Proven Luxury Hotel Marketing Strategies for Attracting High-End Guests
Everyone knows that luxury hotels and resorts are in a league of their own. No matter how you put it, there’s always something that makes these establishments stand out from the rest.
Whether it’s exceptional services, amazing comfort, amenities you can’t find anywhere else, or something else entirely, these luxury enterprises offer unforgettable experiences. So, how do luxury hotels portray such exclusive offers to their audience?
The answer is simple: they leverage luxury hotel marketing strategies. After all, even five-star hotels are still businesses, and every business must be visible to their audience if they wish to attract guests and increase bookings.
Unfortunately, no one is exempt from this rule. If you wish to thrive in today’s digital age, you have to promote your business and its offers the right way. With that in mind, let’s have a look at some of the proven marketing strategies for luxury hotels that are guaranteed to attract a more exclusive clientele.
What is Luxury Hotel Marketing?
Luxury hotel marketing involves curating and promoting unique, high-quality experiences through various channels to attract discerning consumers. It emphasizes exceptional services, exclusive amenities, and superior accommodation standards, ensuring the brand stands out in a competitive market.
What are the Most Effective Luxury Hotel Marketing Strategies?
Now, that entirely depends on your needs and business goals. Every marketing strategy excels at some things but falls short in others. That’s why a marketing plan is needed to assess your current needs and how to fulfill them.
It goes without saying that there are a plethora of effective marketing strategies. However, on their own, they won’t be able to get you what you want. A combination of various marketing tactics and strategies, on the other hand, is an entirely different story.
When used correctly, a mix of marketing strategies can form a unique marketing campaign that will elevate your business to a whole new level. So, let’s examine a few of these luxury hotel marketing strategies and see how they can help you achieve your business goals.
1. Develop a Unique Brand
As mentioned before, luxury establishments always have something that makes them stand out from the rest of the competition. However, you still have to communicate that to your audience if you want to capture their attention and ensure they become your loyal guest.
Now, there are countless ways you can do that, but the best option is to create a unique and memorable brand. The main reason is that when consumers recognize a brand, they immediately associate it with your offers, unique features, your company’s core values, and so on.
A strong brand identity can ensure a truly powerful online presence that will resonate with your target audience. As you may already know, crafting such an identity is no easy task.
This is why it’s better to hire professional hotel branding services and let a luxury hotel marketing agency do its magic while you focus on other important aspects of your business.
At Kōvly Studio, we have the expertise to help you out in this endeavor, and we’ll be more than happy to tailor a custom branding strategy that will meet your business needs. That said, let’s examine how a strong brand identity can boost your marketing efforts.
It helps you tell your story.
It makes your company and your services more recognizable, which broadens your reach.
Branding shows consumers exactly what they can expect from you.
It highlights your unique selling proposition (USP).
It helps you establish trust and loyalty with your guests.
2. Leverage Visual Storytelling
How do you convince a potential guest that your luxury hotel is, in fact, luxurious? Well, you show them the full extent of your premises and services.
Since you can’t expect potential guests to come for a tour in person, you can use the online means to exhibit everything you’ve got to offer.
Visual storytelling was designed for such purposes and it excels at showcasing luxurious elements that will leave people in awe. Here’s how to use visual storytelling to your advantage.
Create high-quality images and videos of your hotel and services.
Use 360° Video format to showcase the most stunning aspects of your hotel.
Publish your visual content on your website, blog, and social media pages.
Include visual content in your marketing efforts, such as email newsletters, paid ads, social media promotions, and so on.
Visual storytelling is a way to bring your establishment and the services you provide to life. It will captivate your audience and make them feel as if they’re actually at your hotel right now just by watching a well-designed video.
Visual discovery platforms, such as Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube, are ideal channels for you to engage in fully-developed visual storytelling marketing campaigns and grab the attention of your potential guests.
3. Social Media Marketing
Everyone uses social media today, even people who are considered the crème de la crème of society. So, if you want to be where your potential guests are, social media platforms are the place to be.
If we’re being completely honest, social media networks are perfect for your marketing campaigns. What was originally intended as a space for social gatherings turned out to be quite a marketplace where businesses from every industry promote themselves and their products or services.
And they do so quite effectively, in fact. This is precisely why luxury hotel social media marketing needs to be an integral part of your overall marketing endeavors. Speaking of which, let’s examine how you can leverage these platforms to your advantage.
Establish a strong presence on multiple platforms, preferably the ones most likely to be frequented by your target audience.
If you’ve developed a brand, make sure you’re consistent on every platform. That includes visual identity, tone of voice, and so on.
Regularly publish relevant and meaningful content on your pages.
Host events, such as giveaways or contests, to build both awareness and engagement for your services.
Communicate with your audience. Ask them questions, encourage them to provide feedback, and respond to their inquiries in a polite and timely manner.
4. Collaborate with Influencers in Your Niche
Today, there’s a myriad of travel bloggers, food bloggers, and other influences that people look up to for recommendations on where to travel, where to eat, where to go camping, and so on.
These individuals are quite influential in their fields and can be a great asset if you want to extend your reach to a broader audience or, perhaps, if you wish to enter a niche market. Collaborating with influencers is actually quite an effective marketing strategy.
The main reason is that such endorsements are considered word-of-mouth promotions, and people usually trust those more than they trust anything else.
Of course, your target audience may be more discerning consumers and high-net-worth individuals, but if someone wants to stay at your hotel and can afford it, would you turn them down?
Therefore, influencer collaboration not only allows you to reach your actual target audience through elaborate endorsements but also allows you to attract other consumers who want to spend on luxury treatment but may not fit the criteria of your customer persona.
In any event, that decision is up to you. However, keep in mind that you’d want to choose influencers whose audience aligns with your company values. Influencer endorsement will bring a level of authenticity and personalization to your promotions, making them more effective in the long run.
5. Paid Advertisement
Organic marketing strategies produce viable results, but paid marketing strategies do the same, only faster. After all, sometimes you need to increase bookings quickly, especially during seasonal promotions and vacation periods.
If the season passes by and you only have half of your hotel rooms occupied, it’s pretty much a wasted opportunity, which is bad for your bottom line. Paid advertisement ensures that doesn’t happen.
Of course, you do have to plan ahead and launch your campaign on time so that it can bear fruit once you’re ready for seasonal promotions. The thing is that consumers don’t actually respond well to ads.
They find them a bit too invasive and annoying. This is why you need to craft meaningful ads and place them in front of potential guests at the right time so that they have a positive impact. Here’s how you can achieve that:
Conduct thorough research and opt for the most relevant keywords for your business.
Prepare a bidding budget for each keyword you opted for.
Write an ad copy that resonates with your audience’s intent.
Include a compelling offer in your ad copy, such as discounts, exclusive membership in your loyalty program, incentives, and so on.
Ensure that each ad has a clear and inviting CTA (Call-To-Action).
Prepare well-designed landing pages for each ad. Ensure that each page is a visual representation of your luxury hotel.
Now, you can engage in paid advertisements on both search engines and social media platforms. Both options allow you to customize your ads and decide which group of consumers you wish to target, as well as when.
As for the search advertisement, you’re limited to Google and Bing. However, social media ad options are present on every platform. Explore each option and create a strategic approach that best suits your business.
Enhancing Marketing Strategies for Luxury Hotels with Kōvly Studio
Luxury hotels often stand at the top of their game, but every now and then, even such establishments require assistance with their marketing efforts.
Here at Kōvly Studio, we stand ready to help your luxury hotel reach new heights, whether by crafting a unique brand identity or managing your marketing campaigns.
Our projects serve as a testament to our expertise, experience and dedication that we put in our work for the purpose of assisting our clients in achieving their business goals.
Our services vary and we will always tailor our approach to serve your needs. So, don’t hesitate to reach out to us today, and we will find the best way to ensure your business success.
Conclusion: Harnessing the Power of Luxury Hotel Marketing
In the online market, everyone has to compete in order to win over consumers. It doesn’t matter if you own a luxury hotel or a budget one; if you don’t have a strong online presence, your audience simply won’t notice you.
This is why luxury hotel marketing is essential for your establishment because even your elite clientele needs to be aware of your existence. So, remember, if you cannot manage on your own, you can always find reliable experts to manage marketing campaigns for you.
FAQ:
How to market a luxury hotel?
That depends on the hotel’s needs and business goals. However, the best way to market a luxury hotel is to use a combination of effective marketing strategies that will help luxurious establishments meet their needs. Such marketing strategies include social media marketing, paid advertisement, and so on.
What are the 7 P's of marketing in the hotel industry?
The 7 P’s of marketing in the hotel industry are technically industry standards and examples establishments should follow if they want to stand out in the market. Those 7 P’s are:
- Product
- Price
- Place
- People
- Promotion
- Process
- Physical Evidence
What is the target market for luxury hotels?
Luxury hotels offer high-quality experiences, exceptional services, exclusive amenities, and superior accommodation standards, to name a few. As such, the target market for such establishments is individuals who can afford such services to begin with. This usually includes high-net-worth individuals, and other discerning customers.
What is a luxury marketing strategy?
A luxury marketing strategy has the purpose of highlighting why a certain product or service is considered luxurious in the first place. Such a strategy focuses on helping consumers understand why this luxurious product or service is better and more high-quality than other similar products or services, as well as what kind of value consumers will get when they opt-in.
