An Expedia Group Study found that US travelers look at up to 277 website pages before booking a trip. High-quality visuals can attract those planners to your content, but how can you turn those “lookers” into “bookers”?
Strategic hotel copywriting.
Forge Apollo is a tourism marketing agency based in Philadelphia. We’ve worked with hotels of all sizes, from an independent boutique hotel to a multi-location regional chain, all the way up to an international corporate brand.
Across those clients, we’ve learned to dial in what works for hotel content marketing. Today, we’re sharing what we’ve learned.
Know Who You Are: Establishing Brand Voice
Before you start travel content marketing, you need to build a strong, consistent brand voice.
Here are some steps we took to develop a solid brand identity and voice for a new Caribbean resort.
- Understand your brand’s history, story, and position in the market
- Establish your brand pillars and differentiators
- Define the tone of voice you want, and what you don’t want
- Write some examples of what your voice sounds like (and doesn’t sound like) in practice
You can see this guidance in practice in this excerpt from the client’s brand voice document. We clearly define what the brand’s voice is and isn’t, with examples.
Know Who You’re Talking To: Specific Personas
Next, it’s time to create or familiarize yourself with your hotel’s target guest personas. Go beyond generic demographic info, like married couples aged 25-45 from the USA.
Your personas should outline:
- Travel Intent: Are they visiting your hotel for luxury leisure, business, family vacation, etc.?
- Travel Planning Behavior: How far in advance do they tend to book? Do they book direct or through OTAs?
- Pain Points and Desires: What do they want out of their stay? What have they experienced before that they like or don’t like?
The Ingredients of High-Converting Hotel Content
Here are the three factors that we’ve found convert the most in content marketing for hotels.
Sell the Experience, Not Just the Amenities
Leave the straightforward list of amenities where someone looks for them–in the amenities section. Other areas of copy, like room descriptions, should use storytelling elements to showcase the experience over the amenities.
Lead With Emotion
Copy should first tap into the emotion of the getaway, then back it up with functional details.
Sensory and Local Storytelling
Paint a picture of the neighborhood, don’t just list local attractions. Tell potential guests why staying at your hotel makes visiting local landmarks effortless.
Content Strategies by Platform
Website
Your website pages are your conversion hub. All pages should answer the question “Why stay here?” above the fold.
Calls to action should move beyond “Learn More” when they’re conversion-focused. Use action-oriented, benefit-led language, like “Claim Your Suite,” “Explore the Best Rates,” or “Reserve Your Getaway.”
Blog
Your hotel’s blog is your opportunity to position yourself as a local authority. This is one area we’ve seen a lot of hotels fumble because some try to use it purely for promotion, instead.
You can absolutely feature your hotel in your content, but you need to weave it into the story of the location. Instead of writing a blog on how amazing your hotel’s location is, write a blog highlighting the top attractions in your area that includes little blurbs about how to get there from your hotel.
With segmentation, you should be able to tailor your email audience to match the personas you’ve created. When writing, imagine that you’re writing to one person.
Using one CTA in your email instead of multiple can increase click-through rates by 371%. Try to avoid the temptation to load your email with as many calls to action as possible and stick to one clear message.
Check out our guides on email personalization tactics that drive hotel bookings and automated emails your hotel should be sending to get more out of your email channel.
Social Media
Tailor social content to the platform you’re writing on. Keep copy simple and actionable, highlight social-first promos when you can.
For more insight, read through our guide to creating a hotel social media marketing strategy.
Ads
In your ad campaigns, hyper-target intent, combining hook copy with incentive triggers, such as “Escape to Boston this weekend. Book Direct for a $50 hotel credit.”
For more tips on creating hotel ad campaigns that convert, check out our guide on best practices for travel ads.
Hotel Content Marketing That Converts
Your hotel copywriting does the heavy lifting when getting guests across the finish line. With a clear brand identity and personas, you can use experiential storytelling and emotion to motivate “lookers” to become “bookers.” If you need help, Forge Apollo is here. Our copywriters in Philadelphia can turn your content into a conversion machine. Reach out today to explore pricing.
