Now that we’re nearly two weeks into 2015, take a moment to think about the marketing goals you hope to achieve in the year ahead. Have you identified what’s already working for you and the areas you need to adjust to make this year’s campaigns just as successful – if not more so – than last year’s? If you haven’t made any 2015 marketing resolutions yet, it’s time to get started, using our five suggestions below as a starting point.
1) Concentrate on Mobile
With smartphone and tablet use predicted to hit 2 billion in the coming year, significant numbers of your guests are already using their handheld devices to check emails, research holidays, plan trips and make bookings online.
So, just in case you’re still under the impression that you don’t need to worry about optimising your online marketing campaigns for smaller screens, it’s time to get serious about taking steps to establish or improve your mobile presence in 2015.
2) Invest in Responsive Design
Staying on the topic of mobile, this is a great time to remind you about responsive design.
As you might guess, responsive design is all about creating web pages that respond to the platform they are being viewed on, so that they perform optimally both on desktop and mobile devices. Instead of designing two separate websites for mobile and desktop, designers create just one website which adapts to suit the size of the screen it’s being viewed on, creating the best possible user experience across a multitude of devices.
If you haven’t looked into responsive design for your resort’s website yet, be sure to add it to your list of marketing tasks for 2015; it could mean big things for your traffic and booking rates!
3) Revamp Your Content Strategy
Quality content matters, especially when it comes to ranking highly, driving traffic and winning over your guests.
With this in mind, it may be smart to take a moment to evaluate the kind of content that has worked best for you in the previous year. By going over your analytics data from the last couple of months and carrying out some simple A/B testing, you should be able to identify the topics that resonate best with your guests, so you know where to focus your content creation efforts in the year ahead.
4) Revisit your Social Tactics
Facebook and Google+ are the most important names in social media marketing (at least for the moment).
Although exciting new platforms are sure to appear as the year progresses, don’t be too quick to jump on the latest social bandwagon. It’s important to fine tune your strategies on the aforementioned, globally established platforms which have already proven to reward marketers with substantial return on their efforts before you try out the “next big thing.” The start of the year is a great time to check in on your strategy to see how it’s working for you and identify any areas that could be improved.
5) Have Another Look At Your Guest Personas, Too
The resolutions above only work if you understand exactly who you’re marketing to. January is the perfect month to have another look at your guest personas. Do you truly know your target demographic? Conducting thorough audience research via online surveys, guest questionnaires and analytics data will help you get a better grasp on who your guests are, how they behave and what they want. Armed with this information you can go ahead and create even better, more relevant content, email and social strategies in the year ahead.
Have you decided on your 2015 online marketing resolutions? Let us know in the comments below!
RELATED PAGES AND BLOG POSTS:
- 3 Essential SEO Priorities for 2014
- 3 Bad Marketing Habits It’s Time To Break
- 4 Crucial Reasons Why Your Resort Needs a Responsive Website
