Best Hotel Content Marketing Examples

What is hotel content marketing? 

Hotel content marketing aims to attract and retain customers by offering them assets that they find informative, entertaining or otherwise useful. This ‘content’ can take many forms: videos, blogs, newsletters, social media posts, how-to guides and more.

The idea is that a business earns a customer’s attention, trust and ideally loyalty by offering this valuable content for free. Familiarity builds over time, and when the customer is looking for a specific product or service, that brand will be front of mind.

In the hotel industry, content is often about inspiration and aspiration: putting your property or region in an alluring light in order to inspire the audience to visit or to choose you over your local competitors. Ultimately, your content should aim to turn the audience not just into paying guests, but loyal customers and brand ambassadors.

In this guide we’ll take a closer look at hotel content marketing: why you need it, some best examples, and more specifically, how it can benefit your website.

Why does my hotel need a content marketing strategy?

Hotel content marketing is critical because it is one of the most effective ways to attract guests. By informing and entertaining your target customers with content, you establish credibility and put your name up in lights. When the time comes to book, a guest who has seen your content, and who is familiar with your brand, is more likely to book you.

Content is also key to moving up the Google search results page. Hotel website content is one of the main things that the search engine uses to decide how relevant and authoritative a web page is, and therefore how high it should rank.

How to create a hotel content marketing strategy

Content marketing should form a key component of your larger hotel marketing strategy. The following big picture questions should be answered before you begin to create any content:

• Who are you targeting with your content?
• What is this target audience interested in?
• What is unique about your hotel?

The answers to these questions will bring clarity to the creation process, helping you to offer entertaining, informative, original and relevant content to the guests you want to attract.

Types of content marketing

Once you have a good understanding of your ideal guests and your hotel differentiators, it’s time to create some content. The term ‘content’ covers a broad range of digital assets, and the right mix of content will depend on who you’re offering it to.

Some hotel content marketing examples include:

• Blogs: Arguably the most valuable content is hotel website content, as it plays a key role in SEO. Blogs are a fantastic way to show off your hotel, your expertise and your region – you can find some inspo here – while web pages, such as your hotel ‘About Us’ content, can tell a guest a lot about your property and who you are.
• Emails: Email remains one of the most effective ways to engage with customers, delivering an incredible ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. In terms of content, you can send deals and offers, run loyalty programs, share travel tips and tricks or offer prizes and giveaways to those in your customer database.
• Newsletters: Another use for email is to send out a regular newsletter with updates on your hotel and region. This can be an effective way to lure back previous guests, as you can advertise everything from property enhancements to local events and attractions!
• Videos: The rise of TikTok hints at a wider trend toward video content. As of early 2023, video accounted for 65% of all internet traffic, having grown 24% in the previous year. Marketing-savvy hotels understand the power of video in attracting eyeballs and guests, and will commit resources to creating it.
• Magazines: Magazine content remains an effective vehicle for attracting a certain type of guest, particularly the older demographic. Magazines are best capitalised upon with the help of a public relations (PR) agency.
• Social media posts: Depending on the platform, social media content can take many forms: video, imagery, simple text. No matter what the content looks like, the aim is the same – to drum up views, engagement, followers, and ultimately business.
• Press releases: Media organisations are in the content creation game too – they have to fill magazines, papers and broadcasts with something – so alerting them to your opening, a new feature on your property, or offering a comment on a recent event in your region can help promote your hotel.

Best practices on content writing for hotels

How should a hotel approach the challenge of content writing for a hotel website? The following best practices can offer some guidance.

• Speak to your audience: Write content with your audience in mind. What are they interested in? What tone of voice should you use? What will compel them to act? Put yourself in their shoes, and write in a way that resonates.
• Keep SEO in mind: While good content is written for the audience, it’s important to keep search engines in mind too. Use an SEO tool to ensure your content features the keywords, links and metadata that will push it up the Google rankings.
• Punchy up top, detailed below: When writing hotel website content it’s a good rule of thumb to keep things brief and compelling above the fold – the top part of the webpage that displays when you arrive – and go into more detail as the visitor scrolls down.
• Use a professional: Writing compelling content is a part art, part science. It’s one of the most worthy marketing investments that you can make, as compelling content can drive a huge amount of business your way. Hiring a professional also takes the job off your (probably very full) plate!

5 content marketing tips for hotels

To wrap up, here are five quick tips that can elevate your hotel content marketing efforts.

1. Use FAQs as inspiration: The most effective content is that which answers the questions your customers are asking, so use common queries as inspiration.
2. Lean into video: Smart businesses know that now is not the time to be camera-shy – video is high engagement and a great way to show your property and area off.
3. Share other people’s content: Take the weight of content creation off your shoulders by strategically sharing other people’s content, like social posts and guest reviews.
4. Use a CMS: The task of managing your content is made so much easier with the right content management system (CMS). Choose yours wisely.
5. Tone down the sales: Content is about offering value, not spruiking deals. Whether  in your social posts, blogs or newsletter, go easy on the sales pitches.

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Take your hotel content marketing to the next level

Your website forms the centrepiece of your content marketing efforts. It not only hosts a wealth of ultra-valuable hotel content – web copy, alluring imagery, your blog – it’s also what other content, from emails to social media posts, generally links back to. Little Hotelier’s website builder can help you to take your content marketing to the next level:

• Templates that showcase your content: Our selection of website templates, built specifically for small, independent hoteliers, showcase your content in the most stunning way possible.
• Drag it, drop it: Our website builder makes organising your web page content easy. Simply drag and drop each element into place – no coding required!
• Manage content across your channels: Ensuring content beauty and consistency across your OTA channels has never been easier than with Little Hotelier’s channel manager – a single portal that allows you to control every one of your listings.

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