As a hotel marketer, stories are an excellent resource for you as you attempt to be creative in your solutions to the issues of marketing. Be truthful and make your guests dwell at the heart of your work, and you’ll have a recipe for success in no time.
Storytelling is actually an increasingly valuable tool in marketing for all sorts of different products, companies and organizations. A field in which this is especially true is the hospitality sector. Selling your hotel to potential guests is a challenging task in a world in which there are so many different hotel options all around the world. What’s more, with the introduction of companies like Airbnb, the whole idea of the importance or need for hotels in the first place is under threat. So creative marketing, such as using stories is really important in maintaining the industry as a whole as well as your own hotel.
Given this, here are some tips on how you use storytelling to increase your hotel’s success.
Be Genuine
The biggest mistake any marketing plan can make is letting your target audience know that they are being marketed to. Marketing works best when your target audience don’t know how much you are influencing the marketing, or, even better, when they trust and enjoy the experience. Being genuine and not fabricating stories about your hotel and its world is a really important part of this. Sometimes it can be the case that the true story you are trying to tell may not sound believable. That situation is unfortunate, but it will require you to choose a different story since what appears most truthful is what you want to promote.
Change Up Your Media
One big advantage to storytelling as a marketing tool is that the way you disseminate your story can be very easily adapted. Stories can come in so many different forms and you should be using everything available to you. For example, you could start a podcast, or make a documentary or write an article. Whatever the nature of the story of your hotel is, you need to make sure you pick the right vehicle for that story to have the greatest impact on the audience that you are distributing it too. This can take some experimentation, so get thinking.
Write The Story Well
It is quite a simple point to make, but the story itself, if it is written, or if it is scripted, has to be written well. Storytelling can actually be a really difficult skill, requiring a lot of hard work and experience. It can be an area in which you might need some support, so use online tools which can help you out.
Bring Your Customers Into The Story
Storytelling as a marketing tool for your hotel requires the target audience to connect with the content of the story. You need to look for ways in which you can craft a relatable and engaging story from the perspective of your audience. One of the most effective ways to do that is by sourcing your stories in your customer base. Stories which center around previous guests’ experiences or their interaction with certain specific elements to the service you offer are perfect choices for a good story as they are a relatable entry point for your audience to engage with.
Study Your Guests, Past And Present
The stories you choose to tell are going to be entirely focused on ideas and themes that your guests are attracted to. This could mean that you need to do extensive research into what it is that your guests like. Why are they travelling? For business or pleasure? Which destination? What time of year? What food do they like? All of this can help you shape a narrative.
Conclusion
As a hotel marketer, stories are an excellent resource for you as you attempt to be creative in your solutions to the issues of marketing. Be truthful and make your guests dwell at the heart of your work, and you’ll have a recipe for success in no time. Just, make sure it’s well written!
Chloe Bennet is a travel writer at Assignment Help and OX Essays websites. She loves reviewing resorts and helps them with content marketing. Chloe is a tutor at State Of Writing service.
