Blue Magnet has compiled some online marketing budget advice for hotels that will help plan for a successful 2013. Once a hotel has a set budget, it becomes nearly impossible to reallocate these funds. So it is of upmost importance to understand current trends for efficient allocation.
One trend is of course the continual rise of social, local and mobile (SoLoMo), opposed to the continuing fall of investment in traditional media. Google reports that 50% of travelers reserve hotel stays online, so it might make sense to allocate at least 50% of your overall marketing budget to digital marketing.Social media as a whole will continue to be an important channel of reputation management and customer attraction. Activity on social media sites under your brand name will boost your search rankings. Blue Magnet recommends 15% of your budget go to this area. Searches for a hotel in a particular location fall into the local search category (such as with Google Maps or Yelp), and 10% should go to this area according to Blue Magnet. They recommend 20% go to making your site mobile device friendly with mobile applications and more importantly making sure your website appears appropriately on mobile browsers.Aside from these rising media outlets, remember to also keep attention to more traditional aspects of overall online marketing. Search Engine Optimisation should take a significant chunk of your budget. However, this area includes the work on improving search rankings and authority through use of social media, and simply changing the content on your brand’s website such as photos. Remember that Google changes their search algorithims quite often, so you also need to update SEO.
