Coronavirus: 5 essential low budget marketing campaigns

Despite the Coronavirus and national quarantine, it is now time to act in terms of online marketing. Online visibility is still crucial in this turbulent time for the hotel industry. Find out which marketing campaigns are particularly useful now.

In the second half of March we published a basic strategy and recommendations for hoteliers facing the corona crisis. We strongly assume that this year's holidays will be faced with a great interest from domestic travelers. This presents an opportunity for post-crisis recovery on a national level and increasing hotel occupancy.

Marketing campaigns that contribute to the visibility of your hotel and will be implemented over the coming weeks will have a direct impact on strenghtening your brand and generating holiday bookings.

Especially under current circumstances, internet users increasingly look for inspiration online and seek distraction from momentary reality. Consciously stimulating brand awareness is a first step to enter a potential guests brain.

This is followed by the use of data acquired from current advertising campaigns related to marketing activities. This data should be used to maximize occupancy opportunities during the holidays.

You can find more detailed data on the interest in hotel stays here.

Why should you continue promoting online visibility?

If you suddenly switch off all advertising activities, you have to be prepared for the fact that the hotel's online presence and the maintenance of comparable or same visibility are associated with a lot of time and investment.

Hotels retaining even a minimum budget for basic campaigns are one step ahead of the competition that does not.

Goals of marketing activities during the Coronavirus

There are several reasons why you should continue your hotel's marketing:

• Maintain brand visibility on the web,
• Keep up basic traffic sources on the website,
• Sustain competitiveness (direct offer vs. offers from intermediaries)
• Nourish remarketing lists to share strong sales messages after the crisis.

5 key campaigns for your hotel's visibility

Getting to the point, we will now share 5 top campaigns (+ a bonus!) with you, which our marketing team selected as basis and key for a hotel's online visibility.

These campaigns don't require high spendings and are targeting a specific, well-selected user group.

1. Brand protection

Brand protection campaigns relate to ads that target any search related to the your hotel's name. In our opinion, a hotel without a brand protection campaign is a hotel that enables sales to third parties with booking fees and, thus, doesn't take advantage of the opportunities offered by a direct booking strategy.

The biggest advantage of brand protection campaigns is that they reach the users who are looking for your hotel.

Every click is worth gold because it means that you have met the expectations of a particular guest. Without a brand protection campaign, the first Google search results for phrases related to your hotel are mostly OTA ads.

Don't get potential guests used to booking through intermediaries, but instead direct this valuable traffic to your own hotel website.

2. Local search key words

Remember that every ad can be refined. The campaign can also be optimized for local search key words based on the location of your hotel. This can reduce advertising costs and increase the likelihood of reaching users who are currently looking for hotel facilities.

To maintain the visibility of key words while reducing the cost of such a campaign, analyze the data of top locations from which your guests originate from and limit advertising to this target group.

3. Dynamic remarketing

If you have generated traffic on your hotel website so far, stay in touch with these visitors and follow them with advertising messages.

Website remarketing only reaches those recipients who have already read the content of your website. Dynamic remarketing further refines this group, as it only reaches those users who have used your booking engine and have thus already calculated their offer for a stay. They will also see exactly the offers that they have searched for in your booking engine.

Raise brand awareness and the offer of your hotel amongst potential guests. Don't let them forget to visit your page directly if they want to book a stay.

4. Google Hotel Ads

A Google Hotel Ads campaign refers to advertising on your hotel's online business card on Google. The main advantage of such a campaign is that you can compete with other intermediaries regarding price competition.

This presents you with a great opportunity to get potential guests to visit your website, making it easier for them to book directly and getting closer to your goal of generating more direct bookings.

Google Hotel Ads is being displayed in the questions section about your hotel, to the right of your online business card. Furthermore, it will be shown on Google Maps when someone is looking for a hotel in a specific location.

5. Facebook Ads

If you are wondering how you can use small resources to stimulate and inspire users to think about their next hotel stay, display campaigns are essential.

Display ad costs on Facebook are lower than campaigns on the Google display network. You can target advertisements to a selected age group, to places from which the majority of your guests originate from, and to people, who travel frequently.

Even with a small investment, you can generate a high visibility of your advertisement and direct it to the hotel website.

6. BONUS: e-mail marketing campaigns

Not every hotel has a list of its visitor email addresses. However, if you have your own database, you can send messages with stay offers to these contacts.

Such a campaign is an excellent tactic that supports all other activities and your main marketing strategy for the currently turbulent times.

Perhaps you are already using Profitroom CRM in your daily work. Mailing campaigns are one of the strong modules of this platform. Thanks to these mailings, you can keep in touch with regular and potential guests and inspire those who have already made reservations with you.

Now is the perfect time to use the compiled email addresses of your (potential) guests. Provide them with the latest information about changes to your hotel booking policies, new offers or attractions in and around your property. Inspire these contacts to seek an exhilarant stay at your hotel once the quarantine comes to an end.

If you need assistance in creating and implementing a marketing strategy or you don't know how to use the email database collected in Profitroom's CRM, contact us! We would be happy to advise you on which advertising channels should form the basis for your hotel's online marketing.