The hotel industry is growing at an exponential rate. Today, there are millions of travelers who have access to disposable income and want to explore the world. In fact, demand is still growing, and the peak is yet to come.
With growing demand comes growing supply, which leads to fierce competition in the hotel industry. So, what does this boil down to?
It means attracting customers is a great and critical challenge for hoteliers – especially the individual hoteliers.
But being a one-person hotel brand shouldn’t stop you from competing with major hotel brands online.
As an individual hotelier, you’ve access to multiple marketing channels and strategies to take hold of how you present yourself online.
Let’s have a look at the most effective strategies for building your personal hotel brand online.
Tell your personal brand story
It all begins with a story. Without a story, you won’t have a brand.
Your story should show who you are and your purpose. Tell your potential guests why you are into the hotel industry and what drives you to provide the best guest experience. Talk about your values, history, and your interests and passions.
Don’t restrict yourself while telling your story online. Don’t only focus on the copy on your website or social media channels but also on other branding elements, like images of your property and your guests, your logo, and your tagline.
Tell your personal brand story on your website. Know the secret to design beautiful and functional hotel websites that drive direct bookings here.
Continue your personal brand story on your social media channels. Click here to discover best practices for social media for hotels.
Plan a content marketing strategy
No website is complete without content. Content can make or break your hotel’s success online.
Thus, you need a wholesome content marketing strategy for your blog. Your strategy will depend on your objective. While defining your personal brand story, you might have come up with your brand purpose. Create your content marketing strategy around that.
For example, if your purpose is to give a taste of your small town to guests, talk about that. Create content that tells what’s special about your region and how guests can actually experience your town if they choose to stay at your hotel.
The purpose of your one-person hotel brand can also be as simple as providing the best guest experience. Write articles about the unique services and amenities that you provide so that travelers know what to expect from you.
Whatever your purpose is, create impactful and interesting content that reflects it. Use your website blog and social media channels, like Facebook and Instagram to distribute your content. This will not only help you reach new customers but will also improve your SEO. Let’s talk more about SEO in the next section.
Focus on SEO
As an individual hotelier, you need to put yourself out there for travelers to find and engage with you online. Having a strong Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help you achieve that.
SEO is an Internet marketing strategy and one that every hotelier with a hotel website should look into. It’s the process of influencing how visible your website is among all the unpaid results generated by a search engine.
Find out SEO best practices for one-person hotel brands here.
Keep an eye on your reviews
Let’s face the truth – nothing’s more important than reviews in today’s online world. Reviews are everything for a brand, especially a one-person hotel brand in the hospitality industry. Reviews make up the biggest motivating factor for travelers these days to book their hotel stays.
As a hotelier, it’s essential for you to continuously keep an eye on your online reviews and ratings. This will help you track what your guests are saying about you so that you can improve or keep up your services and offerings. Moreover, reviews help you extract vital information about your customers and reviewers, like age, job, gender, lifestyle, and hobbies. This can help you gain crucial insights about your current and potential guests.
Here’s how you can check your property’s online reputation score for free.
Partner with OTAs
Having a diversified distribution mix is paramount for hoteliers. This is where OTAs (Online Travel Agents) can help. As a hotelier, you should make sure that your hotel rooms are distributed via various credible OTAs. This can help you reach multiple travelers and drive bookings.
However, hotels are increasingly getting concerned about the growing costs of third-party reservations and the inability to drive direct bookings via OTAs.
To overcome these issues, more and more hotels are now turning to metasearch. Being on a metasearch site doesn’t only help increase visibility, but also drive direct bookings for hoteliers. Metasearch is, therefore, one of the best marketing and distribution channels for one-person hotel brands.
Market on metasearch
Metasearch is a critical component in the online hotel marketing and distribution landscape, with more than 94% of online travelers choosing metasearch when booking accommodation online.
Thus, as a hotelier, you can not ignore metasearch. Registering on the major metasearch sites is free of cost. It can help you reach millions of travelers, improve your visibility, and drive direct bookings.
Click here to know how you can list your property on trivago for free.
Take your property from hidden gem to high demand.
Being a one-person brand in the hotel industry shouldn’t stop you from competing with major hotel brands online. Ideas listed above can help you enhance your visibility and attract more travelers.
Featured image: StartupStockPhotos on Pixabay
