How Marketing is Shaping the Guest Experience in the Hospitality Industry

Marketing and hospitality work together to create exceptional guest experiences. In truth, the guest experience plays a large part in determining whether a hospitality business is excellent and effective.

The hospitality industry today is very competitive. In this digital, hyper-connected world, countless hotels, resorts, restaurants, and other hospitality businesses regularly fight for audience attention. Therefore, marketing operations have had to evolve to ensure that the intersection of marketing and hospitality continues to engage and satisfy guests.

Effective hospitality marketing strategies today have transformed into multi-faceted, strategic efforts that go above and beyond traditional advertisements.

In this blog, we’ll explore the intersection between marketing and hospitality and how you can create guest experiences that exceed customer expectations.

The Evolution of Marketing in Hospitality

When did you last pick up a hotel, resort, or other business brochure? Odds are, it’s been a while. That’s because marketing and hospitality have evolved drastically over the years.

In the early days, we relied on print media, word-of-mouth referrals, and, eventually, other traditional promotional efforts like TV commercials and radio ads. Specifically, in the hotel industry, brochures were the go-to marketing medium, as they were given to travel agents to display and hand out to potential guests. These marketing strategies were influential in their time but often generic. They didn’t offer much room for customization and attention to guests’ needs and preferences.

Over the years, we’ve moved from print media, TV, and radio ads to more dynamic ways to reach guests and market our brands. Hospitality businesses began investing more in building their brand and identifying ways to differentiate themselves from the competition; both became critical elements as we moved into more digital marketing efforts on platforms like social media.

The internet, social media, and even mobile apps offer many possibilities for marketing and hospitality. Through these platforms, it’s much easier to connect with guests in real time and engage with them through curated content and feedback loops. Today’s hospitality marketers also leverage SEO, paid online advertising, and email marketing. Possibly the most influential piece of all is the use of data; as we’ve learned, customer data is a goldmine of insights, so analyzing it to make marketing and business decisions has become an essential part of marketing and hospitality today.

Personalization and Customization

In the digital marketing landscape, personalization and customization is everything. Personalized marketing can make all the difference in your guests’ experiences and ultimately set you apart from the competition.

It doesn’t work to take a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing anymore, especially when 71% of consumers say they feel frustrated when faced with an impersonal shopping experience, according to data from Sender .

The average guest seeks unique, tailored experiences catering to their wants, needs, and preferences. Offering personalized marketing is a surefire way to enhance guest satisfaction because it shows them that you see and understand them, which makes guests feel valued and appreciated by your brand. Guests who feel this connection are likelier to become repeat customers, recommend you to their friends and family, and share their positive experiences with you on social media.

One of the most effective ways to start adding personalization to your marketing and hospitality efforts is by leveraging data analytics. Each guest and individual interaction offers many insights you can use to understand their preferences and behaviors better. The most effective data-analyzing strategy is to pull insights from multiple touchpoints, such as booking patterns and social media interactions.

The more touchpoints you collect data from, the more detailed and insightful your understanding of guests will be. With this data, you can create targeted promotions and send personalized offers to serve your audience better.

When adding personalization to your marketing and hospitality strategies, you should launch diverse, innovative campaigns specific to your business goals. Remember, the one-size-fits-all approach is out, so you need to be thoughtful with your personalization efforts to generate results.

These are some examples of how you can personalize your hospitality marketing:

• Use guest data to personalize their stay. You can do this by presenting custom welcome messages or leaving specific items in their room, like extra pillows or towels, if you know they often request these things.
• Offer tailored recommendations. By analyzing guest data, you may notice one of your guests is vegan, so you send them restaurant recommendations in the area to make their dining experiences smoother.
• Targeted promotions. This is how you reach your loyalty program members, as you can send them exclusive discounts, personalized room updates, and other bonuses to continue fostering that brand loyalty.

Social Media and Influencer Marketing

No marketing strategy is complete without implementing social media and influencer marketing, which is true in the hospitality industry. While social media and influencer marketing may seem like a novel concept to some, it’s essential to jump on board because the industry is massive, and its growth isn’t slowing down any time soon.

In 2023 alone, the influencer marketing industry reached $21.1 billion and is expected to reach a record $24 billion in 2024 , according to data from Statista.

Influencers and social media, in general, are extremely powerful in shaping guest perceptions. When trusted influencers say they had a great time staying at your hotel and share highlights from their experience through visually appealing photos and videos, their audience will be more inclined to check your business out. This also works in the inverse. If an influencer shares negative experiences with your brand online, you risk losing their audience.

Ultimately, though, collaborating with influencers significantly benefits marketing and hospitality. It allows you to reach a broader audience, boost credibility, and increase brand awareness through new, aesthetic, influencer-created content.

Social media marketing is similarly impactful; you can do much of this in-house. You can fully optimize your brand’s social media presence and elevate customer engagement by creating engaging content, interacting with followers, and leveraging user-generated content. Staying active on your social media platforms is also a great way to develop a sense of community among guests, as you can interact with them directly through comments and shares.

Content Marketing and Storytelling

To increase and improve your connections with guests, you must implement a content marketing strategy and more storytelling elements to your marketing and hospitality approach.

High-quality content is powerful because it can be educational, entertaining, and even inspirational, all of which can attract guests to your brand. Creating engaging content starts with a deep understanding of your target audience — this is where data analytics and guest insights become helpful again. Whether it’s a blog, video, podcast, or some other form of content, it should be created with your guests’ preferences and needs at the forefront.

Showcasing your business is also essential in content marketing. This is your time to highlight the unique aspects and amenities that set your brand apart from the rest of the crowd. Why should guests choose you? What do you have to offer that makes your brand unique?

You can cover a range of topics in your marketing and hospitality content. For example, perhaps your property has a rich history that makes it interesting — tell your guests about it in a video that tours the location. Or you could curate a blog post listing essential travel tips people should know. Whatever you create, ensure you use SEO best practices so your content reaches as many people as possible and ranks high in search engine results.

With content marketing, storytelling is essential . The stories you tell through your branding allow you to connect with guests more emotionally, which is critical to the foundation for lasting relationships. Storytelling helps craft your brand identity, create more immersive guest experiences, and humanize your brand. When guests feel connected to your brand’s story, they’re more likely to engage with you and feel a sense of loyalty if they believe you’re authentic and can relate to your message.

Reviews and Reputation Management

Monitoring reviews and managing a brand’s reputation have always been essential to marketing and hospitality, but they’re becoming even more critical in a fast-paced, digital-focused marketing environment.

Think about the last time you booked a hotel or made a reservation at a new restaurant. You likely skimmed through the business’s online reviews first to see what other customers had to say about their experience. Online reviews are critical to marketing and hospitality as they influence guest decisions. A good or bad review can make all the difference in determining whether a guest chooses you or the competition.

The best practice for online reviews is to be thoughtful and proactive in managing them. It helps to have someone actively monitor review platforms and social media comments to respond to both positive and negative feedback promptly. This is how you create a positive reputation for your brand and build trust with your guests. There are also several tools and software options you can use to help manage online reviews, making the process more streamlined.

Encourage your guests to leave reviews and interact with your brand on socials. Of course, it’s preferred that they leave reviews when they’ve had a positive experience and want to praise your brand because this attracts other guests. However, you also want to hear from them when they have something more negative to say. These negative reviews can lead to growth and innovation, as you can make changes and improvements based on guest feedback, significantly enhancing the overall guest experience.

In the world of digital marketing, your online reputation is everything. Your guests most likely interact with your brand online more than anywhere else. You need a solid reputation to attract new customers and retain existing ones.

Positive reviews and lots of five-star ratings look great for your credibility. When you actively monitor the conversations about your brand on review platforms and social media, you’ll build more credibility with guests and create a positive perception of your brand that contributes to your long-term success and sustainability.

Conclusion

Marketing and hospitality work together to create exceptional experiences for your guests, exceeding their expectations and setting you apart from the competition.

Marketing strategies have evolved over the years, and in today’s fast-paced, digital-first landscape, you need to be innovative, intentional, and ready and willing to meet your guests where they’re at. This means engaging with them on social media and creating tailored marketing efforts that resonate with their individual wants and needs, which is essential to any successful strategy in marketing and hospitality.

Including efforts like personalization, social media and influencer marketing, content marketing, storytelling, and review and reputation management in your marketing strategies can seriously enhance guest satisfaction and loyalty, directly contributing to your brand’s success.

The need for more innovative, digital-driven approaches will increase as the marketing and hospitality industries evolve. Future trends in marketing and hospitality will likely include more personalization, more advanced technology, and more emphasis on innovation to continue finding new ways to attract customers.

Your brand needs to take a moment to identify ways to align marketing strategies with guest expectations to essentially “future-proof” your brand. When your marketing is aligned with guests’ preferences, you’re better equipped to anticipate their wants and needs to create memorable, satisfying experiences that keep your guests coming back time and time again.