Fuel Hotel Marketing Podcast: Episode 81 – Top 10 Ways To Drive Direct Bookings In 2018

How should hotels be spending their marketing dollars? We Break down our top 10 lists of hotel marketing investments in this week’s Fuel Hotel Marketing Podcast.
Digital marketing has made marketing so much more effective, but at the same time, it’s made it more complex. There are no right or wrong answers, but we try our best to use our knowledge and experience and debate the pros and cons of everything from brand PPC to email marketing for hotels.
CLICK THE PLAY BUTTON BELOW TO START LISTENING.


If you like what you hear, please leave a comment below, share it with your friends, and also leave a review.
========================
SHOW NOTES:
Melissa’s Top 10

1. Mobile first booking engine
2. mobile first website
3. Analytics tracking
4. Email
5. Brand PPC
6. Technical SEO: speed, meta tags, schema, mobile friendly
7. GHA
8. tripadvisor
9. Photography
10. Advocacy platform like flip.to

Pete’s Top 10

1. Rate Parity
2. Mobile First Mentality
3. Excellent Booking Engine
4. Analytics
5. PPC
6. Meta Search Trip Advisor (CPC, Instant Book, Sponsored Positions”HA!”), GHA
7. Loyalty/Rewards Program
8. Paid Social
9. Email
10. Listen to The Fuel Hotel Marketing Podcast

Phil’s Top 10 things Hotels Should Be Spending Money On:

1. Property Improvements
2. Analytics
3. Brand PPC
4. Google Hotel Ads/OTAs
5. Training Staff
6. SEO
7. TripAdvisor CPC
8. Photography
9. Facebook
10. Non-Brand PPC

(in my tinkering I removed email and forgot to add it back)
Stuart’s op 10 Things to Spend Your Marketing Budget On

1. Hiring and Training the right people
2. Email Marketing
3. Super fast, mobile-friendly, ADA compliant website with a kick-ass CMS that handles all of the technical SEO stuff and seamlessly integrates with a mobile-first booking engine that utilizes psychology to reduce friction and nudge people through the booking funnel.
4. Content (Especially answering ALL the questions and great photography)
5. Guest incentive and social media advocacy programs
6. Performance Advertising (Brand PPC, lead ads)
7. Data and Analytics
8. Guest experience (Property Amenities, Events, etc)
9. OTAs, Meta sites and local portals
10. Influencer marketing

Combined, the Fueligans came up with 18 unique items between each of their top 10 lists. Here they are in the order they came up within the show:

• Fuel podcast
• Qualified Non-brand ppc
• Advocacy platform
• Influencer marketing
• Photography
• Email marketing
• Facebook advertising
• OTAs, meta search, local profile etc.
• Guest experience – on property
• Data/analytics
• Loyalty/rewards
• Technical SEO
• Performance advertising – direct response
• Brand PPC
• Training staff
• Content
• Mobile
• Rate parity

Don’t spend your money on the following until the above are maximized:

1. Display Advertising
2. Like Ads/Boosted posts
3. Third-party email blasts
4. Direct Mail
5. Blockchain/AI/VR

Hotelier Wishes

None this week
========================
In The Newsies
Room With a Brew:
https://www.facebook.com/realratedred/videos/1750705941634328/
https://www.brewdog.com/lowdown/press-hub/doghouse-ellon
Analytics Alert:
Fuel client sees third consecutive month of more mobile bookings than desktop
========================
Follow Us on Twitter:
@_travelboom
@stuartbutler
@makavanagh
@pdimaio
@pforiska

---

Submit your questions and topic ideas on Twitter to @_travelboom.[/vc_column_text]