Why should hoteliers invest more in digital marketing?

September 18, 2011

We are all aware that digital marketing is here to stay. It is the vehicle that will take all entrepreneurs in just one direction - forward! Technology keeps evolving everyday and even as you are reading this, the world is exploring new modes of digital marketing. By investing more in digital marketing, you are potentially increasing your audience base and can thereby attract more guests to make a booking at your hotel. Digital marketing now includes email, RSS, mobile, voice broadcast, blogging, podcasting, video streams, social media marketing etc apart from banner advertising, search engine optimization and pay per click. Digital marketing involves timely interaction with relevant data acting on a personal level and in a cost effective manner.

As the usage of the World Wide Web keeps increasing every year, it comes as no surprise that many hoteliers are shifting their investments from traditional marketing channels to digital marketing. This will continue to increase as the Web matures. Take the maximum possible advantage out of digital marketing and watch your revenue rocket.
To get the best out of digital marketing, focus your efforts on

• Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the many digital marketing tools. It is especially important for small-to-mid-sized businesses to use the right search terms, keywords and terminology in order to attract new business. It is also a great way to direct more traffic towards your website. A good SEO program will lead you to close in more sales and generate more revenue.
  
  
• Podcasting is the most powerful of today’s “Mobile Media” solutions. By harnessing the Internet’s own natural syndication power, Podcasting gives corporations the ability to connect with an “On-Demand” society. Even though podcasting is still in its infancy, leading corporations, such as American Airlines, Disney, McDonalds, the New York Times, and Starbucks are already strong players within the sector.
  
  
• Social Media Marketing: The concept of social media marketing refers to the process of promoting business or websites through social media channels. Social media marketing is a powerful marketing medium and is redefining the way people are communicating; it is one of the significantly low-cost promotional methods that provides businesses large numbers of links and huge amount of traffic. You can interact on a one-to-one basis with your guests via social platforms like Facebook, Twitter etc. Existing clientele and potential guests can become fans of your Facebook page and can follow your hotel updates on Twitter.
  
  
• Banner Advertising is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web that entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. The banner is intended to attract traffic to your hotel website by linking it to your website.

All the digital marketing tools apart from those that have been highlighted, are equally important and by including all of these tools in your marketing mix, you as an hotelier stand to gain from strength to strength and thereby increase your revenue.

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