Bring Your Marketing to Life: A Complete Guide to Video Marketing for Hotels
One of the best ways to raise brand awareness and engage potential customers is to use video marketing for hotels to your advantage.
Video marketing blends sound, visual imagery, special effects and text marketing to offer potential guests a clearer idea of the concepts your brand is trying to communicate.
Video marketing is a combination of attention-grabbing media forms that work together to describe your business concepts in a compelling way.
Videos give your viewers a preview of your products and services and help to demonstrate real-life experiences. Your marketing videos may help to answer prospective customers’ questions about your hotel before they book, thus driving bookings and sales for hotels of all sizes.
According to data from Miles, 85% of marketers consider video as an effective way to get target audiences’ attention online.
Neal Schaffer notes that customers retain 95% of the information they see in videos and that a whopping 80% of people prefer videos to written text as they find videos more interesting and engaging.
These trends clearly show that hotels can use video marketing to engage their target groups online and convert leads into more bookings and sales.
1. The benefits of video marketing for hotels
2. Add a personal touch
3. Post your marketing videos on social media
4. Team up with industry influencers
5. Encourage the creation of user-generated content (UGC)
6. Include CTAs in your video marketing for hotels
7. Lights, camera, action
1. The benefits of video marketing for hotels
Statistics and data from Spinta Digital have elaborated on the many benefits that video marketing offers hotel and tourism franchises and businesses.
According to the agency’s infographic data, YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world.
This provides video marketers with a valuable opportunity to reach broad new audiences across national lines.
Data shows that 89% of surveyed leisure travellers watch videos online, and that 93% of business travellers do the same.
Around 66% of video viewers reportedly watch travel videos while thinking about planning their next trips.
A further 64% of viewers watch travel videos while choosing their next destinations.
The agency also noted that, according to 75% of marketers surveyed, compelling content is a major factor in the closing of sales.
Videos are an attractive content format to travellers, and they have the power to drive more traffic to hotel websites. Including videos on a blog can drive traffic to blog posts and create more brand awareness and recognition.
All while improving the SEO rankings of a website.
According to Comscore, brands that add videos to their websites increase the visibility of their sites in search results by 53%.
For hotels and other hospitality businesses, posting pictures of hotel room interiors, facilities and dining options helps to create a virtual online experience, thereby boosting the likelihood of guests making bookings.
In terms of social media marketing, videos are thought to be one of the most engaging content forms available, eliciting the most likes, shares and comments.
Posting videos increases an audience’s interest.
Scheduling social media video posts is an effective strategy that can effectively lead to higher video engagement rates and subsequent lead conversions.
Video content also offers higher reach and optimization.
Other content forms present challenges when analysing how effectively the content has engaged a target audience.
Videos offer built-in feedback loops, providing deeper reach, click-through and viewership analysis. Simply put, video marketing for hotels is one of the most effective tools the industry has to market its services digitally.
Videos have been hailed as the future of digital content marketing.
The more hotels and brands start to use them in their marketing campaigns, the better they will be able to drive traffic and increase booking rates.
2. Hotel video marketing best practices
There are video marketing best practices you should follow to ensure that your content gains the reach and exposure it deserves.
We have compiled a list of the most important best practices but there are many more.
If you have the budget or are unsure we advise you speak to professional videotographers or outsource your video marketing to a company who are experts.
Video is so important, so it’s vital it’s done right and these best practices are followed as closely as possible.
3. Add a personal touch
Brand videos are effective at sharing a brand’s values and showcasing its products and services.
But this approach tends to work best at the top of the sales funnel.
Adding a personal, less corporate touch to your videos will help you to add value for your potential customers and create content that truly resonates with them.
Incorporating testimonials and influencer reviews can also add human value to your marketing methods. Plus, it will build trust between your hotel and your audiences.
Remember that it’s easier to build lasting connections with current and future hotel customers than it is to continually engage and convert new ones.
Include representative target customers in your videos to represent your hotel’s ideal guests and encourage tourists and travelers to find out more about what you have to offer.
4. Post your marketing videos on social media
Websites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are valuable platforms that every hotel should be using to market its services.
Social media marketing can offer your brand better reach and improved SEO positioning to help it fare better in relevant searches on Google and other search engines.
You can optimize your brand’s appearance in search results by ensuring that your content is properly titled and formatted and contains relevant keywords.
Ensure that you build your social media presence and engage your followers regularly. Interact with them and take their feedback into account to boost your visibility and attract more positive reviews.
5. Team up with industry influencers
The international travel industry is full of influencers who can market and advertise your hotel brand to their followers for a price.
Collaborate with popular travel bloggers, bartenders, chefs, and other online influencers to create value-driven interviews and behind-the-scenes videos that will give your target audiences a peek into your daily operations.
The more relevant influencers you can find to promote your hotel, the more your audiences will begin to associate these beloved personalities with your brand.
6. Encourage the creation of user-generated content (UGC)
Businesses in the hotel and hospitality industries stand to benefit from using user-generated content for their marketing efforts.
This is video content that has been created by followers and hotel customers, and it’s crucial for effective digital marketing in the modern age.
Encouraging your followers to create user-generated content helps to promote your hotel organically while reducing your own marketing workload in the process.
Many of your satisfied customers will be all too willing to make reviews and videos of their experience with your chain.
Remember to engage with user-generated content by liking and sharing it to ensure that your brand’s followers feel recognized and included in your marketing efforts.
7. Include CTAs in your video marketing for hotels
Once potential customers have watched your videos, it’s time to take the opportunity to convert them into paying clients.
You can simplify this conversion process by including calls to action (CTAs) in your videos with attractive offers, discounts and promotions based on the preferences of your target market.
Instructions like, “Book now!” tell your leads exactly what to do next and improve your chances of compelling them to make bookings at your establishment.
8. Lights, camera, action
Video marketing for hotels is a powerful tool capable of driving engagement online, building trust between a brand and its target audiences, and boosting booking and sales rates.
Use the best practices mentioned above to create captivating video content that helps you to attract new customers, convert them into leads, and ensure that they keep coming back time and time again.
