Professional hotel marketing is an issue that more and more companies are interested in. It’s obvious. Georgia is becoming a more and more popular tourist destination every year.
Organisations are beginning to see the benefits of promotional activities, and funders are ready to allocate more money for this purpose.
Outsourcing hotel marketing has many advantages. But it also has drawbacks that need to be considered. It is important that the hotel emerges from such a collaboration stronger than before.
Ongoing marketing service for a hotel
Budget
If you need someone to handle the complete marketing of a hotel for an extended period of time, and you don’t have a large budget, it may be difficult to find a marketing specialist for that amount of money who can handle social media, photography, newsletters and website maintenance on a part-time basis. Marketing agencies have these skills. Because of the scale of their operations and their relationships with subcontractors, they can take on such projects and deliver.
It’s hard to expect a single part-time employee to know all the tools, have the right resources, have their own costs and share their time with another employer to do everything that needs to be done.
However, if you have a larger amount of money to hire a specialist and pay the necessary expenses, and you want him or her to strengthen a hotel from within, it may be better to find an employee. Having a person directly on the team always facilitates the flow of information, which is important when building long-term communication efforts.
Competences
Hotel marketing is a complex and extensive subject. You need access to software to analyse audience data, set up ads, send emails and create graphics or videos. You also need to understand marketing concepts, think strategically and have experience. It’s hard for one person to know how to do all this, and if they can, it comes at a cost.
With external agencies, these skills are usually handled by a team or subcontractors. One person does the copywriting, another does the graphics. This ensures that all content is of a high standard. This is the advantage of outsourcing the marketing of a hotel.
But there are also disadvantages, and I often point them out to hotels when they consider working with me. All the skills that an external contractor brings to the table do not stay with the organisation. In the case of an employee, he and others in the team transfer knowledge. After a few years, the hotel has the opportunity to build an effective marketing department. With outsourcing, all the knowledge stays with the contractor. This isn’t always a bad thing, you just have to decide whether the way the hotel operates makes it worthwhile to build up an in-house marketing department or whether it’s better to outsource.
An intermediate solution can be used and I have several hotels that I work with on this basis. On the hotel’s side, there is a person who generally does promotions, creates content for social media and knows those basic things. And on my agency’s side, we do things like running social media advertising campaigns, recording videos, building a website and training someone from the hotel.
Periodical marketing service of the hotel
You may also find that you only need advertising support for the duration of a project or campaign. In this situation, there are many advantages to using a professional outside contractor.
Third parties have the necessary equipment (cameras, lights, computers, studios, etc.), have bought software licences and employ other people. Hiring or buying all this for a single campaign increases costs disproportionately.
The skills themselves are another matter. An external agency with a team of people is more capable of handling a comprehensive marketing campaign than one or two people from the hotel. However, it is important that such services are carried out under the full control of the hotel, so that the campaign fits into the overall communication strategy of the property.
Ordering seperate services for the hotel marketing
Another way of working with an external contractor is to have them provide a single service. For example, the creation of a visual identity, a website, a communication strategy or the recording of advertising spots.
In such a situation, the task is usually carried out because the hotel has diagnosed that it does not have the necessary resources and skills to develop such a product.
There are two options. You can find a graphic designer, a film production company or a programmer and have them do a specific job. But then the hotel must have full control over the execution of the task. Such a contractor does not do marketing, but is simply a specialist in a particular field. Alternatively, you can outsource the task to a marketing agency that controls the entire process. From creation to implementation and distribution.
Summary
As you can see, there are many ways to outsource a hotel’s marketing. Each of these solutions has its advantages and disadvantages. When planning the development of communication activities, you need to determine internally what the hotel’s objectives are and what they will serve. Then you can choose the best way for you.
