Is your hotel looking to welcome more guests and increase bookings with your current marketing budget? You’re in luck—a hotel marketing audit reveals exactly what’s working and where you need to improve.
By deep-diving into your current strategy, your hotel can increase revenue and optimize its budget usage. Don’t spend time and energy on inefficient marketing. It’s time to discover even better opportunities.
What is a Hotel Marketing Audit?
Think of a marketing audit as your pathway to success. It creates strong goals, dissects your current strategy, analyzes competitors, and uncovers hidden potential. A great audit leaves no stone unturned, covering everything from SEO and website design to guest experience and social media. Most importantly, though, it ensures that you spend your money wisely.
How a Hotel Marketing Audit Maximizes Budget
A tourism marketing audit will determine the strengths and weaknesses of your strategy. Once determined, you can properly allocate resources. If a particular tactic isn’t working, it might be time to reassess and invest in an approach that’s attracting guests. A digital marketing strategy audit can also present new opportunities to boost bookings and ROI.
A digital marketing audit company like Forge Apollo can help easily identify these possibilities and simplify the auditing process.
How to Perform a Hotel Marketing Audit
Learning how to perform a hotel marketing audit can feel intimidating, but we’ve made it easy with some simple steps. To learn more, keep reading and check out our free Hotel Marketing Audit Guide and Checklist.
While performing a hotel audit independently is possible, working with an experienced agency can provide deeper insights and more ROI.
1. Clarify Your Goals, Audience, and Budget
The first step in a hotel marketing audit is clarifying the foundation of your efforts.
Start by creating SMART goals. By brainstorming specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely goals, your hotel can hold marketing efforts accountable and increase ROI. In fact, did you know that people who write down their goals have a 33% higher success rate than those who don’t?
Next, narrow down your target audience so you can direct marketing efforts to them. Developing goals tailored to your guests can be effective and motivating.
Finally, note your marketing budget and how you are currently spending it.
2. Analyze the Performance of Your Current Strategy
Next, break down your current marketing strategy by channel. Evaluate each aspect of your plan. Pay attention to which efforts receive the most engagement and lead to the most bookings, along with those that don’t. Some key channels and metrics to assess include:
- Social Media: Shares and impressions
- Email Marketing: Opens and clicks
- Website: Traffic sources, engagement, and conversions
- Pay-Per-Click Advertisements: Cost-per-click, click-through rates, and conversions
3. Perform Competitive Research
Once you understand your hotel’s strengths and weaknesses, it’s time to analyze your competitors. Start by identifying them and making a comprehensive list of their marketing efforts. You can brainstorm questions like:
- What tactics have they implemented?
- What are their strengths and weaknesses?
- How does their brand messaging compare to yours?
Then, look for gaps in their marketing strategy. Use those gaps to gain a competitive advantage and attract new guests.
4. Evaluate Your Findings and Create a Strategy
Consider the findings of your marketing audit to inform your new hotel marketing strategy. Ask questions like:
- What areas of your strategy are attracting enough guests and delivering bookings?
- What ROI does each channel provide?
- In which areas do you not have enough tracking or attribution?
- What new strategies can you implement to achieve your goals and improve guest experience?
- Which tactics no longer align with your goals and objectives?
- Is your budget being optimized fully?
- How can you improve your marketing strategy in the long term versus the short term?
Take your findings and create a strategy to move forward. Determine which improvement opportunities your hotel can capitalize on. When reallocating funds, consider which marketing efforts will be most effective.
Consider partnering with a marketing agency for efforts like SEO, PPC, and website development. Their expertise and scale of services offer measurable results at a cheaper rate than DIY projects.
How Forge Apollo Can Help
After reading this blog, you should feel more confident performing a basic hotel marketing audit. For an in-depth audit, contact the digital marketing audit company, Forge Apollo. Our experienced team will not only provide you with professional advice but also help with any necessary service needs. We specialize in everything from SEO and website design to social media and email marketing. Get started today!
