With attention spans shrinking how do get to be the biggest name in the business? It’s all about branding, writes Phil Butler

Why is it, do you think, that Hilton is the biggest name in hotels? How do they continue to perform like no other hotel brand in the world? Is success simply about branding?

Well, given that most luxury hotel rooms are oranges, rather than apples, it’s safe to say brand and image do account for success. The same holds true for your campaign to increase bookings. Your hotel’s image is reflected in every step you take in digital, and in the real world service your staff provides. The ‘customer experience’, the path that leads from discovery to purchase, and back, it’s where your brand either convinces people to book, or not.

Differentiating your hotel from a plethora of competitors is where your competitive edge comes into being. No matter how clever your ads may be, without a combination of clear benefit and decisively ‘consistent’ message (brand), conversion and retention suffer measurably. From your ad banners to the footer of your website landing page, social media ‘gravatars’ to the little icons on your emails, optimising is about uniformity.

Face it, anything can turn off a potential guest. Your hotel’s image, like your marketing, should be everywhere your potential clients are, and with a repetitive/cohesive value proposition. One aspect of this, grabbing the ever-decreasing attention of potential buyers, which are at an all time low. You have very little time to get your visitors’ attention and keep them on your website. If the customer is on a mobile device, reading an email, you arguably have even less time.

Forget for a second that your hotel’s marketing guru does not think Twitter matters. Don’t worry about the fact your revenue chief is too cheap to buy ANY kind of advertising at all. If you own a hotel half your guests will soon be booking via a smartphone or tablet.

Or not.

Worryingly, EyeforTravel’s latest Mobile in the Hospitality Industry report reveals that although 64% of executives believe mobile is generating direct sales, only 49% will be increasing investment in the channel over the next three months.

But here is a word of warning: you’d better be fully competitive with that hotel across the street and ‘competitive’ means organised, cohesive, and impressive comparatively. David West, VP of Sales and Marketing for Pocono Mountains Visitor Bureau, who will be speaking at TDS North America on September 11-12, elaborates on video marketing and ‘image’ on the mobile end via this EFT podcast. The gist is:

“…authenticity, in speaking to consumers, (on live cameras in marketing) live video it’s real. We get in this habit (marketing) of creating the most perfect situations in our marketing plans to show who we are, when live video has its benefits for doing just that.”

In marketing your hotel, there’s nothing more powerful for creating a fantastic guest experience, than a real experience of what you represent throughout. Talk about building customer loyalty, if you do this you will become the Hilton of your destination.

Next we look at the simple ‘where’ of it all: the No. 3 element of a super successful marketing campaign. If you missed No.1 here is a link