Fuel Hotel Marketing Podcast: Episode 105 – Top List Of Top 10 Lists For Hotels in 2019

Each year, we get inundated by articles containing the top 10 list of something. We thought we’d save you some time by combining 5 of our favorite top 10 lists for hotel marketing and summarize them in this handy-dandy episode.
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SHOW NOTES

1. Top 10 Social Media Marketing Tips For Hotels – Xotels

https://www.xotels.com/en/marketing/top-10-social-media-marketing-tips-for-hotels
Summarized 10:

1. Have a Blog – Rinse and reuse content from blog across social platforms.
2. Brand Awareness/Reputation – Inviting guest to post reviews, responding to reviews, engaging with comments, etc.
3. Guest Photos – Invite guests to share their personal experience through posting photos to social
4. Local Links – Tagging local POIs on your page, not only gives guest better experience & local insight, builds partnership with local biz (refer back to this podcast: https://www.travelboommarketing.com/blog/fuel-hotel-marketing-podcast-episode-97-8-great-ways-gain-bookings-destination-information/)
5. Giveaway/Contests – Great for list building, incentives to book, etc.
6. Social Platform Check-ins – Incentivize checking in on FB & other social platforms (ex: welcome cocktail)
7. Videos – sharing local POI/destination videos, remember to tag “producer”
8. Recycle Content – (take tips #1, 2, & 3 and combine them by sharing, retweeting, etc. across all platforms)
9. Designated SM Team Member – They suggest young, tech savvy, who is personable & creative
10. Originality – article says to be funny, we say be original based on your brand. Entertaining posts always win.

2. 10-Point Checklist for a Perfect Google Analytics Setup – Supermetrics

https://supermetrics.com/blog/10-things-to-check-in-google-analytics-account
Summarized 10:

1. Account Structure & Raw Data View – Set up one account with multiple reporting views, ALWAYS keep one view without filters or mods–raw data view.
2. Bot Filtering – turn bot filtering setting on, prevents showing irrelevant/unreal traffic
3. Goals – Set up action and conversion goals to record
4. Goal Value – Assign your goals with goal value to analyze performance across different channels
5. Personally Identifiable Info – No PII in Google Analytics, it’s grounds for terminating your account (they have best practices link).
6. Bounce Rate – Overall bound rate is around 20-30%
7. (Not Set) Values – Do you have (not set) checked as a value? High percentage could mean tracking issues. (Lists dimensions you should check)
8. Content Reports – Making sure “unique” URLs are accurate and not listing URLs with unique identifiers
9. Annotations – Track everything, the more you track the more information for your data analysis. GA makes it easy with annotations feature.
10. Traffic Sources (Source/Medium) – properly tracking campaigns with clean sources and mediums that you can digest

Link to campaign tracking blog post and URL builder: https://www.travelboommarketing.com/blog/common-pitfalls-google-analytics-campaign-tracking/

3. 10 Things You Need For A Successful Hotel PPC Strategy – Fuel Travel

https://www.travelboommarketing.com/blog/fuel-hotel-marketing-podcast-episode-86-10-things-need-successful-hotel-ppc-strategy/

1. Monitor Search Terms – don’t waste money on KWs that are not relevant to your hotel or don’t convert
2. Add Negative Keywords – Look for KWs that could trigger your ads unintentionally and add to your negative keywords list
3. Use & Test Your Extensions – Call outs, structured snippets, sitelinks, call extensions, etc.
4. Test Your Adcopy – See what’s working, what isn’t working, try related ads to search term, try using Official-Site or Lowest-Rate
5. Test Landing Pages – Test sending visitors to specific pages based on ad to see if it increases conversions
6. Monitor Performance by Device – Make bid adjustments as needed based on data
7. Monitor Your Keyword Bids – Keep competitive bids for your top keywords
8. Use Remarketing Lists – remarket email lists, create look-a-like audiences, retarget website visitors
9. Understand Geographic Targeting – see where traffic is coming from, test in-market audiences
10. Look At Your Opportunities – Google Ads & Bing both offer opportunities showing insights, examine them and see what works best

4. Top 10 Techniques to Improve Your Marketing Communications – Hotel Marketing Association

https://hotelmarketingassociation.com/blog/marketing-advice/improve-marketing-communications/
(This is actually the Top 5, he has a previous article “planning your next communications campaign that reviews 5 Tips to bear in mind)
Summarized 5:

1. The headline/visual combo – Headline and image should complement the each other and the message being conveyed
2. Headlines that get response – Use powerful action words
3. The importance of a powerful opening – start with your most powerful/persuasive/intriguing statement and get to the point
4. An effective ‘call to action’ – Summarize your proposition/incentive, give them compelling reason to act now.
5. Straplines – do you need one? – Unless you don’t have a really great one that is on brand, you can scrap it.

5. Top 10 Ways to Drive Direct Bookings – Fuel Travel

https://www.travelboommarketing.com/blog/fuel-hotel-marketing-podcast-episode-81-top-10-ways-drive-direct-bookings-2018/
Summarized 18:

1. Fuel Podcast – you’re already nailing this one because you’re listening 🙂
2. Qualified Non-brand PPC
3. Advocacy Platform
4. Influencer marketing
5. Photography
6. Email Marketing
7. Facebook Advertising
8. OTAs, hotel metasearch, local profile, etc.
9. Guest experience on property
10. Data/Analytics
11. Loyalty/rewards
12. Technical SEO
13. Performance advertising – direct response
14. Brand PPC
15. Training staff
16. Content
17. Mobile
18. Rate parity

Listener Questions & Feedback
Ariel Rodriguez arodriguez@wpsre.com
Hey Guys,Big fan of the podcast. I was wondering what your thoughts were on attribution models? I know that the last click model is the most popular, but it likely doesn’t give enough credit to ads aimed at folks higher in the funnel. It’s an active discussion we’re having in our team after an audit from a Google salesperson suggested that we change our model to time decay.Thanks,
RELATED ARTICLE:
https://admin.travelboommarketing.com/blog/fuel-hotel-marketing-podcast-episode-53-everything-hotel-needs-know-attribution-modelling/
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In The Newsaroos:     

SEJ Speaks On Importance of Local SEO for Hotels
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/local-seo-for-hotels/292353/?ver=292353X3

• Stuff we have mentioned before but important to reiterate
• KW Research to find what your guests are looking for
• Create Better Local Content To Establish Relevance in Your Area
• Optimized Title tags and meta descriptions
• Optimize GMB
• Page Load Speed

Does CTR Impact Rankings or Not?
https://searchengineland.com/google-doc-rekindles-myth-that-click-through-rate-affects-rankings-312802

• Google continues to say that it doesn’t use CTR as a ranking factor
• Britney Muller from Moz found a Google document that states “when you click a link in Google Search, Google considers your click when ranking that search result in future queries.”
• We’ve seen this happen in real time at conferences when Rand had the entire crowd search and click a specific site. (Though these tests were only temporary. Likely a way for the algo to determine trending topics)
• While it may not be a direct (long-term) ranking factor Google does use it to evaluate the quality of their results.
• Welcome to the wonderful and confusing world of SEO

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Submit your questions and topic ideas on Twitter to @_travelboom.