Customers often look to hospitality businesses for special moments in their lives – when they want a break from the ordinary or some experiential treat. When marketing your hotel business, you’re expected to be an authority, to build personal relationships and to go above and beyond – and there’s no better way than to do this through the creation and distribution of quality content.

Below, we’ve included expert tips for content marketing in the hotel industry. But let’s start with some hotel content marketing examples to inspire and guide you as you build customer loyalty, increase engagement with your brand, and take your customer service to the next level.

Inspiring Hotel Content Marketing - From hotel blog posts to social media content for hotels

The Hoxton – A Website Focused on Your Niche

The Hoxton Hotel Group put their differentiator – that they’re a pet friendly hotel – front and centre using their website content. Often, information about allowing pets is only available in the form of a small icon or by requesting information from the hotel – and Hoxton use this to help them differentiate themselves.

From a homepage written in “dog” that gives you the option to translate into “Human”, to professional photos of pooches and cute canine designs, The Hoxton Hotel Group makes it very clear that this is a space where pets are welcome – not as a convenience for travellers, but as guests in their own right.

It’s fun, welcoming, humorous and gives you all the details any pet owner would need for complete peace of mind when travelling with furry family members.

Gleneagles – Proudly Local Campaigns

Focusing on how your hotel business supports local producers, artisans, businesses and craftsmen is always a good idea. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this has become incredibly important to consumers who are rallying around local businesses to keep their doors open – and to help keep their plans in place without having to travel too far.

Hotel marketing specialists are seeing a notable surge in people wanting holidays and experiences in local destinations, an option that appears safer and much more affordable than international trips.

A great (non-COVID) example is the campaign run by the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire in 2018, where they produced a series of beautiful, evocative short-form videos on the local businesses, artisans and suppliers they work with.

It not only showcases the hotel brand as a part of the community, it also allows customers a chance to see beyond the services and amenities into the community they are visiting. It shows local pride and a way for customers to support their locality during a challenging time while still having the experience they want.

Loews Hotels – User-Generated Content Marketing

Loews Hotels in the USA and Canada are a luxury accommodation brand comprising of 24 different properties. Their #TravelForReal campaign is one of the best hotel content marketing examples of a brand showcasing their differentiators in an affordable and very authentic way.

Rather than hiring influencers and professional photographers/videographers, they chose to utilise user-generated content. Guests got a chance to show off their accommodation and what they loved about it by using the hashtag #TravelForReal and posting their own video and photographic content online.

The campaign itself was extremely affordable, guests loved participating in it, and potential customers seeing the content on social media found it valuable because it showed the real deal – no airbrushing, no corporate brand-speak, just the authentic experiences of real guests. 

Intercontinental Hotels – Storytelling Through Podcasts

Content marketing strategies in hospitality industry businesses often focus on visual storytelling, which makes a lot of sense. Few things inspire a desire to come visit your premises more than a stunning photograph of the view, a chef-prepared romantic meal, or people out having a fantastic time using your amenities. But Intercontinental Hotels chose a slightly different route for an original – and successful – content marketing strategy: podcasts.

There are over 850,000 active podcasts on topics from true crime and business to books and, of course, travel. In the United Kingdom, 7.1 million people listen to podcasts each week – an increase of 24% over the last year. And where do people listen to these podcasts? During the humdrum of daily life – commuting to work, doing chores and even during work hours (rather than music).

Intercontinental Hotels saw the potential here to give people a chance to escape - to explore, travel and experience - while they go about their day through a podcast series that explores the stories behind their individual properties.

This was supported by videos and visual content, inspiring people to choose Intercontinental Hotels as their escape when it came time to travel in person. An innovative campaign, it was launched in 2016 prior to the globalised growth of podcasts. Could there be a way to build upon this type of campaign to grow awareness and engagement for your hotel?

Hotels.com – Going Visual with Video

Video marketing is incredibly powerful and is becoming a dominant force in the digital marketing industry. Not only is YouTube (owned by Google) the second most powerful search engine, more video content is being watched than ever before in human history. 54% of internet users want to see more video content from brands and businesses, it is the favourite type of content viewed on social media, and it’s fully supported by platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. In fact, video marketers see 66% more qualified leads each year – an impressive statistic that makes the cost of producing quality video content more palatable!

Hotels.com chose to focus on video for their “Be There. Do That. Get Rewarded” campaign, with a fun parody using a “hate-like” format that showed people wishing for dream scenarios – poking gentle fun at people while giving them a chance to realise their own travel dreams. It was a light-hearted way of tapping into the pangs of jealousy almost everyone feels when they see holiday photos on social media, and incentivising them to get out and create their own brag-worthy holidays!

The above showcases a number of the ways in which hotels around the world are creatively writing content for hotel websites that fuel their business growth. So let’s now step back and assess firstly why hotel content marketing is so important, and how you can use it to generate exceptional results.

Why is Content Marketing for Hotels so Important?

#1: It Showcases Your Bespoke Services

In the hospitality industry, bespoke service can set you apart. Although your services and amenities may be widely advertised and explained in brochures and websites, customers always have questions about how your services can be adapted to, or used for, their specific needs.

While this quality content can be very valuable in guiding a customer’s decision-making, it can be totally impractical to put all those answers up on your website – and that’s where hotel content marketing comes in! You can show every customer and potential guests how you go the extra mile by broadcasting this quality content on social media and blogs, directly to the target audience concerned, one piece at a time.

#2: It Makes Marketing More Affordable

Marketing on traditional media is very costly, involving design, photography or printing costs or advertising slots on radio and TV. Content marketing in the hospitality industry is an effective way to bring these costs down, because it’s incredibly cost-effective.

Depending on your budget and resources, you can run campaigns that are as affordable or expensive as you want, you can choose to bring on professionals for their expertise or you can run it in-house, you can choose free hotel content marketing (like blogs, social media pages, Twitter accounts, etc.) or paid advertising (Google ads, Facebook ads, Instagram ads, etc), and you can have exceptional control of your budget.

#3: It’s Direct to Your Customers

Traditional marketing has been on a decline in the last 10 years – and it’s easy to see why. With the rise of social media, and the ease and appeal of Google and YouTube search engines, customers have moved online in droves to find what they want. Fresh, original and consistent content will make it easier for your customers to find you online, research your services and make informed purchasing decisions.

Hotel content marketing keeps your brand in touch with what customers want, allows you to address their challenges and queries rapidly, and gives you a presence that is trustworthy, knowledgeable and accessible to all your customers. Think about a boutique hotel blog - it’s the perfect vehicle to create strong engagement and build a personal reputation with that hotel’s customers.

What are the Keys to Great Hotel Content Marketing?

#1: Know Your Hotel Marketing Goals

Specific, detailed goals are the foundation of successful hospitality content marketing, helping to give the quality content you create a focus and structure. You can have one or several goals based on what you want to achieve. Common hotel content marketing examples include promoting a new service, targeting a specific seasonal event/s, getting more reservations and hotel bookings, or making your hotel brand more visible online. Be crystal clear on these goals prior to beginning.

#2: Choose the Most Effective Hotel Digital Marketing Channels

Each content marketing channel is formed around a certain target audience with particular goals, so it’s important to ensure the channels you select not only suit your hotel content marketing goals but also give you access to the right target audience.

For the hospitality industry, blogs are a fantastic foundation for exploring certain content in a more in-depth way - for example, consider a blog series on how to plan your wedding, including honeymoon tips, what amenities to look for in a wedding venue, etc.

Meanwhile, social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook offer the best chance for your target guests to see your hotel brand, to promote your blog content, to promote your specials, and get wowed by beautiful shots of your location.

Platforms like LinkedIn have a more professional focus, so it’s good for content about corporate events, product launch events and conferences rather than weddings. It’s all about choosing channels that connect you with your audience in the right way.

#3: Create Relevant, Original Content

Now you need to align your content with what’s important to your customers, focusing on what makes your hospitality business special and unique.

This depends on a number of factors, so strategies for content marketing for hospitality brands need to be a bit more complex. For example, you may want to attract customers based on certain events happening in your community like seasonal events or wedding season.

You need to consider when people are likely to start booking for these events and time your content to coincide with that booking window.

It’s important to consider the challenges your customers are facing, for example, whether it’s safe to travel during COVID-19, are there any discounts or specials for customers who are under financial strain, and what you are doing to ensure the health and safety – as well as the enjoyment – of your customers.

It’s best to publish this quality content frequently and link it with social media and blog content as well as to the relevant service or action you want your customers to take, ensuring a consistent message and a clear sales funnel.

#4: Be Different. Always.

You’ll always face certain constraints when it comes to the content displayed on your website. It needs to be a little more straight-laced, it has to cover all of the basic information your market needs, viewers need to be given comfort that you’re an exceptionally professional organisation and this reduces your ability to play around with more creative content etc.

Hotel content marketing is where you can show your true character and personality, which is what can set you apart from your competition and leave a lasting memory in the mind of your target audience.

You can incorporate tongue-in-cheek content, you can focus on local charitable or philanthropic endeavours that mean something to you, you can shine a spotlight on the team member who has a unique background story or interview the artist who’s featured on your walls.

There is no rulebook, but one important piece of advice should guide you: if you’re bored by your content, then your target audience will be too.

Embrace the creative process and encourage your team members to get involved, submitting ideas for compelling, quality content that fits your hotel brand and can engage your audience. If you do this consistently, distributing it extensively, you are guaranteed to reap the returns.

Hotel sales and marketing services that deliver

Proven Partners is a specialist resort, real estate and hotel marketing company with over 38 years of industry experience. With the right hotel content marketing strategy, your business can win market share, improve customer service and engagement, and grow brand loyalty in a way that is both personal, customisable and cost-effective.

Contact us today to find out more about our services or to download free content marketing hospitality templates and resources.