Hotel marketing campaigns are essential for generating revenue, attracting new guests, and retaining loyal ones.
But in an industry as competitive as hospitality, where different brands are competing for the same people, generic messaging no longer works. That’s why effective hotel marketing needs to be built on the right hotel guest segmentation and personalisation.
Hotel marketers send out marketing campaigns to all guests with a goal: make them book again or sell some extra services.
According to McKinsey, 76% of consumers are more likely to consider purchasing from brands that personalise their communications and 78% are more likely to repeat purchases.
That means there is a big opportunity when you hyper-personalise your hotel marketing campaigns.
The way to do this is by using all the guest data you have laying around in all your platforms to tailor your communication. That means different hotel guest audiences will receive different campaigns.
In this article, we are giving you nine guest audiences so that you can personalise your campaigns to each of them.
All the audiences we are showing are possible to design with Bookboost’s Multi-Channel CRM and its guest segmentation capabilities. Plus, all the messages can be automated according to specific triggers you can set up on the CRM.
If you use the data on how much a guest spends in total on their stay and the average spend per day, you are able to evaluate and define two different audiences: those who spend a high amount and those who spend a low amount.
By having these guest audiences, you can offer different messages, services and events to each of them.
If they spend more, you can share services that are more expensive and premium-like, and if they spend less, focus on more practical and essential services that they may need and want to have.
Hotel marketing campaigns in practice:
Define what level of expenditure means high spenders and low spenders. From then on, you can send campaigns according to those values.
If you are sending an offer for guests to come back, send a discount to the low spenders on the range they usually pay and send a special package with unique services to high spenders within the range they usually spend.
If you are selling different types of massages, send the regular €20 and less expensive massage to the low spenders and the €80 special massage to the high spenders.
People who have never been to your hotel need to learn everything about it for the first time while returners already know what to expect. That may not seem so relevant, but it is.
Returners came back because they were happy with their experience the last time they stayed in your property, while with first-timers, you still need to prove yourself. That is relevant for the focus you have on campaigns for each.
Hotel marketing campaigns in practice:
For first-time guests: Focus more on sending all the relevant information they need to get around the hotel and all the services you know can be relevant for them according to the guest data you have access to.
Since it’s the first time they stay with you, the data you have on them is much more limited than the one you have on returners. To them, you can send a campaign with a video explaining how the hotel works or asking if they want to add a tour guide to their stay.
For returners: They already know the brand, so make them feel like they are part of the family and recognise they’ve visited you before.
Focus on optimising the selling of the products/services you know they liked during their previous stay. You have the data, so you can put more attention on upselling extra services much more directed to who they are.
Families mean there is at least one child in the booking, which will result in specific needs during the stay. Families will not be interested in receiving an invite to a party or to go on an adults-only show.
Thus, if you have an audience only for families, you can direct your campaigns accordingly to not send irrelevant offers and also to send offers specifically for families' needs.
Hotel marketing campaigns you can try:
If there is an activity group for children in the hotel with caretakers, you can send an offer for the guests to pay an extra fee to be able to have their child there. Or you can even offer a children's meal package.
There are a lot of opportunities when it comes to campaigns which will increase the chances of success for this specific audience.
Remember, not every message needs to be about selling extra services. Consider value-led communication to grow your loyalty.
A guest who stays for 3 days will not want the same as a guest who stays for 2 or 3 weeks.
If you offer a short-stay guest a cleaning fee for the room to be cleaned twice per week, it is not gonna be relevant. For a long-stay guest, that’s a different story.
Hotel marketing campaigns in practice:
Send a campaign to the short-stay guests showing the highlights of how they can make the best out of their experience with you in a short time.
Send a campaign to the long-stay guests offering meal packages for their whole stay.
These are examples of the different approaches you need to take to maximise the experience of these two very different types of guests.
Remember, using the right tool is key to making communication feel personalised and building the right guet segmentation. Bookboost is built for this. Watch this video to find out what Yours Truly, a hotel in Munich, think about the process.
Regular guests know you much better than others. They already know how to move around your hotel, which services you offer, how the processes work, and what they can expect.
Who can be a regular guest? A business traveller who stays at your hotel every time they visit their company’s office in that city.
For you, it means that you also know them much better than you know others. With them, you can use the information on their previous stays and focus much more on offering surprises and delightful experiences they are not expecting.
Campaigns in practice
First of all, you need to set up how many times they need to come back and in which frequency to be considered regular guests.
From there, you can send campaigns referring to the previous stays. If it’s a leisure traveler, you could say something like: “Hi, Guest X! We know you enjoy a lot our vegetarian meatballs so why not join our special cooking workshops this week and learn how to make them?”.
If you want them to come back, you can also refer to the previous stays, for example, “Hi, Guest X! We are used to having you around, so we miss you already. You haven’t visited in a few months now. Are you ready to come back yet?”. And then you can add a specific offer tailored just for them to attract them to come back.
The goal of someone who travels for leisure is completely different from those who travel for business. Leisure travellers want to have fun and make the most of their time to do so, while business travellers are there to work.
Business travellers care about different amenities, such as high-speed internet, a coworking zone, coffee supply and more.
Hotel marketing campaigns for business guests:
To a business traveller, you can focus on offering the amenities that resonate with them.
- A different idea is to offer meal packages for the whole stay so they don’t need to worry about it.
- Arranging a transport pickup at a discounted price.
- Even after-working hours relaxation moments such as a time at the spa or a yoga class after a long day looking at the computer.
Something to keep in mind is that bleisure travellers (who combine business with leisure in a single trip) are more common than before. Learn how to attract bleisure guests here.
Having a loyalty program means you give guests within that program special access to offers and services. Overall, you give them access to a more exclusive experience than other guests, and it is important to highlight that in your communications so they feel it is worth it.
Campaigns in practice
Let’s say within their loyalty program, guests have access to a special discount or service if they book 6 times per year in one of your properties. If you get to the middle of the year and they only booked once or twice, you can send them a campaign mentioning that and personalising an offer with, for example, the type of room they usually like to book.
You can also send them specific information on services that they subscribed to. And you can even send them a campaign with a form asking about what they would like to have in their next stay and make it happen. The possibilities are endless.
Did your guests book from an OTA, directly from your website or somewhere else? With that information, you will know you have access to different data. If a guest booked on an OTA, you will not have as much information about them as you do about the guests that booked directly on your website.
At the same time, if they booked via an OTA, it may be the case that they did not see everything you showcase about the hotel on your website.
Thus, you can build campaigns tailored to enrich the data of guests coming from OTAs and also adapt the information you send accordingly to show them what they cannot miss.
Campaigns in practice
Send guests coming from OTAs a campaign asking them to fill in some extra information or showing them the key amenities and services of your hotel, which they probably did not have access to in an OTA. After they leave and when you want to send them an offer to come back, showcase the benefits of booking directly with you and add the link to the booking page directly.
The best of this is that you can draft all these audiences with your own data and create even more! When you have the right CRM (a multi-channel one, of course), the possibilities are endless!
We are talking about guests who are originally from the same city where your properties are located. They speak the language, they know the culture, and it’s less of an effort to travel to your property since they are fairly close.
Campaigns for local guests:
To those guests, you can offer local stays, like a weekend away from home, a relaxing holiday, and more. You focus on selling the experience and leverage the knowledge of the local holidays and the local culture.
Hyper-personalised hotel marketing campaigns based on well-defined guest segments lead to higher conversions, better upselling, and stronger guest loyalty.
You are talking the guests’ language and offering services and information that are relevant to them. No more one-message-fits-all approach!
With tools like a multi-channel CRM like Bookboost, you can get all the insights from your audiences, automate this process and boost ROI on every campaign.
Want to see how you can set up these audiences in just a few clicks? Book a demo and see how Bookboost helps you turn guest data into marketing results.
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