When it comes to hotel marketing, your core audience will always be vacationers and visitors in need of a nice place to sleep at night.
But, what about your other offerings, such as your restaurant, spa services or hotel conference room?
Connecting with qualified buyers who are interested in your hotel’s other amenities and services is a great way to bring more business to your hotel.
As a hotel, one of your biggest assets is your conference and function room space. Whether you want to reach event planners who recommend function spaces for weddings and Bar Mitzvah’s or executive secretaries responsible for coordinating business meetings, using local online marketing for hotels will showcase all your amenities and services to qualified buyers who are ready to take action.
Keep reading for the top three hotel marketing tactics you can use to promote your conference and function spaces.
Market your hotel conference room with these tactics:
Contact the right people
Start getting the exposure you need by contacting the people and organizations who can send business directly to your hotel.
A great place to begin is with your local Chamber of Commerce. If you’re not a member, join asap. Next, ask them about different marketing opportunities they offer, such as being listed on their website, advertising in annual publications or networking events they host for the business community.
After you start working with your Chamber of Commerce, search for local business clubs and associations and make them aware of your hotel conference room. You may want to offer them a special discount or other deal to pique their interest in having their meetings at your hotel’s conference room.
Giving a small discount to business associations is a great way to market your hotel conference room to other qualfied buyers; after all, the members who attend association meetings may be in need of a hotel conference room space for their own companies.
Lastly, but certainly not least, reach out to corporate trainers, event planners and caterers. These are the event “movers and shakers” in your local business community and can direct people to your venue. They also know who is in need of a conference space and who has used hotel conference halls in the past.
Define your offerings
When reaching out and advertising your hotel conference room space, you need to know exactly what you’re offering.
Is it a flexible space for weddings, business meetings and training? Will it work for a very large group or better for small groups?
List out all the details of the space that people will have questions about. After you’ve collected the details, know what you can offer as add-ons — such as discounted coffee, free wi-fi or late check-outs — and use these to help convert a qualified buyer who might be on the fence between your space and a competitor’s.
By defining your offerings early on, you are always one step ahead of a client’s needs and request. While it might seem small, having solutions to problems before they even arise will save you time and resources — and set your space apart from the competition.
Offer complimentary social media marketing services
Many in-person events have become social affairs online and now include official hashtags and Facebook Pages to share the latest happenings. Take advantage of this online exposure by taking control of it for your clients.
It may seem like a lot of extra work to create a social media marketing plan for each event, but in reality, the added exposure you receive will pay off many times over. For example, if your hotel is hosting an event that includes 200 attendees, that’s 200 opportunities for your hotel to be raved about and featured online to friends, colleagues or just a random searcher looking for their next event venue.
To capitalize on this opportunity, while adding value for your customer, think about a hashtag that features your location and use quality photography to show off your space and attendees. A local hotel in Sonoma, California, hosting a realtor event could use the hashtag #SonomaRealtyConf to promote the event, tweeting with the hashtag and posting on the Facebook Page about the event. Designate a member of your hotel staff to take photos of attendees and tweet out their picture with a quick note about how excited you are to host this conference.
Take your promotion strategy to the next level by retweeting and sharing the conference in your own social channels and feature them on your website, giving direct customer experience to your next potential client.
Not a Twitter expert?
Luckily, you don’t need to be. Download our free Twitter Marketing Guide and learn the basics that you can use in your hotel marketing strategy.
Connect with a new audience in search of hotel conference spaces and showcase all your additional amenities and offerings using these three local online marketing tactics.
Take your hotel marketing strategy a step further with the LocalVox platform. Whether you want to fill your rooms or promote your hotel’s conference room, LocalVox makes it easy to reach people who are researching and making decisions about where to stay – and what to do – for their next vacation or event.
The post Bring In More Business with Hotel Events appeared first on LocalVox.
from Local Marketing Blog – LocalVox http://localvox.com/blog/use-your-hotel-conference-room-to-your-advantage/
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