Looking to skyrocket your hotel to the top in 2011? Here are some great marketing ideas to help to do just that.

Planning & Strategy

· The #1 purpose of marketing is retaining your customers. Focus on that before pursuing new markets

· Personalization is a growing trend – use it wherever you can

· Talent is everything. Spend all you can (and then some) recruiting, retaining, rewarding the best people

· Consistency is everything

Social Media

· Appoint a social media ambassador to “own” your efforts in this area

· Don’t try to buy social media fans. Avoid the “campaign” mindset, and understand that forming the relations for a great online community will take years

· Social media is the richest focus group that ever existed

· Start observing the best hotels on Facebook, like Joie de Vivre

Website

· Be compatible with Google’s Instant Previews

· Drive traffic by reaching out to past guests

· Make sure you do 3 things in 3 seconds: 1) load the page quickly 2) visually WOW them 3) get them involved

· Maintain consistency (in everything) across all booking channels

Mobile

· Create a mobile-friendly website to avoid platform issues

· A big opportunity for mobile is rewarding loyalty

· Use QR code to bridge the online/offline gap

· Four important things to do with the mobile for customers: learn, recognize, reward, and personalize

Reputation Management

· Begin trying online reputation to your staff bonuses

· Increase customer confidence by monitoring, collection, and re-publishing positive reviews

· Write better post-stay “thank you” emails to encourage online reviews

· An unhappy customer used to tell 3 people, now they tell 3 million. This highlights the importance of quickly catching and resolving issues

To read more on hotel marketing strategies, check out Josiah Mackenzie’s 111 Hotel Marketing Ideas for 2011.