Thoughts on Mobile Marketing for Hotels

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What do your customers want from you?  Specifically, what do they want from you when they’re mobile?

That’s the question you need to answer when building a mobile marketing campaign.

If they’re interacting with you on their phones, they need something – now. Think what this could be and how you can solve it from their perspective.

It’s probably basic information like:

• Your phone number
• Your email
• Your address
• Directions from where they are (perhaps from Google maps)
• Important hours (check in, check out)
• Special promotions

They don’t need to access your whole website, just the basics.  Consider making a separate, very basic website with just this information.

Or, start off by making your existing site mobile-friendly.  (This is easy with blogs.)  Mofuse.com offers a quick & easy converter.

An accessible website is one aspect of your mobile marketing campaign, but what about personalized communication?

Begin with people you already have relationships with: your best guests.  Ask what they want most from you (special rate alerts, etc). Only send what they ask for, and only as often as they ask.  You must be extremely sensitive to privacy issues, since nothing will hurt your relationship than sending unwanted messages.

However, if guests have specifically requested mobile communication from you, SMS is a good place to start.  Most people are familiar with text messaging, and nearly every phone supports it.  Some companies that specialize in SMS communications include MobileStorm and i2SMS.

The future of mobile marketing for hotels will undoubtedly involve proximity awareness, giving you the ability to serve relevant information based on the user’s location.   But for now, it’s important to make sure your basic hotel information is fully accessable to mobile users.