You can create the most personal and influential marketing message but it won’t help your hotel if it never reaches your customer. The best thing about mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets and feature phones is that they are linked to a particular customer. Another good thing about it is that they can provide various, diverse ways to get your promotional messages directly delivered and noticed by the folks who needs and use them.
Now let's talk about ten ways for you to reach your customers on their mobile phones today.
Text Messaging (SMS)
Most mobile phones manufactured today have the capability to send and receive text messages or Short Message Service (SMS) messages. SMS is typically up to 140 characters of plain text. These short messages are a quick read and time-saving because users can easily choose the messages they only want to read. So SMS is perfectly suitable for sending promotional alerts, reminders, mobile coupons, and other advertising messages that clearly and quickly express your message. Adding web links to your hotels’ mobile website wherein they can get downloadable resources such as maps, demonstrations, videos, tutorials etc., more info about your hotel such as your location, and contacts.
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)
Combining text messages and multimedia enhancements (pictures, video and sound) gives you Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS). An MMS message is like an email directly delivered to your phone’s inbox via a phone number instead of an email address. MMS messages are most fitting for delivering greeting cards, hotel brochures and videos, audio messages, and tutorials. Designing attractive text messages with only 160 characters is used to be a challenge for mobile advertisers but with MMS it has become a reality. It provides a greater entertainment compared to SMS advertising and more vivid information about your hotel compared to text-based SMS.
Mobile E-Mail
Email has become a necessity in this day in age. Not only are there millions of email-ready
mobile devices out there, but people do actually use them to check email. Most smart phones nowadays have mail programs which you have to setup, the same way you setup your home computer. An AOL survey discovered that 83% of email users check their email on vacation. Using it correctly will allow you to target and appeal to different groups of customers in a way that you have never been able to before.
Mobile Internet Sites
Currently there are mobile phones with Internet browsers and have the capability to access the Internet so customers can interact with hotel websites from just about anywhere. Mobile users who browse the Internet on their phones usually search for information on location, contacts, hotel reviews and ratings, among other things that help them make fast decisions while they are on the road. Mobile internet sites offer mobility and it is most preferred by people in traveling jobs. Through mobile websites customers can check-in online and avoid the hotel counter line. You can build mobile websites for your hotel, your promotions, and your entire company.
Mobile Applications
In today’s competitive market, the mobile device manufacturers have constructed an open system that would provide rich software-like experiences to smartphones and iPads. They developed mobile applications that are designed to improve communication with clients, customers, partners and suppliers. These applications are like computer programs that are installed in the mobile device and are useful for convenient, timely access to information, alerts and significant data. Mobile apps can include your hotel advertising and branding, building of social media affiliates and help you sell your mobile applications to make additional profit.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
As mobile marketing continues to become more refined and engaging
to consumers, interactive voice response (IVR) services simply allow you to record a message that is played when a customer presses the appropriate number on the phone keypad. Hotels can use IVR systems so that their customers can receive updates instantly and 24/7 and easily without having to speak directly to a person. IVR tailored to your hotel's requirements is a way to cost-effectively handle routine phone requests for information. For example, customers can click or touch the landline phone numbers in your hotel mobile website and they will be automatically directed to the right department.
Mobile Social Media
How many people use mobile social media? Today, customers can use their smartphones to access social media sites and any information posted to them in much the same way as with their home computer. Mobile social media is the easiest, most practical way to access the accommodation’s marketplace. It can be used for simple chat applications to multimedia-rich environments and content generating and sharing communities which carries on after the user logs off. In Millennial Media’s SMART Report in October 2010, 26% of the mobile campaign actions used social media as a post-click campaign action. Your hotel can be a part of the rising number of real-time conversations when you embrace social media in your hotels’ marketing strategy using mobile phones. Hotel employees can be allowed or encouraged to use social media to develop their work-related personal networks, with significant benefits for productivity and business outcomes.
Mobile Advertising
It’s no exaggeration to say that mobile advertising is about to transform the way that hotel marketers reach out to guests for branding or customer acquisition or customer loyalty purposes. Engagement rates are high in mobile advertising as it makes use of the best of online rich media. Additionally, engagement times in mobile rival those of television advertising. Mobile advertising can be posted on your hotels’ mobile website just like in regular websites. You can advertise during downloads, in mobile applications, video, emails, SMS, MMS, voice and IVR calls. Also, adding a mobile advertising campaign that drive mobile users to join and/or visit your business social profiles can help you tap one of the fastest growing of Internet user type: mobile phone users.
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