As consumers continue to turn to the web to find information about travel destinations, hospitality brands must consistently serve them with content that informs, entertains and resonates.
By creating destination-specific content that is personalized for first-time visitors and return visitors across your travel brand’s website, you can drive more direct bookings.
1. It’s Personal
Personalized content is one of the most effective strategies for driving direct bookings. It helps customers book directly, without an OTA mediator, and it allows hotels to make money from each booking. This method also gives hotels the opportunity to upsell customers and boost their profit margins.
In a world where consumers expect brands to understand them and deliver them relevant content, personalization is key. It ensures higher customer satisfaction and retention rates, which in turn result in better bottom lines for businesses.
Content personalization is the ability to tailor content based on demographic, behavioral or contextual data to a specific user, which improves the customer experience and drives conversions. It can be done through email marketing, website personalization or a combination of both.
The main advantage of using personalized content is that it increases conversions by offering the right message at the right time. This means that customers are less likely to receive irrelevant messages and more likely to make a purchase.
Many brands use email service providers like Salesforce Marketing Cloud, MailChimp and HubSpot to send emails with dynamic content that changes based on the subscriber’s needs, preferences and purchase history. This approach is known as individual-specific personalization, which is a great way to reach your target audience without sending spam.
Creating and delivering personalized content on your hotel website, apps, emails, popup forms, landing pages, and more is a great way to boost direct bookings. It doesn’t have to be complex or expensive, and it can help boost your hotel’s profitability and grow your business. If you’re interested in learning more about how to use personalized content for your business, reach out to Yapstone today!
2. It’s Relevant
Personalized content is an essential element of a successful marketing strategy. It can help brands build relationships, convert more leads into MQLs and SQLs (marketing qualified leads and sales qualified leads, respectively), and drive long-term growth.
It’s also key to creating lasting customer loyalty, which can lead to repeat visits and direct bookings. For example, Hard Rock Hotels uses personalized Smart Notes to deliver information about suite upgrades, discounts, and other offers to mobile visitors at key touchpoints in their booking journey.
Personalization is based on visitor data like buying habits, preferences, and previous interactions with the brand. It helps companies deliver relevant and personalized messages across channels, reducing churn rates and increasing efficiency.
For example, e-commerce stores use personalization to show products that match the customer’s purchasing history. This can include recommendations for similar items based on their interests or recommendations for other items purchased by people who have bought the same product.
This helps consumers make informed decisions without being flooded with irrelevant and distracting messages. Moreover, it helps them determine which product is a good fit for them and what they want to do next.
Aside from targeting a specific customer’s needs, marketers should also map their buyer personas and stages in the buying process to create content that is relevant at every stage. This allows companies to create content that will address the audience’s pain points, provide solutions, and move them forward through the buying cycle.
Personalized content is an essential tool that any business should have in their arsenal, from small hotels to global megabrands. It can transform your brand into one that customers love, generating higher engagement, driving conversions, and helping you win loyal customers for life.
3. It’s Convenient
Personalized content helps brands connect with their target audiences in meaningful ways, making it easier to generate repeat business and drive direct bookings. It also increases efficiency by reducing acquisition costs and lifts revenues by 5-15%, according to Adobe research.
Using customer data, companies can create content that is customized for each person’s specific demographics and needs. They can even use a customer’s previous search and purchase history to deliver tailored product recommendations on their websites.
While it may seem overwhelming at first, personalization isn’t difficult if you have the right tools and the right people to handle it. In fact, it’s a must for marketers who want to build customer loyalty and boost revenue over the long run.
Customers expect a personalized experience from their favorite brands, and they expect that experience to be convenient and effortless. Brands who don’t deliver on this expectation lose out on opportunities to earn their loyalty and trust.
A small property that caters to travelers with limited budgets can easily increase its direct bookings by creating unique content that is relevant to their guests’ expectations. They can include offers like discount vouchers or perks that make it easy for guests to book directly.
Whether it’s through email surveys or pop-up quizzes, it’s important to ask customers directly what they want. This feedback can be used to improve the customer experience and encourage them to return to your website or social media accounts.
When done well, content personalization can quickly sort visitors into categories and funnel them to parts of your site that are more active and self-service. For example, Amazon’s home page sorts visitors based on what they are searching for.
4. It’s Convincing
If you’re in the hospitality industry and want to increase direct bookings, personalized content is key. Personalization is a proven way to build a relationship with your customers and create lasting loyalty. It’s also a great way to encourage repeat visits and boost your bottom line.
Personalized content can be delivered on your website or in email marketing campaigns. It can include headlines, CTAs, overlay messages, and more. It also has the power to improve customer retention rates, AOV (average order value), and CLV (customer lifetime value).
The key to successful personalization is to meet your audience where they are in their journey. This means understanding their interests, preferences, and past interactions with your brand so that you can anticipate what they’re looking for and deliver perfectly matched, relevant content to drive conversions.
When personalization is used correctly, it can help you achieve more direct bookings for your small properties. It can also give you more control over the guest experience, which will make your guests feel special and encourage them to return and stay with you again.
Using personalization in the right ways can be a challenging process, but it’s worth the effort. Consumers expect brands to know them and provide personalized service, which helps them feel valued as customers.
A recent survey showed that 78% of consumers are more likely to buy a product or service from a brand that offers personalized content. This is because personalized content makes them feel like they’re getting something specific to them, which increases their confidence in the product or service and improves their likelihood of repurchase.
5. It’s Time-Saving
Personalized content is one of the most effective ways to attract and convert new leads. It’s also the best way to retain existing customers and increase repeat business.
Moreover, it helps brands deliver the right message to their target audience at the most appropriate time and place. This results in higher conversions, campaign performance, and engagement.
Personalization is the process of tailoring a message or experience to a specific person in real-time based on demographics, needs, and purchase history. It’s a powerful tool that has been around since the earliest iterations of the web.
It’s possible to personalize a website, email newsletter or even a blog post based on the user’s current interests and needs. This can include things like recommendations for related reading, embedded links, or suggestions to visit the homepage.
For example, if someone is reading a blog post about social media for restaurants, they might be shown a case study of another restaurant that has successfully used the platform to attract local diners. Similarly, if someone is reading a blog about marketing to influencers, they might be shown tips for using Instagram and other platforms.
In addition, personalized content makes users feel special and valued by the brand. They’re more likely to return to the website or email in the future and to recommend it to others.
It’s also time-saving for companies, as it eliminates the need to manually edit and manage content in multiple places. It reduces costs, improves customer service and boosts conversion rates by delivering relevant information at the right time. For example, a hotel can implement Smart Notes that offer customized messaging on their mobile website or in an email to entice users to book direct.