Build a Strong Marketing Foundation: Proven Strategies to Ensure Campaign Success

You’re ready to go with your full-funnel marketing campaign, but have you laid the right foundation? In the travel world, a full-funnel campaign consists of the Discover, Plan, Book, and Engage phases, allowing you to connect with potential guests from the moment they express interest, through booking, and after they’ve arrived at your hotel. Along that journey, you can inspire guests with the right messaging about your property, upsell with tailored outreach, and boost guest satisfaction. While most hotel marketers focus on which channels to use, messaging, and imagery, deploying a successful full-funnel marketing campaign starts long before your first ad goes out.

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Optimize Your Strategy: Decode the Four-Stage Funnel

The marketing funnel starts when a traveler dreams of their next trip, even if they don’t have a particular destination in mind. The funnel spans every stage of their decision-making process and runs through their stay and beyond.

At every touchpoint along their travel path, you can woo them to visit your property by highlighting your amenities, location, service offerings, and more. Doing so successfully means delivering the right message to that traveler at exactly the right time. Given that travelers can be unpredictable and their path to purchase is complex, you must first lay the groundwork with data.

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Setting the Stage for Growth

While a traveler may begin noticing your ads during the dreaming stage of planning their next trip, the foundation for a successful full-funnel campaign is laid much earlier. How you collect data—and the specific information you gather—plays a crucial role in the effectiveness of your campaigns. Data is one of your most valuable assets, and leveraging first-party data can provide deep insights into your potential guests, helping you secure more direct bookings.

First-party data is the information you gather directly from your guests, encompassing their preferred settings like website language, historical booking data, in-person interactions, and any other details stored in your customer relationship management (CRM) system or property management system (PMS).

Hotel marketers increasingly rely on first-party data for effective marketing. Our report indicates that 59% of hotel marketers have already implemented a first-party data strategy in anticipation of this change, and 75% of those without one are eager to develop one. Establishing a robust first-party data framework now will position your campaigns for future success.

Here’s how to get started:

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Data Collection

Collect relevant data from various sources such as website analytics, booking platforms, customer surveys, and social media. This comprehensive data set will provide valuable insights into guest behaviors, preferences, and demographics. Regularly analyze this data to identify trends, measure successes, and pinpoint areas for improvement.

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Mapping Customer Journey

Use data to map out the stages of the buyer journey, identifying key touch points where guests interact with your brand, both online and offline. Understand the type of information they seek at each stage to tailor your interactions more effectively.

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Personalization

Leverage data-driven insights to customize your marketing messages and offers. Recommend specific room types, amenities, or experiences based on guest preferences and past behavior to enhance their personalized experience.

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Data Privacy

Ensure your data collection practices comply with regulations like GDPR and CCPA. Protect guest data and maintain transparency about how it is used, fostering trust and safeguarding privacy.

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Unlock the full potential of first-party data and experience its benefits. Download our comprehensive eBook, The Hotel Marketer’s Playbook: A Guide to Navigating the Marketing Funnel, for the complete list of strategies. Get your copy now.