The success of marketing efforts is usually tracked with simple metrics like emails opened, click-throughs, Facebook Likes and site visits. Dynamic and effective marketing, however, goes way beyond that. To really measure and direct your hotel’s marketing efforts, you’ll want to dig deeper for unique insights into customer behaviour. Here are some unique metrics to keep in mind.
What Content Do Guests Look at Most?
When users visit your site, which pages do they spend the most time on? Tracking this activity can help you identify what they find interesting and what keeps them on-site until they book. Visitors might spend time on pages that are informative, or else be drawn to timely news and updates. They might linger longer when there are vibrant photos, or else be interested in sales and promotions. When you know what is keeping potential guests engaged, you’ll be able to develop more effective web content that directs guests further down the funnel.
How People Find You
Using the “Acquisition” section of Google Analytics, you can track how users got to your site. Tracking how guests are reaching your website can help you to figure out where to improve your marketing efforts. There are four main channels to focus on: “Direct” tells you how many people typed your web address directly into their browsers; “Referrals” tracks those who used external links from other sites; “Organic” identifies visitors who found you in search results; and “Social” tracks visitors who found you through social media. Using this data, you’ll be able to evaluate which channels deserve the most focus and where you should improve your efforts.
Quality of First Impressions
Most visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a website, making it necessary to quickly ace guests’ first impressions. If you did the hard work of getting a potential customer to your site, don’t lose them with long load times, tacky layouts or irrelevant pop-up ads. Communicating information efficiently on a user-friendly website will keep your future customers on page. If your bounce rate is high, you’ll need to fix your homepage accordingly.
Brand Ambassador Love
The effect of loyal guests on your bottom line is immense, so you’ll need to know how to market to brand ambassadors most effectively. According to 78% of B2C businesses, referrals are the preferred approach to lead generation; as such, you should be tracking how many of your repeat guests are referring you to other customers. Does your loyalty program have rewards in place for referrals, and if so, are your customers taking advantage? You should track how many customers are participating in your loyalty program and how successful brand ambassadors are when referring your properties to their friends.
While hoteliers should track KPIs to measure the success of their properties, they should also measure the effectiveness of their marketing tactics. Tracking simple metrics can help you to rise to the top in a competitive market. By analyzing your site, digital content, social media and online campaigns with these metrics, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are driving your occupancy.
Need help calculating the ROI on your marketing efforts? RoomKey PMS has released an ROI calculator that can help you track your hotel’s profitability.
Photo: Shutterstock / SFIO CRACHO
