WHAT IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE THING FOR YOUR HOTEL TO FOCUS ON WHEN REOPENING AFTER LOCKDOWN?
Other than following government guidelines to ensure your staff and customers are confident you are operating safely, and your property is Covid19 secure - you might ask yourself a sensible question - what is the most effective thing for my hotel to focus on when reopening after lockdown?
The answer is simple but not an easy one – it’s marketing and the careful training your staff.
Unfortunately, the largest omission for hotels is marketing, it requires a huge amount of focus and effort, but good marketing is crucial for the success of your hotel.
And right now, the most effective marketinrg to focus on, and where to spend your marketing budget is increased local promotional activity. Currently for your hotel, local people are your target market, and probably as local as within 50 miles of your hotel. After 3 months of lockdown, people, although they will be keen to get back to some sort of normal, they aren’t going to feel bave enough to travel far.
In order to get local visitors to book with your hotel, use your current database (filter them geographically if you can) and email them a specific offer. Also, make time to learn how to use targeted marketing with google AdWords and Facebook ads.
Alongside this, run a social media campaign and fully utilise your website. Make sure it’s up to date - fill it with your brands personality. Use great photography and video – tempting shots of comfortable beds, smiling photos of your team, the best photos of the local area, your luxurious bathrooms and delicious food photography.
When your local visitors arrive – make certain you cherish their custom. Throughout your guests stay, your team should work hard to go the extra mile and delight – be attentive, look after their needs and actively be seen to be looking after their safety. Work to develop your relationships with them before, during and after their visit. Happy guests come back, so it’s worthwhile to make it easy for them to return. If they enjoyed their stay and felt welcome for local customers it is much easier for them to return again than those not so local. This is a great area to focus actively on.
After they leave, grab their attention with a smart combination of an interesting email campaign, and a personal note from the Manager to say thank you for visiting – a card in the post will grab attention. Offer them direct booking deals to return and engage them fully with your brand, remind them of the good times with you, and make them feel part of the hotel family.
Then essentially, introduce regular training for your team – training in customer service and up selling is so valuable for hotels. Providing your visitors with great customer service goes a long way.
Training makes your staff feel valued and take pride in their work - these are the kind of people who make your guests feel welcomed and special. Staff who have confidence in their skills and know how to look after your guests will generate loyalty.... and that’s a beautiful profit-making thing.
Colloco Marketing Agency specialises in hospitality marketing for hotels, restaurants and bars.
We undertake everything from developing effective concepts and strategies, social media management, website management. Photography and video, and people training. Colloco knows it’s important to pull all of these ingredients together, consistently and in an organised manner to ensure you see a maximum positive impact on your venue and value for money in your marketing investment.
No marketing campaign is complete without well trained people to fulfil what you promise your customer. Then, however well you train your staff, if no one knows about your venue you don’t have any customers.
Colloco Marketing can offer your hotel a free consultation “Opening After Lockdown”. Contact us today to book.
info@colloco-consultancy.co.uk or visit us https://www.hospitality-
