6 Marketing Tips to Get More Bookings For Your Hospitality Business

A marketing strategy that has drifted into mediocrity won't get you more bookings, but trying some outside-of-the-box thinking just might!

Using the same strategies over and over isn't just a recipe for disappointment—it's a surefire way to stagnate your hospitality business. 

To help you break out of your conventional marketing routine and get your bookings skyrocketing, we've scoured the web and put together a list of offbeat marketing tips. So, whether you've got a single AirBnB room to let, a holiday rental, a B&B, or a small hotel, here are some creative marketing tips that you can use to get more bookings:

1: Add QR Codes to Physical Marketing Materials

The digital world isn't the only frontier to grow your hospitality business. To extend your reach to a broader audience, you can also use flyers, billboards, and other physical marketing materials to promote your rentals. These traditional mediums have been around since the beginning of marketing, and they still remain one of the most effective ways to get your message out in the real world. 

But, with the advent of modern technology, you can now give your physical marketing materials a tech upgrade by incorporating QR codes into them. These square-shaped patterns, which can be easily generated with one of the many QR code generators available online, grant users a swift passage to a designated page on your site without having them type in the URL or search the web. This is a great way to get the attention of potential guests who are always on-the-go, and an excellent alternative to using long URLs that would otherwise be hard for anyone to use in reality. 

An excellent example of QR codes in action was when L'Oreal partnered with Glamour and used QR Codes inside taxis to capture customers stuck in traffic.

This marketing campaign helped promote the range of Lancôme and Yves Saint Laurent product lines by linking QR Code campaigns to videos about using the products and redirecting them to the store page. In the end, this strategy helped L'Oreal increase its app downloads by 80%. 

You can take a leaf out of their book and put up flyers with a QR code that leads to a landing page or booking link. Now imagine a person is walking by and sees your flyer on a bulletin board. She is immediately interested in the property and wants to know more. She takes out her smartphone, opens her QR code scanner app, and scans the code on your flyer.

n no time at all, she's on your rental property website or booking platform where she can access everything she needs to know, from photos to customer reviews and more. Many booking solutions like TIMIFY allow users to create QR codes linked to their booking widget so that potential guests can scan a code on any promotional material (window sticker, business card, email signature, magazine ad etc) and make an impulse booking in just a few clicks. This way, the barrier between potential customers and your rental business is lowered, making the path to conversion much smoother. 

But the usage of QR codes doesn't end here. QR codes have the potential to offer the ultimate convenience to customers, making their experience unbeatable. For example, if your location offers a restaurant, you can take QR codes one step further and create a QR code menu. This way, guests can access your menu quickly and decide on their order without having to leave the comfort of their room. Or, you can even put up QR codes around the property that link to FAQs or other helpful materials. This is a great way to add an extra layer of customer service and make their stay even better. 
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2: Set Up a Website

You might be asking, "Wait—why should I make a website for my hospitality business when third-party accommodation listings sites already exist?" The answer is simple: a website will give you more control over your brand identity, provides an avenue for direct bookings, and helps you stand out from the competition. Yet, most rental owners and operators overlook this valuable marketing tool. 

Of course, you'll still need to list your property on third-party sites since they're the go-to resources for accommodation hunters. But, with a website, you can provide more detailed information about your property, post pictures and videos, feature customer feedback, set up a blog where you can share your best hospitality tips, and showcase the exciting activities available in your area. All these things will help you build a more solid reputation for your business and give potential guests more confidence in booking with you. 

Take a look at Beechwood Cottage's website for some inspiration on crafting your ideal rental website. 

This inviting website features a blog loaded with tips on secret spots in the locality, plus a list of tried and tested activities to do in the area. You can even book directly from the site without going through a third-party listing site. These little touches make for a more personal experience, which will go a long way toward enticing more guests to your business.

Constructing a website for your rental business need not be a challenging venture when you can use website builder tools like Wix and Squarespace. With their drag-and-drop editor, you can quickly create a beautiful website in just a few clicks. But if your goal is to create a polished brand image with custom designs and branding, then you may need to enlist the help of a branding agency. These agencies can help you create a strong identity that portrays your hospitality business' unique qualities. This will help you stand out and make your rentals more memorable. 
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3: Work on The Interactivity and Readability Of Your Website

If you're going the extra mile to create a website for your hospitality business, don't let all that effort go to waste by filling it with long paragraphs of dense text. If your website looks like a wall of words, your visitors won't stick around for long.

To make sure you're not boring visitors away, spice up your content with interactive elements, such as demo videos, virtual tours, and 360-degree images. Doing so will keep visitors engaged and help them retain the info they need to make an informed decision. Check out this blog post from Paperbell, for example.

Apart from the regular text content, they've utilized visuals like process infographics and other explanatory images that offer the same info but in a more visually-appealing and interactive way. This strategy simplifies content for the reader, resulting in better message retention, therefore increasing the probability that they'll actually act upon it. 
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4: Retarget, Retarget, Retarget

Do you ever wonder why, when you research a product online, you keep seeing ads for that exact product in banner ads on almost every website you visit? That's all down to something known as retargeting. 

Retargeting is a powerful marketing tool that allows businesses to target customers who have already shown an interest in their products or services, helping them funnel potential customers down the conversion funnel. And this technique works incredibly well with hospitality businesses since travelers are often distracted by all the other choices they have on their hands. By leveraging retargeting, you can serve up ads tailored to each visitor's needs, making them more likely to book with you.

Retargeting works by using particular tracking pixels or cookies embedded on your website. These cookies track user behavior and can help you identify who has visited your site, what product pages they looked at, and how long they spent on each page. This information is then used to deliver highly targeted ads to those users, which can be displayed on other websites they visit or in their social media feeds.
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5: Market the Location, Not Just the Property

Deciding where to spend hard-earned personal time can be daunting for many would-be vacationers. To help sway them your way, don't just market your property but also the surrounding location. If the potential customer can visualize themselves having a great time in the area, you'll have them hooked before they even book their stay.

Highlight local businesses, attractions, and activities by creating content that promotes the city or town as a whole. This can be done through adverts, emails, social media posts, blog articles, affiliate networks, and more. Showcase the unique experience that your city provides compared to other locations, emphasizing both the entertainment and cultural opportunities your city offers. You can also add any special events and activities happening in your area, such as a festival, parade, or sports game, just like how Badrutt Palace's website features the different events and seasonal activities guests can partake in St. Moritz.

By tapping into the power of destination marketing, you can create a tangible connection between your property and its location. This helps to create an overall attractive package, resulting in increased customer bookings. Put your creative cap on and start showcasing why your city or town is the best possible vacation destination around!
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6: Focus On Customer Management

As marketers and business owners, it can be easy to become too focused on the 'bigger picture' of customer acquisition - which is, of course, essential for business growth. However, this often means that 'the small details' of customer management can get overlooked. 

Sadly, small details like following up with customers after their stay, responding to reviews promptly, or reaching out when something goes wrong can mean the difference between a happy customer and a raging one. The result? Poor reviews, bad word-of-mouth referrals, and decreased occupancy rates. 

The hospitality industry is particularly sensitive to customer management, as it only takes one lousy stay to sour a traveler's entire experience - and with it, your business' reputation. That's why small hoteliers and rental owners must ensure their customer management strategies aren't just good but outstanding. 

Fortunately, you'll find plenty of cutting-edge tech solutions out there to help you streamline your customer management and provide the best possible service. Some of the top customer management software solutions include:

• TIMIFY. This cloud-based software solution offers an intelligent yet easy-to-use online booking system with a wide range of customizable features. It integrates easily with existing IT infrastructure and synchronizes with existing calendars. It also helps you manage all customer communications in one place, from sending pre-booking communications to automating the collection of post-stay customer feedback surveys.
• Revinate. For those looking to deliver personalized guest experiences and build loyalty, Revinate is a must-have. It offers an intuitive user interface that allows you to track customer data and preferences, plus a range of analytics and reporting tools for a more in-depth understanding of guest behavior.
• Zapier. Zapier is undeniably one of the top no-code workflow automation software programs in existence. This versatile automation tool connects different systems and simplifies workflows through various web apps. With Zapier, you can establish triggers to complete routine tasks, sparing you from having to put thought into the less glamorous duties of customer management.
• Google Sheet Project Management. Of course, no customer management solutions list would be complete without the mention of a project management tool. You'll find many such tools on the market, but if you're looking for an affordable and straightforward solution, Google Sheets is the way to go. With it, you can create detailed tasks, store customer data, track progress, and much more - all in one place. You'll even find tons of Google Sheets template dashboards online to make creating and managing your customer management system easier.

Good customer management is vital for any hospitality business looking to thrive. And with the right tools in place, you can rest assured that your customers are receiving the best possible experience from start to finish. This, in turn, will lead to more positive reviews, better word-of-mouth referrals, and return visits. So, do your due diligence, and invest in the most suitable customer management tools to take your business to the next level.
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Utilize Outside-of-the-Box Thinking to Get More Bookings

Most small to medium-sized hospitality owners are already doing the basics like posting on social media, creating newsletters and listing their properties on various directories. But if you want to break the mold and stand out from the competition, you've got to try something new. So give these off-the-wall marketing strategies a try and see how they work for you.