. You will know even more about them if you have a hotel Property Management System storing a vast amount of data about guests and helping to easily spot trends, age, interests and much more. Do you want to reach the same demographic, or change and expand your target audience? This requires drilling down into both the data and your own experience to find the most productive demographic to target. (Pro tip: Download our free Hotel Marketing ebook and create or finetune your property’s marketing strategy.)
Defining the platform comes as a direct consequence of knowing who your audience is. The once cutting-edge Facebook is now popular with the older generation but seen as deeply uncool by Gen Z. Older people are likely to be less interested and adept at navigating the likes of Instagram and TikTok. And don’t neglect specialist sites that cater to niche interests, such as fishing, motorsport, adventure or other nearby activities.
Defining what to accentuate means looking carefully at what features and benefits of your hotel you want more people of the right demographic to know about. There is no such thing as a ‘one size fits all’ audience, and neither can you promote everything about your hotel. Decide on the demographic, then define what you want to accentuate: The excellent food, or the great service, or luxury, or wellness facilities, or the stunning location, or the buzzy nightlife. Even if you have all these things, concentrate on one thing to accentuate in your hotel Influencer marketing. You can accentuate other things later. You can also promote activities that are topical, seasonal, or which can be linked to the Influencer’s expertise.
Finding the right hotel Influencer means researching who is suitable and available. Remember, their perceived brand values have to be a match for yours and for the demographic that you are targeting. Having defined what you wish to accentuate about your hotel, there must be a clear fit between your goals and what the Influencer can deliver. It’s important to set clear guidelines on hashtags, mentions, and key messages that the Influencer should deliver, while also allowing them a degree of creative freedom. And although we’re talking principally about social media channels, remember that there are other non-advertising routes to increase awareness of your hotel. Local radio and TV can be engaged if you create an event involving a personality.
Creating the brief and guidelines starts with deciding who you want to champion your hotel and what message you wish them to propagate. There are then many drop-down issues, such as the duration of the program and budgeting. This can mean whiteboard time with your team, brainstorming approaches. Any effective marketing strategy takes time to craft and adding an Influencer to the mix requires strong ‘command and control’. They are external to your organisation, but should be on board with your goals. To achieve this, you must have a clear roadmap and milestones that everyone involved agrees to.
Assessing the ROI of hotel influencer marketing
Creating a budget for a hotel Influencer programme can be a simple exercise: What can you afford to spend, and what is the likelihood of an adequate Return On Investment? The point of developing a hotel Influencer marketing program is to increase awareness of your hotel, and therefore boost occupancy, so there’s a clear relationship between anticipated cost and anticipated income.
The ROI formula is simple: Revenue/Cost x 100. So let’s say your additional sales generated are $9,000 (or € or any other currency), and your Influencer’s fee and other related costs are $6,500, then the Influencer marketing ROI is 138%. It’s worth mentioning that across all industries nearly half of companies using Influencer marketing spend less than $10,000 on their programs. You can collate real data on the effectiveness of a hospitality Influencer campaign by using tracking links, promo codes, and readily-available analytic tools to measure progress. Also analyze the website traffic and engagement rates of your Influencer.
Not all Influencers are merely looking for a fee to share their opinions about your hotel. Offering a complimentary wellness course, or a weekend stay may be an acceptable exchange for Micro Influencers and is easy to absorb into the hotel’s overall budget. The very best arrangements come when your facilities and the interests of the Influencer combine and bring the targeted demographic to the hotel. Special events and courses will increase occupancy and buzz. Think of art or cooking classes, dance or yoga weekends, rambling holidays… Every activity brings the opportunity for good ROI. That’s not only the ROI of income, but also a return on the efforts of management and staff in bringing great ideas to reality, with the boost of a hospitality Influencer.
Meeting the challenges
There are challenges in getting an Influencer program airborne, and keeping it flying, and an effective SWOT analysis will help at the planning stage. Like any marketing campaign, take it step by step, and regularly assess the effectiveness and reach of the Influencer. This includes the challenge of monitoring social media channels to assess the word of mouth about your campaign, and adjusting your messaging accordingly. It also means being proactive in engaging with the demographic you’re targeting. This takes time but the rewards are increased interest and boosted sales.
Influencers are attractive to other people - through their knowledge, lifestyle and awareness of trends. Meet the challenge of finding the right level of Influencer for your hotel and they can help create a greater rapport with potential guests. Shared values with your Influencer will enhance your brand through great copy, images and videos.
We know about all this because we are SabeeApp and have been working in the worldwide hospitality industry for over ten years, supplying our cloud-based PMS and a range of apps to hotels of all sizes. If you’re interested in making your hotel operation flawless, do get in touch with us for a free no-obligation demo.