Category: DIGITAL MARKETNG

The most fun part of my Social Media Championship Programme is where I explain how you can use  Facebook Live, Snapchat Stories, Instagram advertising and LinkedIn marketing to grow your business in exactly 90 days. In this blog, I would love to offer a sneak peek on what the session holds for you. If you are an entrepreneur, Facebook is definitely the place to be. Let’s look at some of the ways you can use Facebook Live to grow your audience.

Life’s a reality show!

All businesses have a story and a personality. And all business should showcase that personal and human side. All marketing efforts usually take that human-ness away from your business. But if you want those loyal customers, you will have to create personal connections. And it’s not possible if all you put out on social media are mechanical, repetitive captions.

That’s the most obvious advantage of going live, hands down. Live videos on Facebook show that your business has personality traits and opinions. They turn out to be real and spontaneous. Your customers and audience will start relating to you and eventually start connecting with you. Trust me; these kinds of connections are business gold.

Sneak a peek

Launching a new product? Made a change to the website? Want to show-off a new feature? All these warrant a Facebook Live Video. Everyone wants to be the first one to find out about a new product or feature, or be the first to see something new. Use Facebook live smartly and use it as a teaser for these features or changes.

Ask for feedback, comments, and even offer promotions for new service. It will create an eager pool of customers willing to try your offering. Amazing, isn’t it?

Behind the Scenes Action

I meet a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs who are hesitant to offer a behind the scenes look of their abodes. But you have to understand, not all offices and workstations are the epitome of perfection. Don’t let that hold you back from showing your fun side.

Maybe the #MannequinChallenge is a hot trend – accept the challenge, grab a camera and shoot a quirky video with your employees in office. Be a sport!

Once your audience sees the work and effort that goes into making your product or enabling your service, they will get the big picture and would want to associate with you. Customers who understand are the best customers.

The most potential for BTS videos lies with hotels and restaurants.

Giveaways

No, I’m not just talking about contests and sweepstakes (that’s a good idea too); I’m talking about educating, motivating, or helping your audience. The more you give, the more comes back to you in amazing ways. For example, you can create a live video of a product tutorial – how best to use it, etc. It shows that you’re not a mad rush to sell products – you actually care for your customers.

You have to find what expertise you can build on, and how you can share that with the audience.

Answer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Customer satisfaction is the basic tenet of any business. And Facebook Live is the modern day equivalent of calls. Users these days post their queries directly on social media. You can create a weekly or fortnightly live video wherein the users can post their questions in comments and your expert can answer them live.

There’s no reason to worry, they are called frequently asked questions for a reason – you wouldn’t have a problem answering them. If not, you can simply cover them in the next video. Live videos don’t have to be perfect!

Improving the Live Videos

While live videos don’t have to be perfect, they can still be improved. You can start by writing attention grabbing and keyword rich descriptions. Since this is what the audience will first see in their newsfeed, it needs to be catchy. Make sure that it is still relevant – the user should find what he expects to see.

For once, live performances can be modified! Once the live stream is over, it will be saved to your profile. You can edit the title, description, and even the video itself.

Now time for your homework! Plan your Facebook Live videos and make sure to implement all these points. I’ve got a lot more to share in my training program, including tips for other social media channels. You can check out the course right here – http://askaviarya.com/training/

Year after year, I get a lot of queries from hotels, restaurants, and small businesses – which one is better between Google Adwords and Facebook Ads?

The fight for the best advertising platform is crucial – there are around 3 billion internet users in the world, and the right platform can make or break your direct revenue stream. Both platforms have knockout punches up their sleeve, and the debate rages on.

While both services have their merits, the benefits differ according to the budget, targeting, and strategic goal.

Check out the battle and find out which competitor you should be using for your hotel.

Round 1 – Budget and Cost per Click (CPC)

Usually, the CPC for Google Adwords is a little higher than Facebook Ads. According to AdEspresso and Wordstream, the average CPC in Q3 of last year was 0.28$ for Facebook, and 2.32$ for Google. If you have an independent hotel, with a small advertising budget, you will get more bangs for buck with Facebook ads. Round 1 goes to Facebook!

Keep in mind that clicks are not everything; there are other factors to consider such as conversions. In many cases, I have seen lower costs per leads through Facebook.

Round 2 – Defining objective

Once you have determined your budgets and costs, plan what you can achieve from this advertising spend. In my experience, Facebook is the best bet for increasing brand awareness and demand generation. However, if you want to capture demand, or generate sales and leads, AdWords is your champion.

The reasoning is simple, with Google; the guest is searching what you want to sell. So the intent to book is already there. But once again, consider all costs first.

Round 3 – Stage in the guest’s journey

Understanding where your potential guest is in the booking journey will also help you decide which platform to go for. If you want to capture guests in the moment of looking to book a stay, Google AdWords is your best bet due to the high level of intent from your audience. However, if you’re trying to bring more awareness or consideration to your offering, then Facebook ads can help you target those with a current or unknown need for your hotels.

This is how both channels can complement and fuel your hotel’s growth!

Round 3 – Service maturity and overall search volume

This point is so obvious; I don’t understand why hoteliers overlook it. If your hotel has a new restaurant or service, and there is very little or no search volume, then Google AdWords, or paid search, will most likely not generate a ton of traffic and therefore is unlikely to perform. Before you rule out AdWords completely in this scenario, you may consider bidding on a series of keywords which describe a problem that new feature solves. My advice is to test out bidding on what your service solves rather than a service that very few have been exposed to.

For example, the Tile app, a Bluetooth tracker, was one of the first apps of its kind. But the keywords “Bluetooth speaker” generated much less results than keywords like “lost my keys”, “find your phone” and “find your wallet”.

In most cases I advise hoteliers to start out on Facebook ads to generate awareness about your rooms, features, and amenities, explain what problem they solve, and develop brand recognition. Then, you’ll generate demand to set you up for more success when it comes to Google AdWords.

Final round –Who wins?

The winner, if you want immediate sales is Google Ads. But if its brand awareness and lead generation that you want, Facebook is the clear winner. Also, after going through these rounds, you will observe that there is not a ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to online advertising platforms. Before taking a decision, take a step back and analyse what you want to achieve from your investment and your available marketing budget. All other factors are secondary.

If you have read this far, do check out the #AskAviArya show. Click here to watch the episode where I give hacks to measure and calculate your overall digital marketing spend. It will help you get overwhelming ROI response!

While Instagram is the future of travel promotions, Facebook still reigns in the present. Its audience targeting features are unmatched, and until other platforms can offer the same features, Facebook will be the biggest marketing puzzle. It is necessary for any marketing campaign – online or offline – and most hoteliers have figured this out by now (I hope).

Being in the industry for so many years now, I have explored hundreds of targeting options and their combinationsto drive prospective guests’ attention towards the hotel and bring them true value. I’ll share my 3 most favourite tools to target the relevant audience in this blog. Read on!

LOCATE opportunities

You can target people in your location on the basis of 4 characteristics. For example, if you want to target people in Mumbai, these are your options –

1. Everyone in the selected location, for e.g. People who live in Mumbai or it’s their latest location.
2. Only people who live in Mumbai.
3. People who have recently been in Mumbai.
4. A person travelling to Mumbai – their most recent location being Mumbai but their home is hundreds of kilometres away.

The last one is truly fascinating for me. I can combine it with interest targets such as road trips and adventure trips. Next, I can target them with amazing hotel deals near their location. This will bring value to them, and guests to you.

Not just geo-location, you can also target people who are currently travelling through behavioural targeting. They are identified through actions in Facebook such as check-ins and engagement on certain posts, etc. This opens up a world of opportunities for you to target people who are residents of a particular area, but are travelling somewhere in the world at this moment. Grab these opportunities with both hands.

Celebrate meaningful LIFE EVENTS

 This is where Facebook proves to be awesomely insightful. Imagine you change your status to “In a relationship�? and start seeing ads for a week-long getaway in Paris. Or you land a new job, and receive promotional offers at the nearby restaurant.

If your hotel has a store, target the audience which have upcoming birthdays so that they can tag their friends and better halves as a hint of what to get them for their birthdays. The possibilities are endless!

It was also a creative move by Facebook to allow targeting of friends of people who are approaching a specific life event.

Your next guest looks like the current one – LOOKALIKE AUDIENCE

 People just like your guests are waiting to hear from you! You can find and connect with Facebook audiences who are similar to your guests with Facebook Lookalike Audiences. The platform looks at the profile data in your custom audience and creates a new list of users with similar interests and demographics.

It empowers you to use customer information from website and phone app visitors, people who like your page or people in your custom audience. It is created automatically from the sources you upload or connect on Facebook.

I’m really impressed with the way it helps you to effectively connect with people who are more likely to respond to your promotions.

Success story–In May last year, Goibibo ran an ad to increase its app installations. The ad format was “mobile app install�?, and ran simultaneously on Facebook and Instagram. Apart from targeting to 18-45 year olds with an interest in travel, it used website custom audience to retarget ads to people who had already visited their website. Other than this, Goibibo used Lookalike Audiences to find people who resembled those already using the app.

Using these targeting methods, it was able to reach the people who were most likely to become paying customers. As a result, it witnessed an amazing 20x increase in signups, and 15.7x increase in installs.

You too can achieve high growth rates, that too with one month of implementing these targeting methods. With so many different ad formats out there, and ad targets on top of that, I knowit can be hard to decide where to start. But Facebook is a goldmine of data, so don’t be sluggish – hunt for the treasure NOW.

These were just 3 of my favourite targeting tools. For more titbits of advice, do watch the #AskAviArya show. Here’s the link of my latest episode – https://goo.gl/SU8g2S

Cheers!

In every blog I write, I try to bring forth new trends that I believe will change your hotel’s marketing landscape. After so many years in the hospitality and digital marketing industry, I know which innovations will click, and which will not.

One such trend is the use of voice search for hotels. It is the core of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and its platforms like Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, Apple’s Siri and Google Now. They are getting smarter by the day, and learning conversational context. By 2018, 50% of consumers will interact with cognitive computing.

I believe bots will soon eliminate the need for apps. What is the use of app world, when everything is going to be voice activated?

What’s the present scenario?

Voice activated search is already being used by some hotels and OTAs, although the technology is still in its initial stage. KAYAK, a fare aggregator and Meta search engine, last year integrated with Alexa and came up with its own voice activated service. And it’s pretty smart, too. You can look up flights and hotels based on price, availability and dates. You can even ask questions like – “Alexa, can you ask KAYAK where I can stay for under $300?”

Like I said, there’s still a long way to go in the evolution of this technology. For example bookings still need to be completed through taps and clicks. But that’s why it is such a ripe time to invest in this technology.

Let me take you through some of its advantages.

A quicker way to engage

A study by Google found that 20% of queries on its mobile platform are voice searches, and the use of voice assistants has increased by 40%. As I have said repeatedly, mobile is soon going to be the mainstay of hotel searches – and voice based search will become even more popular because of it.

The obvious advantage of it is that clicking will be replaced by talking; allowing a better booking experience for all types of guests, especially last minute bookers. Imagine booking a hotel while you’re packing your bags!

Replacing mass search with curated search

At present, the hotel search experience revolves around offering a huge choice. A simple search turns up hundreds of results. But that’s not very helpful for you, is it?

What I like about voice search is that it offers the opportunity for a more curated approach. It’s better even for the guests, since they can filter and refine the process. Your guest can just ask Alexa or Cortana or whichever platform is integrated, to find a hotel in New Delhi within 5 km of India Gate and which has a swimming pool.

In this case the number of results will be limited, but they will all be relevant to the guest. It is a win-win for hoteliers, OTAs and consumers.

Predictive search

A brilliant thing about Voice Search and the AI behind it is their learning process. Based on past needs, they can make informed suggestions and predictions. For example, Google Now can send an alert on your phone in case you have a flight and there are traffic delays on the route.

The more interactions there are, the more the system learns. This will lead to more helpful, accurate and most importantly, personalized suggestions to the user.

Check out this video of a software demonstration by Viv, an AI platform, of the travel related opportunities of voice search – https://goo.gl/fuKs5Z

What does the future hold?

In the not so distant future, speaking to your phones will be normal. It will become easier for guests to both browse and book hotels. And like I said, instead of choosing from hundreds of generic options, guests will be able to pick from a curated selection.

You will need to adapt to this scenario in order to survive – you will need to be a part of the curated selections of users. Ultimately, you have to be more visible on voice search as well.

Keep following the #AskAviArya show and stay ahead of the game, always. Click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel – https://www.youtube.com/aviarya?sub_confirmation=1

It’s no secret that millennials love to travel. They want to indulge in experiences, not materials. But they also want the biggest bang for their buck. And they are taking over the world, quite literally. Millennials are going to be the biggest demographic in the world, and the most important target group for your hotel.

The biggest method to draw them in is to capture and share experiences that they would also like to have. The wanderlust bug bites millennials often, and it travels through social media. They don’t respond to traditional media the way previous generations did.

Let the numbers decide – A survey by Crowdtap and Ipsos reveals that millennials spend 18 hours a day with media in some form or the other and 30% of that is spent on user generated content. 71% of millennials check a social networking site once a day.

How to encourage them to post?

It doesn’t take a lot of effort really. Young guests already share so much on social media about their trip. However, you can influence how and when they post. I will suggest creating and specifying photo opportunities in your hotel to encourage guests.

Other than that, you can hold contests and create specific hashtags.

The 57 Hotel in Australia does a fantastic job of encouraging guests to share selfies taken in their room.

By encouraging guests to use specific hashtags, the hotel can track what has been posted, and share this media with their followers. Every traveller who shares his or her selfie on Instagram is broadcasting to the followers that the 57 Hotel is a great place to stay.

What this approach shows is that you don’t have to just ask for content, you can cultivate it. Add a little incentive. Flatter your dear guests. It all comes down to engagement in the end.

Another great example is Marriott’s Travel Brilliantly campaign.The campaign asked guests not only their posts, but their ideas to improve the hotel experience.

An Integrated Approach to User Generated Content

User generated content is a brilliant way to increase authenticity among travellers on social media platforms. Why not take this one step further by integrating it into the website. Loews Hotels is leading the way with their #TravelForReal campaign.

They prompt patrons to share images of their stay by using #TravelForReal, then sharing good images on social media and website. Some great ones are even used in their online and print advertising (with due permission). The images are overlaid with the text “Everybody Needs – ___”. Each image fills in the blank to better communicate the hotel’s story.

How to Add User Generated Content to Your Website

Adding user generated content to your website helps build trust and authenticity around your brand. It also provides you with a regular stream of new content for your website without much effort. What’s more, a study found that visitors to websites that include User Generated Content galleries spend 90% more time on site, which is crucial because the longer someone stays on your page, the higher the chances of booking are.

If you don’t have an agency, you can use any of the free tools or applications available that you can use to curate a social media feed, including posts from your own social media accounts, as well as posts from others that use your particular hashtag.

Invest time in deciding which hashtag to use for your hotel and how you will promote it (both digital and offline). Your hashtag should be specific to your hotel and match your property’s unique story. To prompt guests to start using your hashtag, make sure first you’re using it in all of your own posts. Run a social media contest or even better, take cue from the 57 Hotel and suggest photo opportunities in the hotel itself. In no time you will have an army of storytellers producing trustworthy content that resonates with travellers.

Once this is done, take inspiration from The Flanders Hotel in New Jersey. They have used ‘Juicer’ to put together elements from social media feed into their website. Each post gives a sneak peek into what a typical day is like at The Flanders Hotel, like yoga, shows, wedding functions, parties, etc. to reach and appeal to more guests.

Hotel brands, whether luxury or boutique, independent, etc. should all collaborate with social media users with a strategy in mind.  Look for prospects which match with your brand’s personality, and can act as potential ambassadors for millennials. If you are not already in this game, now is the time to dive in.

Well, that’s all for today folks! Now, go ahead and try these out for size, and let me know how you fared at them! For more, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel – https://goo.gl/jISycf

I’ve written countless blogs and talked a lot about the importance of mobile searches on the #AskAviArya show. But let’s be honest – have you fully leveraged its value yet? I meet a lot of hoteliers and marketing managers during conferences, my talks, or for coffee etc. Off late I’ve realised many of them don’t do enough to optimize their mobile websites. While they have invested in a beautifully designed website, the booking engines still feel like they’ve been designed by amateurs. Mostly the layout is poor, and the box is hanging off screen. Usually the CTA is so small I’ve to get my son to click on it because my fingers are too big for it.

A common argument that I face is – “Avi, our guests use mobiles to research and find inspiration; they still don’t feel secure entering their payment details on phone.”

I refuse to buy that argument. Consider what transactions people have started completing on their phone. More than 50% of millennials already confirm bookings on smartphones or tablets. Not to mention people are now even installing their bank’s apps in their phones to streamline all transactions.

I get it – changing the whole booking engine technology can be a tough task. But let’s talk business. If you haven’t fully optimized the booking engine for mobiles, you’re losing out on a lot of revenue. With the same traffic, your conversions can increase by about 50%.

I have gathered some tips and tricks on how you can optimize the booking engine for mobiles. Read on –

• Not all ‘Mobile devices’ are the same

Mobile devices can include both smartphones and tablets. Make sure that your website is responsive to both. Since they use different methods of managing space and aspect ratios, make sure the design caters to that. There is also a difference in the way they are used. Smartphone users typically want their information fast and quick, and hate lags. Instead of bogging them down with an endless river of room images, make more space for check-in dates and a prominent button that says “Book Now!”

A tablet user is someone who doesn’t prefer the smaller screens of smartphones, but would rather sit comfortably with a device in his hand and then book. A clear overview is important for them too.

• Live ‘App’ily ever after

Not just a well-designed space, a dedicated app lets you do many other great things. You can integrate loyalty programs, keyless entry feature, upselling etc. Any cool factor will make your guests download the app. And once they have it installed, they will use it for future bookings, not some OTA. Most importantly, app is the perfect way to establish a brand.

• Lightning fast and super secure

Mobile booking engines should be as secure, if not more, than desktops and laptops. Once the booking is confirmed, even vouchers and receipt should be re-formatted and optimized for phones. Guests can bookmark these vouchers or save a copy of barcode on their phone, letting them check-in easily.

Also, if you have one of those archaic websites that still uses flash – say goodbye to it. Flash still doesn’t work on a lot of devices. It’s also particularly prone to hackers.

• Butter smooth integration with website

The transition from browsing rooms to checking rates should be as smooth as possible. To get this in order, the mobile website and booking engine should be integrated as a single direct booking platform. It will help improve the user experience a lot. Not just that, it will help you formulate optimized pricing strategies and work more efficiently.

• Don’t play hide and seek with guests

A large number of visitors to your hotel website are quick scanning for important details like prices and amenities. If these are hard to locate, they won’t hang around for much long. Making the booking process as easy to navigate as possible will increase your conversions. Here’s the checklist to getting the basics of conversion spot on – a distraction free design, prominent search engine, and a visually attractive Book Now button.

Lemon Tree Hotels have one of the best mobile booking processes in India

When was the last time you picked up your mobile and tried to complete a booking? Do that now and chances are that you are going to be disappointed.

Still want to stick around with that clunky old booking engine? It’s time you realise that the mobile guest is as important for conversions as research and inspiration. You need to take care of them, and so does your booking engine.

If this blog inspires you to keep your website in the best of health, I recommend you watch the latest episodes of the #AskAviArya show as I talk with Nicholas Bayerle, founder of The Billion Dollar Body. Check out the trailer here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeiBonBqQno

Even as I write this blog, hoteliers are trying to come with new ways to capture more direct bookings. In my experience, newsletters are a tried and tested medium when it comes to online marketing. I’m disappointed to find that not much effort is focussed towards them.

Even after all the marketing budgets to drive guests to the website, more than 97% of them drop out of the purchase channel. Email marketing can help capture and even remarket to those guests – you are missing out on a great opportunity to attract guests. A big reason why I love newsletters is that they can carry a lot of relevant information. And that’s the basic requirement from content in 2017 – engaging, trending, and informational content. Let me take you through tips to create a well drafted newsletter.

Hit the bull’s eye

Targeting relevant guests is one of the most important components of email marketing, and most businesses don’t get it right leading to failed campaigns. You need to target your guests by age, location and past behaviour. For instance if your email is tailored to women aged between 30 and 60 it can talk about spas and yoga facilities available in your hotel. At the same time you can send a separate mail to younger visitors promoting the hotel’s nightclub. If you want to target an audience from distant locations, then attract them with letters promoting the discounts, or offers for local attractions.

Keep a crispy subject line

Are you aware that around 82% of customers’ inboxes are filled with promotional emails? If you don’t want your email to be categorised as spam, then get your act together. Try to generate emails with a catchy subject line to break through the clutter and hold the attention. The emails could be categorised under newsletter, promotional email/lead nurturing, personal email, and transactional email. So depending on the type of email, you have to set the tone right. You have to offer more than what is expected from the guest from clicking through to your site.

Create a one-time compelling offer

Most of the hoteliers I know try to sell rooms by making use of urgency and paucity as people tend to make quicker bookings if they know number of rooms available is limited. But remember to create a one-time offer on your hotel rooms using either time or product limits, and don’t repeat the offer to the same visitor. For instance a hotel room could be available for a limited amount of time and product limit would mean that the offer is limited to the number of available rooms. But all such offers should be implemented after the success of relationship building exercise through emails, newsletters. You can measure the success of an email marketing campaign through open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribe rate, bounce rate and revenue attribution.

Turn lookers readers into bookers

Your email or newsletters should be able to capture the reader’s attention in approximately 8 seconds or less. Like I mentioned earlier, your content should provide some value or information to the reader. For example, if your hotel is situated in Goa, you can write a newsletter on “5 kid-friendly water activities in Calangute”. If the reader looks up to you to get knowledge, chances are you’ll also be the one to get booked. Figure out interesting topics on deals and discounts, events, food and beverage, and more such things which would attract the reader to your hotel. You could also take to upselling, cross-selling through the newsletters to boost sale.

Customize the mail

Once the guest has registered with you, make sure you send a customised welcome message instead of starting a booking conversation. The welcome message may also include information on the room booking incentive for newsletter subscribers such as free breakfast, bottle of wine, room upgrades, or local travel guidebook. Even if the guest is not ready to make a booking decision, you can always stay in touch through the newsletter. Mention different ways through which the guest can connect with you and try to reinforce your brand value. It could be through a web contact form, email address, phone number, Twitter links, and more.  Don’t forget to link back to your ‘Book Now’ page so that if readers want to make a decision she should be prompted to do it at a click away.

Do share this blog with an hotelier or friend who may need it!

Meanwhile you can watch my Ask Avi Arya show here – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0MwgJxvbC77-uBaupprShA

Whether hotel operators or OTAs,  everyone is vying for guests to book with them – but over the years, it seems that OTAs have got a bigger share of the pie. If you are a hoteliers, you’ll agree that direct revenue is crucial to increase return on investment, and owning customer relationships.

But if you really want to make inroads in winning back market share and taking control of guest interactions, you need to wage an offensive and make radical changes.

I’m here to help youwith just that. Implement the following steps, and your chances of success will increase: 

Bookings-driven Design

What’s the biggest tool to get direct bookings? That’s right, your hotel website. It has one goal – to convert lookers into bookers. It’s not an art canvas to post photo galleries, or a Wikipedia page to give out information about your hotel. It’s your conversion engine – invest in the layout so that every bit of content, every photo inspires the visitor to book a stay.

The Hudson, New York, makes it too easy to book a stay.

It needs more than your average run of the mill. When your potential guests visit your website, make sure they enter an environment that motivates them. Then make sure that it is easy for them to book.

Include prominent call-to-action buttons on every page of your website. Use high resolution, large photos.

Design the website for your guests, not for yourself. Then it will become the conversion engine that gives you more direct bookings.

Gate them in!

We know rate parity won’t allow you to publicly sell your inventory for less than what you sell it for on some OTAs. It’s a big let down, because this way OTAs remove the incentive for guests to book directly with you.

But there are smart ways to get around this. Rate parity agreements do not apply to patrons who are a part of your hotel’s database. This includes email subscribers, loyalty program members, social media followers, etc. Why not send private, compelling offers to these individuals? Trust me, this can give your property a big impetus in direct bookings.

Blog posts are also great marketing avenues. Send timely blog posts to your patrons – remind them why it is such a great time to travel, and pitch them the relevant deals and offers.

Loyalty programs

Why do you think guests go to Disneyland year after year?

Because most families prefer going to places where they had a great time in the past. Business travellers especially, return to the same hotel if they have a convenient stay at an affordable price.

Why not incentivise these potential guests with loyalty programs?

The awesome thing is that you can leverage loyalty programs to get repeat bookings. This also results in a marketing database that gets you more engagement. They are likely to respond well to new deals and offers. They may even engage with the content you share on social media!

This brings me to my next point.

Content is King

I agree – content marketing is a big time investment, and the results are not easy to measure. But there’s no dearth of reasons to invest in it.

Compelling content drives new traffic from search engines. It’s an important part of your SEO strategy.

Content is what keeps people sticking around on your social media channels. Compelling content, such as how do guides and photo galleries inspire guests to book with you helps. Your hotel’s social media page should be a reflection of the brand itself, and provide updated information about the hotel.Further, engage audiences and set yourself apart.

,To engage audience, you can highlight special offers, destination specific tips, and upcoming local events.With so much content fighting for attention, yours should provide value to the target audience.

Consider hiring an agency, whose job is to churn out and share new, compelling content. With an increase in direct reservations, it’s worth the investment!

Manage online reviews 

What’s the best place to find new guests to increase your direct bookings? Join conversations already taking place about your hotel! From OTAs like Expedia to online directories like Yelp, there are many platforms where guests are already talking about you.

Make no mistake – even if future guests want to book directly with you, they’ll first check out channels such as TripAdvisor. The average guest visits a whopping 38 websites while planning a trip – and only one of them can be your website! The rest are OTAs, online review platforms and community forums.

So why not just hop in and voice your opinion? In one of my previous blogs I talked about how to effectively manage online reviews. Respond with good energy to positive reviews and low ratings. It’s not the reviews themselves, rather your response that will affect direct bookings.

Here’s a simple advice I offer to hoteliers – just set up Google Alerts to your email whenever someone mentions your property’s name online. This will help you keep updated on the buzz around your hotel. Respond to reviews on time.

A personal message from the manager greatly improves the brand’s perception.

Here’s a reply you may want to use for your own hotel –

Talk about the great things guests can check out on your website. Provide links whenever possible.

Mobile websites – duh!

It’s embarrassing to even bring this up. This should be a no brainer, but quite often I see hotel websites with booking engines which are not optimised for mobiles.

Come on folks, it’s not 2007 anymore. And it’s super easy to optimise your website and booking engine! Every day you wait you lose some of that direct revenue.Look no further than http://www.lemontreehotels.com/ for an example of amazing mobile website design.

Hey, this will all take investment, no doubt. But that’s the reason I see so many hoteliers failing to increase direct bookings! This leaves a huge window for you to put in work and reap the benefits. Most properties feel they are too busy to actively indulge in these “online gimmicks” – but guess who’s going to take its advantage? That’s right, you – the one who understands it’s importance and does the work.

It can be done. Try it.

If you know a hotelier or manager who’s looking towards winning the direct reservations war– share the blog with them!

Do check out my #AskAviArya show on YouTube, where I keep sharing my experience, advice and insights – https://goo.gl/qr7wjx