Hospitality Marketing: On-line Strategies to drive more consumer direct bookings

Two questions I am asked often by hospitality clients are:

“How do I get more Consumer Direct Bookings” and “Why should I pay for my own brand name in Pay per Click (PPC) advertising?”  The answers to both these questions are surprisingly related.

The Quick Answers:

1. Add Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to your internet marketing plan to gain page dominance on Search Engine results pages (SERPs) for competitive advantage and drive more consumer direct bookings.
2. Yes! You should include our brand name in list of biddable keywords for  PPC marketing.

Here’s 5 Reasons Why:

1.  Dominate the page – Research shows that if users see you in the top (paid) positions AND in the organic position on a page, click through rate goes up to 77%.  (while CTR of organic alone is only 1-2%)

2.   Own your name – it’s inexpensive.  This is the least expensive word you will bid on and gives you the best position, at the lowest price, when your business category is searched for

 

Add PPC for Page Dominance & Competitive Advantage

 

3.    Edge out the competition – Competitors often bid on others’ branded names, but you will always score higher by search engines for your own name and thus can push competitor results farther down the page

4.    More Profitable click through– Intermediaries are also bidding on your banded name, & you pay more in commission & fees to OTAs than if guests book directly.  (One booking would more than pay for a month’s worth of clicks on your branded keyword).

5.    Branding & reputation management – When people are searching for hotels & resorts, you want them to see positive content first (not a negative review from social media) Important for both potential & current guests.

• Another aspect of Branding is – more control over your message.  Even if it is not a negative review…organic is slower to get new meta descriptions and other SEO efforts to appear (and the caching nature of search engines means old content hangs around for a long time).  PPC allows instant visibility to marketing messages you want prominent for the month…linked to your name.

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) combined with Search Engine Optimization tactics will give your company the greatest visibility possible to your market segment

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