Make The Most Of Your Hotel Guest's "Customer Journey"
Introduction
A few years ago (2016) Google released its 4-stages of travel, which covers the initial interest a guest show in a trip all the way through to them actually arriving and being on-site. In this guide, I hope to help your hotel improve its customer experience through this Customer Journey Map and give you a few tips on how to incorporate it into your digital marketing plan. In the article, Google refers to these Mico-moments as "the dreaming stage", "the planning stage", "the booking stage" and "the experiencing stage." I like these titles and so will be referring to the various stages of the funnel in the same terms.
Know Your Hotel's role
In most cases, it is in your own best interest to target guests who are already looking to travel to your area. Convince them to stay in your hotel. It's generally not worth your time or investment to try and convince guests to come to an area. That being said, in an attempt to boost your online presence, I WOULD recommend Blogs and other online digital marketing of your area. I cover this in another blogpost.
4 Stages Of The Travel Customers Journey
The travel customer journey can be broken down into 4 parts. We will cover those here.
Dreaming Stage
Travelers at this stage of the planning process are easily distracted by "shiny object syndrome". They will look into any type of holiday and are just getting inspiration for their trip.
They will search Social Media, Search Engines, and other resources that give them ideas. They may be months away from booking a holiday, but they have an itch to scratch and this dreaming stage is laying the foundation of their holiday.
This is the perfect opportunity for your hotel to start getting your brand in the mind of your potential customer (or guest as they will be referred to from here on out.) We will go into a little more detail later in this article.
GENERATE AWARENESS
Your aim at this time is to generate awareness for your brand. This can best be accomplished via Social Media and Blogging, as well as other digital marketing channels that will get you found online, boost your SEO, and help you break through the online noise.
INSPIRE TRAVEL
At this inspiration stage of the funnel, your ads should focus on selling the unique guest experience of your hotel or travel destination.
Marketing Strategy for the Dreaming Stage
Video
The aim of the dreaming stage is to generate interest, intent, and consideration in your hotel or destination. Using video across your Social Channels and paid ads can reap dividends in getting potential guests onto your hotel website. You can use the obvious Social Media Channels such as Facebook and Instagram. Using Social Media ads as well as posting videos on your wall or stream will get your brand noticed. But why stop there? YouTube is a fantastic social media tool to use for advertising with high-quality video footage. This is the time to maximise your exposure across all of your digital marketing platforms, ensuring you are seen as much as possible.
In-Stream Ads
If you frequent YouTube you will have seen the video ads placed at the beginning or in the middle of the video you are currently watching. Viewers are shown 5 seconds of an ad before they are given the option of skipping the ad. The advertiser is only charged should the viewer watch at least 30 seconds of your ad or when they click on a card on the ad.
There are other video options on YouTube you can look into as well. Such as Video Discovery ads which have a slightly different marketing model.
Example: Video Marketing Strategy
You are a 5-star luxury resort in the Lake District. You cater to an adult-only experience in the beautiful landscape of the Lakes. Create a 1-minute destination and overview video highlighting the landscape, your location, and things to do on-site. Target a "look-alike" audience based on your current Email subscribe list, adults aged 25-65, income-based targeting ￡75,000+. Include a clear call to action to explore your hotel. Direct your users to your hotel website at the end of the video.
Still Images
Following a Photo Shoot, you have been delivered a number of fantastic still assets. I have another blog post on ideas of how to best make use of these images. Still images will be used to great effect on your hotel website, in your Email Marketing, across your Social Channels, and all other digital marketing platforms. In this blog post, we will cover two other uses for them. Still Image Assets in the dreaming stage should be inspirational. They will be images of your ideal guest type interacting with your hotel or immediate area. Think along the lines of a couple walking down a beach, or in the pool. Perhaps you can have a group of friends having a meal in your restaurant. These images should be professional, high-quality images. User-Generated Content can come later in the funnel, but this is not the place for them.
Google Adwords and Other Display Networks
These networks help you reach people when they are searching for the products you provide. You have a number of targeting and retargeting options that can focus on the ads you create for a specific market. You can even follow potential or previous guests from social media to your website, creating custom ads that will hit an important touchpoint for you. Some 3rd party platforms let you create lookalike audiences from your email lists or Social channel followers.
Example: Stills Marketing Strategy
You run a boutique hotel in Cornwall that sits right on the seafront. Your balcony bar serves a variety of high-quality wines while your guests watch the sunset through your large glass balcony doors.
Create a display ad with a high quality still image of a couple sitting in your balcony bar watching the sunset enjoying a bottle of wine. A text overlay saying: "Sit, Sip, See" at the top. And "Come For The Wine, Stay For The View. See Why Guests Prefer {Brand Name}" as the Call To Action. Target couples, aged 35-55 with an income of ￡50,000+ and "wine" and "Travel" as interests. You're essentially building a Buyer Persona to market to in this example which you can use in other campaigns.
Planning
Travelers in this stage of the funnel have got your destination in mind. But that is it. They have decided where they are going to go and are now steadily researching what to do, where to stay, and what to eat. They are reading online reviews and are looking up Social Media to see what others say about your destination. At this portion of the guest journey, your hotel or resort should make sure they are present. Helping your guests to make the right choice, which is to stay at your venue. All advertising (using the still and video assets created for you) should be aimed at persuading guests to choose your venue. In this stage, your marketing will be focused on Lookalike audiences, focusing on people who are similar to those who have previously visited your site. You are looking to guide people to like your social media accounts and navigate to lower-level pages on your site, showing they are investigating your offerings to a deeper degree.
Be Seen
At this the planning stage of the funnel, your marketing should focus on selling the unique experience of your hotel to start getting you known. This will get guests to put you on that final list for consideration when booking a venue.
Collect Leads
You are now focusing on collecting email addresses in order to create lookalike audiences and create email marketing campaigns to persuade future guests to book with you.
Still And Video Image Use
You will be using your creative assets in much the same way as in the previous stage. YouTube, Google Ads, and Social Media advertising is still your friend. However, your ad types should change slightly, as should your imaging. Your content will now focus more and more on your venue and offerings. Video tours of your rooms and amenities. Photographs of the spaces with detailed shots of the luxurious details are what may sway a guest to your venue over another.
??You will now be using a lot more lookalike audiences to narrow the search criteria. You should be targeting people who have an awareness of you already. For example, targeting visitors who visited your page but did not complete a booking. (You can use the AdWords retargeting tag for this) You will also be changing where you send your guests to on your website. Rather than simply sending them to your home page, now you will focus on specific amenities of your property allowing your guests to compare you to other venues more easily.
Example: Marketing Strategy
You run a boutique hotel in London. You have a Jazz band playing and serve high-quality brandies and liqueurs.
Create a Display ad with a high-quality still image of a couple drinking and laughing. A band plays in the background. A text overlay could say: "The Perfect Accompaniment." The Call To Action could be: "Who Would You Accompany? Explore Our Unique Music and Spirit Pairings". You could target men who have visited any page of your website without completing a booking. Direct them to your page dedicated to Jazz and Spirit nights.
Metasearch and OTA's
Now, if you have read any of my other pieces of content, you should realise I am not a fan of the Online Travel Agencies, (OTAs). But I know they are a necessary evil and this is one stage where it is worth utilising them due to their huge marketing budgets. My big piece of advice on this is to keep your prices consistent across all the OTA and metasearch platforms and then have your website prices slightly cheaper to encourage direct booking.
Pay Per Click
At this stage in the funnel, your guests will be searching for a "double bed hotel room in Bedford", rather the generic and more expensive "hotel in Bedford". Rather than directing traffic to your home page, send them to your Double room page or a page with your specials on. Remember, on these pages, have your top rate, high-quality photography, and videography of your rooms. And ideally, a booking engine to allow them to book immediately.
Social Media
Now is the ideal time to leverage the power of Social Media. As the largest platforms, Facebook and Instagram are ideally suited to your B2C marketing. LinkedIn is great for your B2B work.
You have two ways of working with Social. The first is Like Acquisition. This will enable you to encourage guests to like or follow your page, allowing you to market to them organically, and, as an already warm customer, they may be more receiving of your marketing material. This is the perfect time to begin the brand loyalty work that will be so important in later stages of the funnel.
?The second way is with Lead Generation Adverts. With Lead Generation Ads, you have a robust set of tools you can use to harvest relevant customer information. You will need to build out a lead form in order to gather the relevant information.
Booking Stage
Yes! Through sound marketing strategy, showing off your Guest Experience through Social Channels, pursuing the correct guest with the correct imagery, and, let's face it, some good luck, a guest has decided to book your hotel. They have researched all the options in your area and they love your space. So now, they are on your website ready to book a stay.
By this stage, you should have already have asked yourself a number of questions. Is the booking process easy to understand and efficient? Does your website effectively elicit and capture email addresses? Is the website easy to navigate? Are your rates consistent across all of your distribution channels? These issues could all affect your conversion rates and there is still a chance of losing a guest. Those issues are outside of the scope of this blog post and should have already been addressed. It is very easy to lose guests at this stage if your website does not have a good user experience. Speak with your website developer if your website is not up to speed in these areas.
Get Bookings
Everything you do now has one goal. To convert browsers to bookers. Every part of your digital marketing strategy is focused on this one item. Now is not the time for gentle nudges in the right direction. Now is the time to include strong and direct "Book Now" calls to action. This stage is the time to showcase all of your positive reviews from previous guests. This will provide peace of mind to the guest about to book.
Your ads will target your most highly qualified leads through brand-related campaigns and retargeting tactics. All your ads will be focused on getting your browsers to book. ?
Branded PPC
Branded Pay Per Click has been proven again and again and not enough hotels do this. If you're not bidding on your own name, the OTA's are. Due to the lower CPC of these words, it is an easy win for your digital marketing campaigns. If you have done your marketing well up to this point, your brand name will already be known to your potential guests.
Example: Digital Marketing Strategy
Bid on brand terms and use words like "Official Site" or highlight any Special Offers in your headline. Mention how guests get the best rates when they "Book Direct". Direct them to your booking page or deal and use as many ad extensions to take up as much real estate on the Google results page.
Facebook Ads
Facebook and Instagram are not only great Social Networking Platforms for nurturing previous guests as well as new guests through engaging content, but they are also good for directing warm leads back to your website.
Website Click Campaigns
The key to Website Click Campaigns is to create incredibly specific retargeting lists. If you couple the retargeting list with other targeting options you can get your venue in front of a very specific audience. The beauty of these Digital Marketing Platforms is how visual they are. So using the images and video assets created by your professional hospitality photographer is key to grabbing your audience's attention.
Dynamic Ads For Travel
I'll be honest. Prior to writing this blog, I had no idea these types of ads even existed. But, as I have looked into them, they seem fantastic! Dynamic Ads For Travel allow the hotel marketer to retarget your hotels inventory to your guests. It seems fairly technical but this will allow you to pull the rooms and rates from your website and deliver them to your targeted audience right on Facebook. Allowing you to deliver hyper-relevant Ads to your potential guests, including rates and availability dates. As always, at this stage of the funnel, high-quality visual assets are essential, even including some virtual tours of your venue.
Experiencing Stage
This is it! The final stage. You've carefully found and nurtured your guest. You have guided them through the booking process and they are now on site. You may think your job is done once the booking has gone through. It is most definitely NOT!
Now you have some essential information, it is time to improve the customer experience as well as nurturing the guests in upselling.
Maximise Revenue
Making sure your guests are taken care of is always your number one goal. At the same time, you are looking to maximise your revenue by upselling various items such as late checkout, room service, or room upgrades. You could also let your guests know about partnerships you have with vendors or local attractions in the area that may be offering discounts to guests of your hotel. I cover this briefly in another blog post.
Generate Interaction
What are guests saying about you? Recent studies suggest that 95% of guests will look at customer reviews prior to booking a stay. Meaning that asking your guests for reviews and turning satisfied guests into advocates for your brand should a top priority at this stage.
During their stay, messaging should focus on highlighting your facilities and encouraging guests to engage with your venue on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Make sure you are on hand to answer their comments and questions in a timely manner. Radisson Red and Blu are great at this as seen in their Instagram feed.
This often neglected and a bit maligned digital marketing channel is still one of the most effective channels. And NOW is the time to utilise this to best effect. There are a few types of emails you should be sending.
- Pre-stay Emails: These email chains will be sent out after the guest has booked and prior to them arriving. This will include their Booking Confirmation Email and others. But make sure you don't miss the opportunity to remind guests of your facilities and use the opportunity to upsell including room upgrades, late checkouts, spa treatments, local tours, or whatever you think will help maximise your revenue.
- During Stay Emails: With the rise and rise of mobile devices, during stay emails are becoming more effective. These can range from simple emails simply letting people know where the front desk is for example all the way through to a virtual concierge with a contact form or telephone number to let guests experience your customer service digitally. These during stay emails will be fantastic to let them know of any events locally that they may enjoy.
- Post-Stay emails: These are one of the best ways to get your happy guests to head over to TripAdvisor, Yelp, or wherever you keep your hotel reviews and encourage them to leave a great review.
The Often Forgotten 5th Stage of the Travel Customer Journey
The fourth stage of the funnel is where most hotels stop. However, you are not most hotels. You know the importance of direct booking in helping to beat the OTA's. So you have an extra stage in your digital marketing plan.
The Come Down Stage
While this is probably not the best name for it, I think it may be self-explanatory. At this stage of the funnel, your guests have booked and had a great time. You have had your digital marketing on point, you have fantastic hospitality photography to use and you are now looking for repeat customers and building lasting relationships with your loyal customers. The comedown stage is where this happens.
?During your guest's stay, you should have gathered as much information about them as possible. Names and email addresses are obvious, and most hotels do gather this. But you have so much more you can use. Did they upgrade their room? Did they eat on site? If they did, what did they eat? Did your concierge (virtual or otherwise) answer any questions for them? Did you record these? What packages did they purchase in your spa? What was their reason for visiting you? All of these questions can be used to retarget your guests and get them to book direct with you next time.
Email Marketing
During this time you want to keep in touch with your previous guests and turn them into repeat customers and encourage them to return to your sales cycle. Email is the perfect opportunity to retarget them with relevant offers. For example if a guest visited your restaurant, you may let them know about a wonderful new dish your chef has created. Couple this with stunning photography or video in an email and you have got them interested.
Another example would be a couple who visited you their wedding anniversary. Remind them of it and send them an email a few months prior to their next anniversary asking if they'd like their same room.?
Now your guests have left, it is not the time to let up on your social media marketing. By using previously discussed remarketing tactics, you can keep them as a warm lead. Constantly nurturing them with targeted, relevant, compelling content to encourage them to book with you again. Direct of course. ?
The customer journey for hotels is an exciting, wonderful journey both for you and your guests. By ensuring your hospitality photography is of a quality that appeals to your ideal client, delivered in a way that compliments your digital marketing plan, you can maximise your impact across your channels. There is more to the creation of still and video assets than simply taking a pretty picture. The assets created need to portray the mood of your venue and encompass the entire spectrum of your hotel, telling your story. This is where a professional hospitality photographer can really help your brand stand out from the online noise. In fact, it is proven that hospitality photography can pay for itself in increased bookings and the ability to charge higher rates. If done right.
?Not every photographer can succeed in this highly technical field of photography. They need to be an excellent interior and architectural photographer. They must take beautiful, mouthwatering food images as well as stunning portraits and lifestyle images that work with your brand and marketing guidelines.
If you have found this post useful, please share it amongst those who may also benefit. If you'd like to discuss a project with me, please get in touch.