Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the global hospitality industry has been going through a major disruption. Thanks to the rise of “The Sharing Economy,” both long-established hotel and accommodations institutions as well as boutique upstarts have been upended and challenged by Airbnb and similar apps. Now, every single homeowner or, in certain cases, even tenants is a potential challenger.

The same challenge applies to restaurants thanks to the fast spread and use of apps like Uber Eats, Door Dash, and others.



What can your hospitality business do in the face of this technological sea change and shifting consumer habits? Well, you need to get get your (digital) house in order and adopt 10 crucial digital marketing strategies which can enable your business to not only survive but thrive.

Writing a blog post is easy once you get the hang of it. Posts don’t need to be long or complicated. Just write about what you know, and do your best to write well.

Digital Marketing Strategy #1 

Build an easy to update online presence

Regardless of whether you have an existing website or not, make sure you build an online presence that is very easy to update. 

Remember: most of your existing and potential customers will try to look you up online. Make sure they end up somewhere that is not only presentable but also can easily be modified to fit changing consumer preferences and menu items and/or accommodation listings.

Solution: Build your website on the most robust and versatile content management platform currently available-Wordpress. Not does Wordpress make changing your restaurant’s online presence quick and easy, there is a huge standing army of Wordpress theme specialists you can easily hire at affordable rates from places like Fiverr.

Digital Marketing Strategy #2

Put up a brand-centered blog 

Not only will a blog help your existing and potential customer base learn the latest developments about your business, your content can also pull in highly targeted traffic. More on this point below.

Your blog entries help your brand stand out from your competition. You get to tell the world, through actual customer stories or case studies, what makes your establishment so special-on a person to person basis.

Make sure your blog’s theme fits your business’ existing colour palette so there’s no ‘disconnect’ between customer’s experience with your premises/services and your online presence.

Digital Marketing Strategy #3

Put up a brand-centered blog 

Not only will a blog help your existing and potential customer base learn the latest developments about your business, your content can also pull in highly targeted traffic. More on this point below.

Your blog entries help your brand stand out from your competition. You get to tell the world, through actual customer stories or case studies, what makes your establishment so special-on a person to person basis.

Make sure your blog’s theme fits your business’ existing colour palette so there’s no ‘disconnect’ between customer’s experience with your premises/services and your online presence.

Digital Marketing Strategy #4

Use your official website to turn your existing customers into a promotions army

No matter its size, if you already have a customer base, you can use your website to ‘deputise’ your customers into promoters.

How?

In all your printed and published promotional materials tell your customers they can get discounts or premiums if they visit your site to get a promo code.

Once they are on your site to get the code, encourage them to share the promo message on their social media accounts. Make it easy for them by installing ‘one click’ links so they can share your promo on their Facebook wall, Twitter feed, Pinterest and other platforms.

Digital Marketing Strategy #5

Always collect opt-in emails 

The moment you put up your website, you should start asking visitors to join your newsletter. 

Since most people who find your site online will visit only once, you have to have a powerful and effective way to keep in touch.

This is where your email sign up page comes in. To get people excited, you might have to offer discount codes or, if you offer accommodations, content like travel guides or ‘local restaurant secret guides.’

Send updates to remind your audience base of your offerings as well as let them know about the special events and promotions you’re running.

Digital Marketing Strategy #6

Set up your brand-consistent presence on all major social media platforms

Set up a presence for your business on all the major social media platforms: Facebook (page), Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Youtube.

Make sure your accounts’ designs fit your website’s existing colour palette. Doing so will prevent a ‘clash’ between your ‘official website’ and your social media accounts.

Digital Marketing Strategy #7

Post social platform-specific content and cross promote your accounts

Don’t just repost your blog entries to your social media accounts. 

Create platform-specific original messages so your followers on each platform will be ‘rewarded’ for finding and following you. For example: on pinterest, create specialty graphics (paired with text) that can’t be found elsewhere. 

Make sure to make full use of each platform’s specific discovery features like hashtags so your brand can get new fans from each platform.

Digital Marketing Strategy #8

Make video a core part of your messaging 

If pictures are worth a thousand words, can you imagine the messaging firepower of video? Use video’s immediacy to your advantage.

Create tour videos for your hospitality business and post it to your website. Make edited or commentary versions of that video and post on Youtube and Vimeo.

You can even try editing the video further and adding effects and posting it on Tiktok

Digital Marketing Strategy #9 

Repurpose your content to save costs while expanding your media reach

When you post to your blog, try to convert it into different formats. 

Post the different forms to social media sites that specialize in that format.

For example, you can turn your blog post into an infographic you can post on Pinterest. You can also convert your blog post into a slide show which you can promote via Slideshare. 

You might even want to strip your post into a series of short questions. You can use these to create several tweets on Twitter.

By constantly repurposing content, your site can pull traffic from many different social media sites and also beef up your brand on those platforms.

Digital Marketing Strategy #10 

Use hard data to optimise, optimise, optimise

Study your website’s traffic log. Figure out where the bulk of your traffic is coming from and be more active there.

Also, discover which blog posts pull the most traffic from Google. Create more of that type of content.

As far as your non-productive social accounts go, mix things up by producing different platform-specific content and see if these improve your traffic flow.

Ultimately, your optimisation strategy should boil down to: scale up what you’re doing right and try to improve on what doesn’t work until it’s time to cut them loose.

Quick shortcut

If the ten strategies above seem like more than a handful for you, make things easier on yourself by hiring a virtual assistant. The right VA can help you create, distribute, and monitor brand building content as your website turns traffic into actual bookings or sales.

The Final Word on Local Hospitality Industry Digital Marketing Optimisation

The COVID-19 Pandemic has struck a devastating blow to the hospitality industry. Turn this turbulent time into a competitive advantage by optimising your online presence. Use the targeted local digital marketing strategies above to retain your customers’ loyalty and build a solid brand that’s capable of attracting new audiences.