If you are a hospitality business owner, you know how important lead generation is to the success of your business. Gone are the days where your business relied solely on traditional marketing tactics like; word-of-mouth marketing, printed customer reviews, print brochures, and pamphlets. However, these practices are reflected in a lot of hospitality digital marketing strategies we use to generate leads today. 

 In today’s digital world, people are conducting the majority of their researching, planning, and booking online. Implementing a digital marketing strategy can help your small business reach an audience that are looking for offerings like yours. 

You can customize your audience, increasing your customer reach, while getting the most value for your dollar. This can be accomplished through adding practices to your regular marketing activities such as; Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Paid Search Advertising, and Website Optimization. Now is a great time to use digital marketing to generate leads for your business.

Social Media Marketing

Social media can play a significant role in generating leads for your business. If you are not active on social media, you are missing out on reaching potential customers. Your social media channels give your business the opportunity to; share industry knowledge, connect with other hospitality businesses, build a message for your business online, provide contact information for customers, and answer questions from potential customers. If posting on social media has been a daunting task, check out our blog on; How to Develop a Social Media Calendar for a Year.

It is essential that once you remain active and continue to post consistently. Create content that is insightful and knowledgeable for your customers.

Brand Image on Social Media

As a hospitality business owner, you know how crucial customer reviews are for the success of your business. Social media allows you to display and share the experiences your customers have had previously. Try encouraging your customers to leave a Facebook or Google review. This can act as digital word-of-mouth for the audience to see and build recognition and value for potential customers. 

Social media channels like Facebook and Instagram are a great way to share information about your business and what your offerings look like. This can be achieved by sharing breathtaking pictures and videos for your followers to see. Social media is where your potential customers can get a feel for your business. The brand itself, the offerings, amenities, personal experience, this is why it is also vital that you are portraying the right message across all of your social media channels, and they match your company’s values and branding message.   

Linking your social media channels and website is a great way to transfer your audience from one platform to the other. For example; if you are an accommodation business owner, post images of the accommodations on your Facebook page to share with your followers. You can include a link to your booking page, making the booking process straight-forward for your customers to complete a booking or to gather more information.

 

Paid Social Media Advertising

Once you have built your brand on social media, you can begin to experiment with paid social media advertising. Paid social media advertising is done on platforms such as; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

Paid social media advertisements allow you to create a voice for your brand online. You can share your business with a custom audience outside of your current reach. Your business can focus your advertising budget on the right audience while generating a large number of leads that are cost-effective.

You can customize your target audience by age, demographics, location, and gender. You can also look for a more focused audience for your ad by choosing different behaviours, income, interests, and more. 

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

When you think about how potential customers are finding your business, what comes to mind? Do they hear about your business from a friend or family member? Have they watched an advertisement on social media or TV? Can the search through a travel site to find your business? Today, people begin looking for their next place to stay, explore, or visit by completing a simple Google search. 

This process to have this accomplished is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which works to increase your website’s quality and visibility online.

 

Content Upgrades

Make sure you’re updating your content on your website and adjusting your keywords throughout your website to match your business offerings. This will ensure your website ranks near the top of the search results. Customers need the information they are looking for quickly and presented in front of them. 

If your website isn’t located on the first few pages of the search results, potential customers may never find your page. Even if your business has great offers and you are frequently adding new and informative content.

Keyword Upgrades

Optimizing your SEO is crucial for your business. Determine which keywords you want to add to your website and the keywords you want to remove. Making keywords adjustments to your website can help Google understand your site more and rank you higher in the Google search results.

 Your Google Search ranking is crucial because potential customers might not want to try and find your website if it isn’t on the first page of the Google search results. It is also important that the keywords you choose to use match the offering your business provides. While this won’t directly impact your rating, customers do not want to feel misled when they click-through your content. Optimizing your SEO can be a strenuous process. 

Still, there are a variety of tools that you can use to begin to optimize your SEO keywords like Moz Keyword Explorer, Google Keyword Planner. 

Having a website that is SEO friendly can also help with your website’s speed. You can begin to do this by making content updates frequently and making edits to web pages to ensure that they are SEO optimized. Having your website SEO friendly can also help attract more traffic and have them stay on your website. 

The first step you need to take when considering if your website is SEO friendly is to conduct an SEO audit to see how your website is performing from an SEO standpoint

 

Paid Search Advertising

When travellers begin to plan and book their next trip and stay, they will start to do some research with a quick Google search for their given keywords, location, activity, or event.  To ensure your business is at the top of their mind, you can make a paid search campaign. These campaigns display on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, and they are ads that display on the top or bottom of the search results. 

Your paid search advertisements need to meet all your target audiences’ needs in the ad. The ad must be concise and provide engaging information that makes them want to click on your site. You also need to look into the specifics of your business when thinking about keywords for your advertisement. While you might be operating in the hospitality industry as an accommodation, your keywords should be precise to what you are offering to make sure the right people see your advertisement. 

Paid search campaigns can be advantageous and cost-effective if done correctly. The goal is to push your site to the top of individual search results for your target audience to see, click to your website, and begin to search for their needs. Making sure each step of a paid search advertising can be a strenuous process, but Newfound can help you complete a search engine marketing campaign that gets your real-world results and lead generation strategies.

 

Website Optimization

A lot of times in the hospitality industry, your website is one of the most important areas for people to make bookings. If that process is complicated and the content isn’t clear, people may leave your website before making a sale. Website optimization can be achieved by making content updates to your website and making sure you are converting the people that are visiting your site.

Content Creation

When you think of your business website design, you need to think of a constantly changing piece of content for your business. Content can live on your website for a significant amount of time, but changes need to be made. Make sure you are updating the information, so it remains relevant for your business. Your website shouldn’t act like a time-capsule for your business. 

You want the website to act as a place where customers can gather information quickly and easily as possible while providing them with a way to book or buy from your business. If your website is cluttered and hard to navigate, potential customers might refrain from browsing past your homepage if there is old and outdated content. 

When you are creating new content or landing pages for your website, give your audience all the information they will need. Make sure you are addressing any possible questions about your business they might have. This can be accomplished by creating blog posts on specific topics, Frequently asked questions pages, and additional landing pages on certain topics. 

For example, if you are a business owner of a campground and you are getting questions like; Do you offer multiple nights stays? Are there any restaurants or grocery stores close to the campsite? These would be content upgrades that you could make to your site more friendly for a potential customer.

 

Converting Website Leads

You’re now starting to get leads to your website, but now you need to turn those leads into sales. You should have a call to action on the bottom of your offerings page to “book now.” The call to action will give potential customers the option to book once they have read your updated content, and it is fresh in mind. 

In today’s world, people are looking at your content and website in so many different ways. A vast majority of your site traffic can come from Mobile devices and tablets. Make sure your site is updated with content that is user-friendly and optimized for mobile devices. How about checking to see if your website is mobile-friendly in less than the time it takes to make a cup of coffee!

Deciding on who you are going to work with and how you should work with them is an important process when working on your marketing strategy. You need to take the agency’s strengths and experience into consideration. At Newfound Marketing, we have experience in a variety of industries and using many digital marketing platforms. If you are looking for more information about what other areas of digital marketing have to offer visit, DesignRush today and browse their list.

Here at Newfound Marketing, we are a digital marketing agency that provides thorough consultation and personalized inbound marketing, website optimization, and SEM strategies. For more information and ideas of how you can generate online leads for your Hospitality business, give us a shout!