The power social media and blogs have to raise brand awareness is no longer disputed, but what about their power to inspire action? What is the value of all those impressions if your guests aren’t following through and making a booking?
Working a compelling call-to-action into your campaigns will drive readers to engage with your further, and that can only mean great things for your booking rates. The key is to motivate your audience to take that extra step – without coming across as pushy and purely self-interested.
Discounts and Promotions
Discounts are an extremely effective tactic for boosting bookings, but they can also undermine the quality of your resort’s services if executed poorly. When running a special offer, be sure to include a single CTA to channel your guests back to your website via a “book now” link or button. It should be immediately clear where you want your audience to go and there should be no obstacles or distractions to stop them from going there.
It’s also important to consider the timescale of your promotion. Your guests should have enough time to notice, consider and take advantage of the discount, but the deadline should still inspire a sense of “book soon or miss out” urgency.
Contests and Giveaways
Contests on social media are another fantastic tool for boosting visibility and increasing engagement, but they also have a tendency to slow down bookings as your audience wait around to see if they’ve won. To keep as many people as possible moving into the conversion tunnel, try offering additional chances to win by leaving a comment on your resort’s blog, following you on Pinterest, tweeting about the contest, signing up to your mailing list or simply visiting your website.
Giveaways and contests are easy to set up and manage. Just follow these simple guidelines to make sure yours runs smoothly:
- Don’t ask your guests to supply too much information about themselves in order to participate.
- Set out the rules clearly and concisely.
- Try not to use social logins like Facebook Connect, since people don’t always trust these authorization requests.
Turn Guests Into Online Marketers
Once a guest follows through on a call-to-action and makes a booking, your job’s done right? Not quite. With a little effort, you can work on turning this satisfied guest into an online advocate for your property by letting them do some marketing legwork for you. It all starts with creating great content that naturally generates shares – interesting, relevant blogs, eye-catching, pinnable images, engaging videos. Don’t forget to make it easy for your audience by telling them how you want them to share: you might even hand out cards at check-out listing all your property’s most popular social profiles.
Your resort’s social media accounts provide the perfect platform for connecting with your guests and inspiring them to take the next step and make a booking.
Have you tried running action-orientated campaigns on your property’s social media accounts? Let us know in the comments below!
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