10 Most Profitable Hotel Marketing Tasks to Outsource
8 Comments
Some hotel marketing functions are best kept in-house. For others, it’s more profitable to outsource them to an outside partner. Here are ten of the most profitable hotel internet marketing tasks to outsource and why.
1. Web Design
Why: Designing an effective hotel website requires time to create pages that are attractive, informative and visitor friendly. This requires a knowledge of the hotel industry in addition to technical knowledge and an understanding of usability guidelines.
2. Website Maintenance
Why: Building and managing a website are two different tasks. Website design gets a lot of attention, but upkeep is equally important. It’s important to constantly update your sites with the latest information. Unless you have the technical expertise and time to do this in-house, it’s common to outsource this function.
3. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Why: Sure, anyone can throw together a PPC campaign in a few hours, but it requires a lot of research and testing over the long term to do this well. A good agency will take time to understand your business needs, and build a campaign around them.
4. SEO Optimization
Why: Effective SEO can include website re-design, optimization and a strategic linking strategy – so it can be nice to have someone else manage this whole process for you.
5. Content Creation or Copywriting
Why: Many managers understand the benefits of content marketing, but struggle with writing it. Fortunately, there are many talented writers that would be happy do this for you. These people can be hired to help you write articles, website content, blog posts, email newsletters, and more.
6. Twitter
Why: Twitter can take a lot of time to use effectively. Some of my colleagues have achieved excellent results – both in positive buzz and in generating revenue – but they invest a lot of time. If you don’t have the time to participate, you may want to hire someone else to do it for you.
7. Online Reputation Management
Why: Again, this is a task that just takes a lot of time to do thoroughly. Hiring someone to monitor the web and reply as needed can be a worthwhile investment.
8. Video Production
Why: Hiring people with expertise in producing quality videos will help your company gain higher visibility in YouTube, Google Video Search, Blip.tv, and so on. A good video marketing team will understand your branding objectives, and produce video to accomplish them.
9. Mobile Phone Promotions
Why: This is one of the hottest new distribution channels, and hiring specialists in this area can help you gain a first-mover advantage. Hire someone else to begin your mobile promotions strategy, then learn and experiment as you go.
10. Website Optimization
Why: Website optimization is different from search optimization – it’s the process of adjusting your website so operates at peak sales performance. Hiring someone for this can have a big impact on your overall internet marketing success. A good website optimization specialist will have a good understanding of your hotel, how people buy online, and website conversion improvement.
The bottom line? Outsourcing individual components of your internet marketing campaign can reduce the burden of employing staff to perform those tasks in-house. It can allow you to focus core business initiatives, spend more time on strategic planning, and less time on implementation.
—
Need a reliable outsourcing partner? Josiah’s agency, Gradigio Hotel Marketing, provides search marketing and web visibility services. Contact Josiah today to learn more…
You should enter your email below to receive new tips like this each Monday morning:
You’ve hit the nail on the heard Josiah, the problem with small tourism operators, is that in their quest to save costs, they end up ignoring very important aspects of their marketing. It should be known that we’re not all experts in everything, therefore outsourcing all the marketing to qualified individuals will benefit your business a great deal in the long term. Short cuts, don’t always save you cuts.
You’re right, Muzi. The most effective marketing professionals I know understand what they’re good at, and focus their energy there. For everything else, they bring in other people to help them.
Excellent post. I agree with all of suggestions for outsourcing social media, content development, and search optimization except Twitter.
I realize Twitter monitoring and maintenance is very time consuming, however Twitter seems so personal that outsourcing that task seems to run counter to the intent of using and engaging social media communities.
Alternatively, if you hire someone who is engaged on Twitter and understands the anthropological dynamics involved in communicating with 140 characters then it may in fact be a great option. Certainly, hiring someone to show you the ropes about Twitter and explain the power of # , @, and direct messaging as well as how to integrate Twitter in your workflow is worth the investment in training and development.
i gain a lot of ideas to add on my knowledge….excellent.. it will help a lot of people
Nice article, Josiah – you hit the nail on the head!
Search marketing trends and best practices are always evolving, it’s nearly impossible for a hotelier to give their internet presence the attention that it deserves while running a profitable business. Professional search marketing and website design firms really do have the best tools and resources to oversee that your website is performing at its peak performance.
Blizzard Internet’s Director of Search Strategies wrote about the topic of outsourcing as well in Search Engine Watch in September- http://kl.am/4p70
There is no doubt that Twitter is a commitment, and it can be kind of fun. We often take the approach of Tweeting on behalf of our clients and teaching them the best ideas and thoughts to share so they can eventually take over to engage with their guests.
Right on, Trent – thanks for stopping by!
Josiah, I agree with most of what you have up here, but I don’t think that outsourcing Twitter is a good suggestion for a few reasons. First, I just think that the social web is all about authenticity and transparency. Outsourcing your “voice” feels counter to that sentiment.
Secondly, I think that “listening” is a key element of the social web in general, including Twitter. Putting a filter on what gets passed along…and likely losing the context of those conversations, really puts a hurting on the listening aspect. The marketing team who owns the properties’ experience really should be the ones who are doing this. On a related note, Twitter is also an excellent platform for customer service. It is extremely likely that people who may not have been satisfied will use this channel (as well as Facebook) to tell people what they weren’t happy about. Watching the Twitter feed will allow a smart executive to rapidly respond (not necessarily directly over Twitter) to a guests’ comments and perhaps turn around the perception of the property.
Thirdly, I think that using Twitter (or Facebook) for communicating promotions is also a responsibility of the marketing team and should not be outsourced unless there is no such team.
Just my 2 cents and look forward to following your blog.
Interesting points, Glenn.