Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? While many of us make our own personal resolutions, we’ve been doing the same for our business – and we think you should, too.
Last year, we spoke with many owners who were looking to improve their digital marketing. And we, of course, agree that it is vital for hostels to invest their time and money into getting their digital marketing right. But where to start?
To help you figure out what your main priorities should be this year, we have put together a list of New Year’s Resolutions for your hostel.
Ready? Repeat after us: In 2019, we will…
1. GET ORGANISED WITH OUR HOSTEL’S SOCIAL MEDIA
We know it can be challenging to develop and maintain a strong social media presence while juggling the day-to-day running of a hostel. In fact, this is one of the most common issues we hear from the hostel owners and staff we speak to. Of all our services, we get the most enquiries about social media management.
If you’re not looking to outsource right now and you – or your team – are managing your social media pages, then download our free pack to help you get your social media on track in 2019. It’s got daily, weekly and monthly social media checklists to keep you on track as well as our own guide to scheduling your Facebook posts in advance.
2. STRATEGISE TO REACH OUR GOALS
January is a great time to sit down and think about your hostel’s business objectives for the year ahead. A digital marketing strategy is a document where you set out measurable digital marketing goals linked to you overall business objectives and outline the tactics you will use to achieve them. Goals can include things like ‘increase direct bookings by x%’ or ‘increase web traffic by x%’.
It can be tempting to skip this step, but without a strategy you will not be able to track your success and see what is working for your hostel. It’s a vital tool to keep you and your team on track. That’s why we include a digital marketing strategy as part of our service for every client we support – it’s the backbone of the work we do.
3. MAKE THE MOST OF EMAIL
In our own market research, we found that email is one of the most underused forms of communication for hostels. Yet according to Adobe, 58% of millennials say that email is their preferred way to be contacted by a brand.
While most hostels send an email to confirm booking, email is especially effective when used to communicate with guests at every stage of the traveller journey – whether they have stayed with you in the past, have booked to stay with you soon or have shown an interest by signing up to your email newsletter. It’s definitely a platform with huge potential for hostels this year but if you’re still not convinced, check out our post all about it.
4. KEEP IT PERSONAL
‘Personalisation’ has been a buzzword in marketing for a while, but it’s hard to see an industry where this is more important than in travel – especially as younger travellers increasingly expect personalized experiences from brands.
While personalisation can mean something as simple as adding first names to your email newsletter, GREAT personalisation means getting the relevant message in front of the right person in the right place at the best time. In order to do this, you first need to dig into your data – from your front desk data to social media insights and Google Analytics.
5. INVEST IN PAID ADVERTISING – AND TAILOR OUR ADS TO POTENTIAL GUESTS
Boosting a popular Facebook post to everyone and anyone will cost your hostel money while reaching none of your target audience. It’s really important to be using the data and tools you have at your fingerprints to reach the travellers most likely to book a stay with you – ensure your Facebook Pixel is set up correctly, create high quality ads and tailor the interests and behaviours to target potential guests. Here’s 5 questions you should ask yourself before pressing publish on that ad.
6. SHARE AT LEAST ONE USER-GENERATED PHOTO A WEEK ON OUR HOSTEL’S SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS
Posting user-generated content – that is, photos and videos that your guests have taken at your hostel or other travellers have taken in your destination – will help to showcase your hostel experience and build trust in your brand. It allows potential guests to see what people just like them are getting up to when staying with you and will therefore influence their decision whether they will choose to book and stay with you. Plus, it’s been found that 85% of consumers find visual UGC more influential than brand photos or videos. So, what are you waiting for? Get sharing…
7. GET SOME HIGH QUALITY VISUALS
Investing in professional photos and videos is one of the most important actions you can take this year for your hostel. Video has become one of the most powerful ways to showcase the guest experience with 54% travellers watching videos when deciding what accommodation to stay at. If you haven’t done it before now, 2019 is definitely the year for your hostel to use video to reach new guests, boost web traffic and share your hostel’s story and experience.
8. REPLY TO ALL REVIEWS WE RECEIVE ONLINE – EVEN THE NEGATIVE ONES
Receiving negative reviews is never easy and it can be tempting to bury your head in the sand and ignore the review entirely. However, a well-thought out response can go a long way to minimising the damage of a bad review. It allows you to take back control of the situation and demonstrate to potential guests who are reading these reviews that you care about your guests and their feedback. If you’re unsure of how best to respond, check out our tips in this blog post.
9. PAY ATTENTION TO OUR SEO
A research study by Google on the behaviour of travellers showed that a large percentage of people start their travel and booking process through search engines. This means that if your website is not fully optimised and does not rank highly for your business’ keywords, you are already losing a large number of potential guests to competitors.
You can boost your discoverability and chances of climbing search engine ranks in a number of ways including:
Local SEO: Create, complete and maintain your Google Business account, add your physical address to your website’s homepage, include good quality links to local businesses in your website content, optimise your page titles and descriptions to reference your location
Homepage SEO: Write a concise, keyword rich description of exactly who you are and what you offer, publish high quality photos with tags describing what they are, publish special offers, deals and what differentiates you from others.
Technical SEO: Perform a SEO audit of the backend of your website to assess areas such as loading speed, backlinks, mobile friendliness and keyword optimisation (for things such as photo descriptions, meta descriptions).
Blogging and link building: Publish new content on your website and try to link to as many internal and external pages as possible (Google rewards websites that carry these actions out and will boost your search engine ranking).
10. STAY SAVVY WITH OUR MARKETING BUDGET
If you have set aside money in your 2019 budget for marketing, that’s great – but you want to make sure you’re getting the most out of it. There’s a lot of areas you can focus on and it can definitely feel overwhelming at first. Deciding where to focus your attention comes down to a number of things – understanding where you are now with your hostel’s digital marketing, knowing where you want to be and then identifying the specific platforms, techniques or approaches that will help you get there.
Need some guidance? Get in touch for a free audit of your hostel’s current digital marketing along with recommendations of the key areas you should be focusing on.
Want to get more organised with your social media?
Join our mailing list to receive TWO free downloads designed to help you get your social media in check.
With daily, weekly & monthly checklists to help get you on track PLUS our complete guide to scheduling your Facebook posts in advance, you’ll be improving the quality of your posts and spending less time online…
