It makes sense that accommodation providers are constantly seeking ways to streamline operations, enhance guest experiences, and drive revenue growth. Thankfully, new technology in the hospitality industry is emerging on a regular basis, allowing providers to make their business more efficient in a myriad of ways. Hospitality marketing automation is just one of those tools, but it’s an important one.
By automating repetitive tasks, leveraging data-driven insights, and delivering targeted messages, hospitality businesses can not only optimize their marketing efforts and stay ahead of the competition, but they can also streamline their overall operations. This is mainly through triggered automation that takes over repetitive tasks like scheduling, notifications, and reminders.
Let’s look at an example. A guest visits your website and goes through your booking process to book a room. Once the booking is confirmed, a cleaning can be automatically scheduled, or maintenance on a campsite can be booked. An automatic email can be sent with the guest’s confirmation, including an invoice summarizing the details and cost of their stay. These are just a couple of examples, but the point is that manual tasks can be eliminated or lessened just through automatic triggers.
In this article, we explore more about automation technology in the hospitality industry, including more details about why it’s essential to implement, how it improves revenue and ideas for implementation.
Why is Hospitality Marketing Automation Essential for Accommodation Providers?
Hospitality marketing automation is essential for accommodation providers for several reasons:
| Hospitality Automation Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| Efficiency | Marketing automation streamlines repetitive tasks such as sending emails, managing customer data, and scheduling social media posts. By automating these processes, accommodation providers can save time and resources, allowing staff to focus on more strategic initiatives. |
| Personalization | Automation allows accommodation providers to deliver personalized messages and offers to guests based on their preferences, behaviors, and past interactions with the brand. This personalized approach enhances the guest experience, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty. |
| Increased Revenue | Marketing automation enables accommodation providers to target the right audience with the right message at the right time, leading to higher conversion rates and increased bookings. By nurturing leads and engaging with past guests through automated campaigns, businesses can drive more revenue and maximize profitability. |
| Data-Driven Insights | Automation platforms provide valuable data and analytics on customer behavior, engagement metrics, and campaign performance. By analyzing this data, accommodation providers can gain insights into guest preferences, identify trends, and optimize marketing strategies to better meet the needs of their target audience. |
| Competitive Advantage | Staying ahead of the competition is crucial in the hospitality industry. Hospitality marketing automation allows accommodation providers to deliver timely, relevant, and personalized experiences that differentiate their brand from competitors. By leveraging automation technology, businesses can create a seamless and memorable guest experience that sets them apart in the marketplace. |
How Marketing Automation Improves Revenue
The biggest way that hospitality marketing automation improves revenue for accommodation businesses is through increased efficiency. Automation helps ensure that employees or guests don’t miss important information and reduces or eliminates repetitive manual tasks, allowing employees to focus on items that are a better use of their skills and time.
Here are the main ways that automation technology in the hospitality industry helps make your business more efficient:
Email & SMS Automation Keeps Your Business Front of Mind
Staying top-of-mind with guests is crucial for driving repeat business and increasing customer loyalty. Email and SMS automation enable accommodation providers to maintain regular communication with guests, from pre-arrival information to post-stay follow-ups. By sending personalized messages, promotions, and special offers at the right time, businesses can nurture customer relationships and encourage repeat bookings.
Newbook offers integrated marketing tools in the property management software, allowing you to:
- Create marketing campaigns and promotions
- Create email templates
- Send out guest surveys
- Track abandoned carts and send reminders to those guests
- Create gift vouchers
- Offer dynamic and interactive promotions, such as email or SMS “scratch and win”
Send Automatic Reminders to Guests
Streamlining guest communication extends beyond promotional messages. With marketing automation, accommodation providers can send automatic reminders for important events such as bill payments, check-in/out times, and upcoming reservations. By proactively engaging guests with relevant information, businesses can enhance the guest experience and minimize the risk of missed opportunities.
Analytics Allow You to Adjust Your Outreach Over Time
One of the key advantages of hospitality marketing automation is its ability to provide actionable insights through analytics. By tracking engagement metrics, conversion rates, and customer behavior, accommodation providers can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. This data allows businesses to optimize their outreach efforts over time, refining messaging, targeting, and timing to maximize ROI and drive revenue growth.
4 Hotel Marketing Automation Ideas
By leveraging automation technology, hotels can streamline marketing processes, deliver personalized experiences, and drive revenue growth. Here are some hotel marketing automation ideas to consider implementing:
1. Send Targeted Messages to the Right Customers
Personalization is key to successful marketing campaigns, and targeted messaging allows hotels to tailor their communications to the specific interests and preferences of their guests. By segmenting their audience based on factors such as demographics, booking history, and preferences, hotels can send highly relevant and personalized messages that resonate with their target audience.
For example, hotels, campgrounds, and RV parks can send targeted emails or SMS messages promoting special offers or packages based on a guest’s past booking behavior or interests. By delivering the right message to the right customer at the right time, hotels can increase engagement and drive conversions.
2. Take Advantage of New Communication Channels
These days, guests expect to communicate with accommodation providers through a variety of channels, including email, SMS, social media, and messaging apps. Hotels can leverage these new communication channels to engage with guests in real-time and provide personalized assistance throughout their journey.
For instance, accommodation providers can use chatbots or messaging apps to respond to guest inquiries, provide recommendations, and facilitate bookings directly from the messaging platform. By offering convenient and efficient communication options, hotels can enhance the guest experience and build stronger relationships with their guests.
Check out our free ebook on 5 Powerful Ways to Use Automated SMS on some of the ways you can deliver a better experience using SMS.
3. Drive More Direct Bookings with Dynamic Landing Pages
Direct bookings are essential for hotels to maximize revenue and reduce reliance on third-party booking platforms. Dynamic landing pages are a powerful tool for driving direct bookings by creating personalized landing pages tailored to specific audience segments or marketing campaigns.
For example, accommodation providers can create dynamic landing pages for different guest segments, such as families, business travelers, or leisure travelers, featuring customized content and offers that appeal to each audience. By optimizing these landing pages for conversion and tracking performance metrics, hotels can increase direct bookings and improve overall revenue.
4. Create Streamlined Marketing Automation Workflows
Marketing automation workflows allow hotels to automate repetitive marketing tasks and streamline processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness. By mapping out customer journeys and creating automated workflows, hotels can deliver timely and relevant messages to guests at each stage of their journey.
For example, accommodation providers can create automated email sequences to welcome new guests, follow up after a stay, or re-engage past guests with special offers or promotions. By automating these workflows, hotels can nurture leads, drive engagement, and increase bookings without requiring manual intervention.
Conclusion
Hospitality marketing automation is not just a luxury but a necessity for accommodation providers looking to thrive in today’s competitive landscape. By embracing automation technology in hospitality, providers can streamline operations, enhance guest experiences, and drive revenue growth.
Automated marketing processes, such as email and SMS campaigns, not only keep businesses front of mind for guests but also allow for personalized communication that fosters loyalty and repeat bookings. Moreover, automation enables accommodation providers to send automatic reminders for important events, ensuring a seamless guest experience from start to finish.
With our comprehensive property management system with built-in marketing tools, you can effectively keep in touch with your guests and create automations that reduce the workload for you and your staff. Reach out to Newbook today to get started.
