How Hotel Digital Marketing Can Bridge Gaps in Hotel Commercial Strategy

There continue to be silos in commercial strategy. Let’s dig deeper into how digital marketing needs to function to guarantee a seat at the table.

Marketers need to first understand that all their acronyms mean nothing if the hotel isn’t getting its fair share and not taking market share from the competition.

Our world is full of acronyms. SOV, ROS, CPM, CPC, ROAS, KPI, CTA, CTR… and the list goes on.

They ultimately don’t matter if total hotel performance is not there. But we still need to be able to evaluate all these acronyms and use them as signals to continue to improve performance. What has to change?

Align on your Property Differentiators with your Sales Team

Ensure that your unique selling points (aka differentiators) are clear and communicated effectively. Collaborate with the sales team to highlight what sets your hotel apart in the market by segment.

Examples of Hotel Differentiators

• If you offer free parking in a metro area that largely charges for parking, that IS a differentiator.
• If you don’t charge a resort / destination / facility fee and most others do, that IS a differentiator.
• If you are a Hilton and offer room selection, check-in, and digital keys to completely bypass the front desk, that’s a differentiator. (And yes… it makes a HUGE difference… I checked in recently to a Holiday Inn Express. It took 1.5 hours to stand in line, just to be told no rooms were ready yet!)
• If you are directly across the street from an attraction, or are the closest one in driving distance, that is a differentiator.
• And don’t forget about group planners or brides and grooms; what you can give them that most others cannot is a huge differentiator!

And no, “free wifi” and “big screen TVs” are NOT differentiators, that is feature spraying and is ubiquitous with the competition. You might as well say “Cable TV”, because it has just as much pull.

Align on Your Future Need Dates with Your Revenue Team

“Future” does NOT mean two weeks out. It means 60, 90 or 120+ days out.

Expedia’s most recent “Path to Purchase ” study demonstrates that on average the planning window is about 70 days before the date of purchase. And the date of purchase is, on average, ANOTHER 70 days before they actually arrive; the keyword is “average”. While there are people booking and arriving inside of a 14-day window, the majority have a huge window to arrival, which you as a marketer and your partners as revenue managers have to plan.

Ask your revenue team if there are specific segments they want to get in front of, and when are their soft periods seasonally. Build a calendar to address these time frames.

It is important to work together with the revenue team to build applicable packages that enhance the guest experience but can also be marketed to increase visibility. If all you can come up with is 10% off BAR and a bottle of wine, save it. It will have near zero effect, other than needless rate displacement.

Understand Your Group Mix Needs from Your Sales Team

Marketing’s role is to not just target transient guests, but also provide support to the sales team’s group efforts. Sales teams are leaner than ever, so we should be using our marketing technology to help them create new relationships and maintain communication with existing clients.

Make the most of their in-person trade shows with device ID targeting. These are campaigns that can (ethically!) capture who visits a specific location, place them in a data pool, and then use them in a future month or next calendar year for remarketing purposes. Social media is all about location data. Paid ads through these outlets can be micro targeted to find group planners and attendees to target in the future.

And there is actually more to email addresses than just sending messages to their inboxes. Most major marketing networks can use these addresses to target people searching through Google in the future, watching streaming channels, or browsing their favorite sites.

Understand Your Online Gaps

In the digital space, we have (almost) unlimited tactics but rarely the time or resources to execute even a handful. So, be thoughtful about where you spend your time. Look to ensure the basics are being done first, but then try to define the pain points as well. What area of the digital funnel is broken and prohibits us from prospecting for new guests? Or worse, prohibiting us from gaining a return stay guest?

Then deploy a focused strategy and tactics against those particular gaps. If you have trouble with those answers, here is a list of questions to review with your hotel’s commercial team to start the conversation.

Is Your Website “Pulling Its Weight”?

A marketer’s default mode is YOY (year over year). But what if last year’s (or the years before) were under performing?

What could matter more is whether your website is driving more direct (and more profitable) revenue than your competitors. Once you start to ask if your brand.com channel mix is indexing higher than your competitors, then you can ask yourself if all your combined tactics are actually working. This leads us to proper benchmarking.

Benchmark Your Hotel Marketing Performance

Once you benchmark your channel mix, only then you can start to benchmark all of your digital marketing performance metrics. Depending on your chain scale, certain digital marketing KPIs will start to normalize. Benchmark your data against similar hotels to see if you are getting your fair share from Google Search, or even MetaSearch and Social Media.

Also, determine how well your website converts or if you are spending funds in the right places and in the right quantity. Once you know what areas you are under (or over) indexing, then you can refine your hotel digital marketing plan and associated tactics to close the gaps.

Focus on Planning Window, Not Just Booking Window

Our sales and revenue management counterparts love talking about the booking window. Even those who love to track booking calendar searches love booking window data. And, it is a great indicator of demand.

But, if we wait to market to people when they are at the booking window, then the only tool left in the toolbox is rate. Maybe some bottom funnel OTA ads, but that is a never ending hamster wheel you will never get off. Like stated above when you align with your revenue management team, you all have to stay focused on the average travel planning window and window to arrival.

MetaSearch Matters, but Only Sometimes

We’ve all heard it. “You HAVE to do metasearch! It’s a no-brainer!”

MetaSearch is not the end-all-be-all that so many hang the utmost importance on. It is a false narrative. It matters, but not in the way you think. The ROAS for metasearch is very bottom of the funnel. It is highly unlikely it will drive you any incremental exposure or bookings.

Since meta is only triggered on search terms for your brand name or in places where a guest has already found you, it only shifts those bookings towards you directly. Saving you on needless commissions, yes. But not driving you any additional share.

So, when should you leverage metasearch? Only when profitability is your number one priority. If you are confident that the rest of the customer journey is working and leading people to choose your property directly, then participate in metasearch and eliminate those needless commissions.

Educate, Educate, Educate

It may arguably be a quarter of a century now that digital marketing has been around. But it is still the youngest of the commercial strategy disciplines. That means a constant state of education, for our owners, our operators, general managers, and sales and revenue teams. Educate on the customer journey and the various touch points. And let data be your king…not your opinions.

Repeat yourself until you are blue in the face. Keep learning, and testing, then share the results, whether good or bad.

In conclusion, hotel digital marketing must transcend silos and focus on aligning efforts with sales and revenue teams to ensure the property stands out in a competitive market. Acronyms and metrics like SOV, ROAS, and CTR are valuable but only if they lead to improved overall performance. By identifying and promoting true differentiators, collaborating on future need dates, and addressing online gaps, marketers can drive tangible results that contribute to long-term growth.

A holistic approach that emphasizes long-term planning windows, group mix needs, and targeted digital strategies is essential for sustained success. MetaSearch, while useful, should be leveraged with caution and only when profitability is the main objective. Finally, continuous education, testing, and data-driven decisions are key to staying competitive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Marketers must stay proactive, adapt to emerging trends, and lead with insight to secure their place at the commercial strategy table, ensuring a strong return on investment for the hotel.

---

Originally published by HotelExecutive in November 2024