Hospitality is a way of greeting and entertaining guests with generosity, while mobile marketing makes easy for you to connect with your guests. It shows that the hospitality industry and mobile marketing is a perfect match. Mobile marketing is a customer-oriented way to promote your restaurant, cruise liner, hotel, travel agency or whatever hospitality niche you may be in.
In the digital world, rising hotels and travel research on a smartphone are not surprising. Every year this data is increasing with the increase in mobile users. It gives an idea of the immense potential of targeted mobile marketing for the hospitality and travel industry.
How can you as hospitality or a travel business leverage this massive mobile marketing potential?
1. Build a Mobile-Optimized Website with great User-Experience
For every successful business customer satisfaction is the first priority. Therefore, every industry including hospitality industry should go for a mobile-optimized website which fits multiple screens. If it is impossible for the audience to view the website content properly, without zooming in and out or rotating, it will leave them frustrated. In the end, they will leave your website and look for alternatives and search for your competitors. Google says mobile-responsive websites rank better in search results and increase conversion rates. This shows how Google is moving more and more towards a mobile-first approach.
Campaigns in mobile marketing have different CTAs as compare to desktop-based campaigns. Therefore, these need to be scoped and tracked by relevant metrics.
According to experts, it is essential that travel and hospitality business websites are mobile-optimized for many reasons. This is even more important if it is a tour operator or destination, which is selling bookable experiences. Therefore, In order to reach your target audience who are carrying their smartphones with them at a destination, mobile marketing is the best way to invest your digital ad spending.
2. Mobile SEO: Progressive Web Apps, Markups and Keywords
One of the biggest latest trends that will continue to grow in 2019 is a switch to Progressive Web Apps. These are websites that allow configuration file and an app shell to be downloaded to a phone, while still being on the web. Progressive Web Apps have all the best features of a native app. And one of the best way to help travel and hospitality businesses build a bridge between the discoverability of the web and the user-engagement while minimizing overhead. A new URL is generally created for the Progressive Web App, so the Googlebot will crawl the page just like it would crawl any other page published on the internet. Here it is important to add, progressive Web Apps are totally indexable.
A recent mobile SEO trend originates from the fact that google pushes webmasters to mark up everything with structured data. It includes social profiles, corporate contact information courses, books, facts and events. Do you know why structured markups and data get more important? Well, it is because google mobile-first index aims to mix websites with progressive web apps and also data without any URLs.
50% of search queries are four words or longer is another Mobile SEO trend that needs to be considered. For SEO benefits, it is advisable for you to think in terms of questions or phrases your audience might be asking, and not just keywords when creating or optimizing your website content. One more thing you need to remember, that most people in the industry are not aware of, most travellers, who used voice search to explore or book a trip is increasing as well.
3. Make Use of Instagram and Facebook
In the era of smartphones, people nowadays spent their maximum time on social media and that is why we say- mobile and social media are fit for each other. Social media is making the life of humans easier with every single day. And with the addition of mobile technology, it brings, every comment, like, and share, feed those excitement, anxieties, and joys instantly. In the digital world, visual content is something that drives more engagement in social media simply because it brings about emotions. Further, it makes easy to understand and beats the short attention span. When it comes to the quality content, we can say – creativity is the new productivity. And that is why Videos and especially live videos are still in trend.
Today, Instagram and Facebook are the most popular and important social media channels. However, Snapchat is slowly turning out to be a pure messaging app. According to experts reviews on digital marketing for the travel and hospitality industry, million metrics contribute to the growth of travel and hospitality brands effectively on social media.
4. Chatbots and Messenger are getting more important
According to a survey, millions of people and travelers use text messages to get in touch with a travel or hospitality provider. They find chat platform more easy and convenient in order to research and book a trip every single time. Therefore, many travelers in 2019 want to chat with a virtual assistant on messenger about their flight status, their hotel bookings and also use texting platforms to change their seats. Additionally, they also use it to show their boarding pass to the entrance agent as they board a flight without leaving their ‘chat’ app. It shows how much these travelers are dependent on the mobile technology. That is why they demand and expect that travel and hospitality brands are easily accessible everywhere.
5. Email Marketing Campaigns need to be mobile-optimized
Today, every industry including hospitality industry use email marketing for promoting and advertising a business. And everyone knows that today in the smartphone era, 80% of email campaigns will be opened on a mobile device. So, it is advisable for them to consider mobile-optimization before executing email marketing. Mobile optimization makes easier and convenient for the user to visit and explore the website which ultimately increases the conversion rate. If you are looking for something to create more appealing email campaigns for mobile devices, do consider techniques like single column layout, Enlarged fonts, streamlined content touch-friendly buttons and image-blocking techniques.
Final Words
So, if you are in the travel and hospitality industry, do not forget to follow these latest mobile marketing trends. Don’t think much and share these trends with your digital marketing team today and create a win-win situation for the organization in the industry. And don’t worry we are always there for you with the latest trends and information. It will help you to grow in the industry every single time.