During the off-season, marketing must continue working, perhaps with less insistence but with more enthusiasm to face a new stage, don’t you think?
Staying next to customers and not letting ourselves fall into oblivion is our mission during the harsh winter months. Here are five ways to keep that relationship with your customers that you should not forget during the off-season.
1. Reset your buyer persona
It is time to take stock of the season. Analyze the database of your customers and get to know them better. Get on your skin and generate actions that interest them, fulfill their expectations and meet their needs.
You may think you have an ideal hotel for retired couples, but over the past summer season you've noticed that in fact 80% of your clients have been young couples. During the off-season it is time to redefine ourselves, redefine our buyer personas and work on strategies that stick to their profiles. Here we leave you some very practical templates that will help you to work and redefine your buyer people.
2. Improve your website
There are many factors that contribute to improve your website. The navigation, usability, design and language you use can be the main pillars that help you generate an attractive website for your target audience.
Analyze the latest trends in web design and always offer the best. The user experience should be 10 out of 10. Why is it so important? Because of it will depend that your visits become leads, clients, promoters or, simply, a visit to the web and nothing else.
Usability should be excellent. The web must be totally intuitive. If necessary, abuse of calls to action (CTA). In a web site there should be 5 different calls to action to be effective, because not all those who enter your website are at the same level of the buying process. Make it easy for everyone. To those who want more information, those who want to read more, those who want to consume your content regularly, those who want to share information on social networks, those who want to book ... each and every one of them.
It uses a striking and elegant, responsive or mobile first design. You decide depending on your buyer persona.
Write the information in a direct language. Remember that only the concrete motivates. Do not forget to take care of the architecture of the information to facilitate to the maximum the processes of understanding and assimilation of the information.
3. Still active in social networks
Struggle not to be forgotten. Publish in social networks information that may interest you. Do not be as active as you have been during peak season, but do not stop posting.
Generate content that may interest you. Do you want examples? If your hotel is at the foot of the beach, you can inform about the work of preparing the beach services for the new season, the regeneration of sand, make offers for the first 100 reserves of the season or hang a calendar with the most important events of the summer time in your area.
Encourage participation with contests or prizes like "hang your summer photo in our hotel and receive a bonus for next season" and try to know the opinion of visitors to improve. Remember to keep feedback with your healthy audience. It is a great opportunity to build trust and credibility.
4. Generate content on your blog
If you still do not have it, do not wait any longer. A blog is a website through which you can spread all kinds of interesting content and value to your audience. But the most important thing is that the blog will help you attract them and to bring them to your web.
But watch out, there are many blogs, so you need to take your content marketing strategy very seriously from the outset.
Now that you have time, a spectacular website and that you know in depth to your buyer persona, it is time to generate content of value, to educate your customers or potential clients.
It publishes during the low season in a gradual way in the blog and also it diffuses the entries in the social networks. Without pause but without hurry. Without saturating but not falling into oblivion. And, above all, it uses to create content and to program it. So, during the high season, when you have tips to work, you can breathe easy because you have advanced.
5. Do not forget emailing
Email marketing is, without doubt, a fundamental strategy that should be part of your online strategy. In the off-season, all your potential customers in your database match the traveler's journey's dreaming stage, so you can unify content and simplify your work.
Think that during this stage of dreaming, the content should focus on attraction so you should generate information that is easy to consume and capture the interest of the readers.
In the quietest months, you can use your loyalty to your customers. And a tip, do not forget the locals. They can help you carry the looser months better.
Do you think these are many tasks to accomplish in the months you assumed were more relaxed? Do not worry. There are tools like Hubspot that will help you cope. Software with integration of digital automation, analysis and measurement tools will help you to focus on what interests you most, to make your potential customers fall in love with your hotel.
