Marketers, much like almost everyone else, are under pressure to do more. Sign up to more social media platforms, publish more blog posts, create more email campaigns, drive more results.
Often, doing more works. Emailing your guests on a more regular basis, for example, can lead to more click-throughs, website traffic and bookings.
But sometimes, doing more is actually counterproductive; it can stretch your resources thin and make your efforts less effective. Since you’ve only got a limited amount of time in your working day, you need to be ruthless about cutting tactics that aren’t working from your routine so you can focus on the tasks that really generate results.
So, what should you cut? While the answer to that question will be uniquely personal to your property, here are 3 common tactics we think you should say goodbye to in 2015 (and beyond.)
1) Maintaining A Presence on Social Networks That Aren’t Bringing Results
Recent research shows the average online marketer is active on a total of six social media sites – that’s a lot of platforms to maintain.
While your resort may not have as many sites to juggle, stop and ask if you really need the ones you are using. Delve into your metrics and identify which, if any, of your platforms are underperforming, then make a point of slowly weaning yourself off it in the months ahead.
Note: don’t forget to analyse the entire booking funnel before you eradicate a platform from your campaigns – it may be that one network isn’t driving a huge amount of traffic to your resort’s website, but that a high percentage of that traffic is converting into bookings, which means you’ll probably want to keep it as part of your routine.
2) Relying on Poor Quality Images
Visual content has become increasingly important over the last few years, with study after study demonstrating that web pages, email content and social media posts with eye-catching images are far more likely to engage and convert.
With such a hunger for interesting, high quality images, relying on your own DIY snaps, or worse - on generic stock photography - is rarely good enough. This is especially true in hotel marketing where what you are trying to sell is a lifestyle or experience that can be captured so much better in pictures than in words.
This year, take time to reassess the pictures used in your website pages and other online campaigns. Cut poor quality, amateur images and replace them with high definition, professional photography that really does your property justice.
3) Creating Content But Not Promoting It
On a web saturated with great content, you can no longer expect people to find the stuff you create just because it’s original, helpful and interesting.
Succeeding at content marketing isn’t just about creating better content and more of it; it’s about making sure the people that matter actually get to see the content you’re putting out there.
So take some time from your schedule that you would have spent creating new content, and dedicate it to content promotion instead. Take time to build an email list of contacts you can regularly update about newly published blog posts, perfect your social media blog update posts, or investigate forums and other platforms where you might be able to spread the word and get your content seen by more people.
Have you decided on anything you need to cut from your marketing campaigns in 2015? Let us know in the comments below!
RELATED PAGES AND BLOG POSTS:
- 3 Bad Marketing Habits It’s Time To Break
- 5 Online Marketing Resolutions To Kick-Start the New Year
- 4 Crucial Reasons Why Your Resort Needs a Responsive Website
