Over the period of time, it became the most convenient mode of communication, surpassing regular calls and messages. Everybody you meet these days asks, ”Can you share your WhatsApp number?” or ”Are you available on WhatsApp?” 

With the tremendous rise in the number of users, hotel WhatsApp marketing is the new technique for business owners to stay connected with a large number of guests.

There are 2000 million monthly active users on WhatsApp.

Statistia

Yet, it still stays as an unexplored medium. People are surrounded with countless doubts and are hesitant to try it. I’m sure you might have some of them too. This blog tells you everything you need to know about hotel WhatsApp marketing.

What is WhatsApp for hotels?

It’s a type of messenger marketing which involves business promotion via WhatsApp. 

Hotel WhatsApp marketing is a way to stay in touch with your guests 24*7 and keep them updated about your property. 

You can use a personal WhatsApp account for this. However, it won’t give that professional impact on your guests. Hence, it is recommended to use WhatsApp for Business. 

What is WhatsApp Business?

WhatsApp business is an application launched by WhatsApp Inc for professionals. It gives them a platform to showcase their business (new offers, services, products, promotions)and stay connected with their customers.

Additionally, WhatsApp Business can be integrated with a hotel PMS using WhatsApp Business API. This integration of the messaging app helps in streamlining and enhancing communication, operational efficiency, and customer experience.

What is the difference between WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Personal?

Since WhatsApp Business is built specially for the professional purposes , the private counterpart of the app has certain features making it different from the latter. Let’s compare the two of them:

What are the benefits of hotel WhatsApp marketing?

Before investing into any marketing techniques, everyone looks for its benefits. Let’s understand how WhatsApp marketing is beneficial for the hoteliers.

1. Maximum reach

Hotels have databases collected every day from bookings and inquiries. They can be used for the promotions and reaching out to guests. The amount of correct data you have is proportional to the reach you’d have in your audience. Eventually, this leads to growth in your booking ratio.

2. Easy mode of communication

With billions of users, WhatsApp is one of the widely accepted modes of communication. Many hotels have their WhatsApp number displayed on the websites. This makes it convenient for the guests to reach out to them.

Any guest can save the contact number and connect with the hotelier directly for his inquiries. This results in the generation of a potential lead for the hotel. 

Apart from that, you can create WhatsApp groups with your staff. It will reduce the communication gap between everyone, cover daily reports, weekly concalls and other official tasks. 

3. Works as a mode of booking

WhatsApp has recently introduced a payment option. However, this facility is available only in the personal version, where you can transfer any amount of money to anyone in your contact list.

You can get it integrated with your property’s bank account. This will assist you in generating instant bookings and avoiding payment gateway charges.

4. No cost promotion strategy

Everyone knows that WhatsApp is a free application. No hidden fees, zero transaction charges, free calling and unlimited messaging are some of its amazing features. This helps you to market your hotel at a broader level, that too without investing any amount of money.

5. Creates a brand presence

Similar to websites, having a WhatsApp business profile defines your brand. It gives your guests an impression of your approach towards business. 

As a hotel, you can also use a catalogue to highlight your property’s details. These could be room amenities and categories with photos, facilities and so on. This will create brand awareness amongst your guests.

How to use WhatsApp marketing for hotels?

Now that you are thorough with the benefits, here’s how you can use WhatsApp to market your hotel.

1. Collect and manage guests’ database

As I mentioned earlier, guests’ data collection and management is a regular task in hotels. All you need do is segregate them and save those details for future marketing. Remember, without that it won’t be possible for you to take the next step.

2. Create a specific broadcast list

Once you’ve prepared a list of contact numbers, you need to create a broadcast list. For that, take into consideration the booking patterns of your guests. For instance, some of them would be visiting only on festive occasions, while corporates are frequent ones, and so on.

Depending upon this, you can create guest-specific broadcast lists; such as corporate guests, regular customers, yearly vacationers, monthly weekenders, solo travellers, and others. 

This will streamline your promotion strategy for different categories. However, ensure that the recipients have saved your WhatsApp number. 

3. Schedule frequency of your promotion and messages

This is yet another important task in hotel WhatsApp marketing. You don’t want to flood your guests with too many messages. Eventually, they’ll end up blocking you or reporting you. 

Instead, try to optimise your frequency of messaging. The best way is to create a calendar for it. It’ll assist you in keeping a track of every broadcast you do. Moreover, analysing your campaigns becomes easier with this.

4. Create message templates

It’s better to have message templates available for a quick reply. It’ll save your time and create a good impression on your guests with your prompt response. 

It could be anything, from welcome messages to check-out and review requests. 

5. Promote your hotel

Now that you’ve all the mise-en-place, it’s time to start promoting your hotel as per the schedule. However, just start with one segment at a time. 

If you do multiple broadcasts together, it’ll jeopardize the entire reason for the campaign. Further, it would become quite a complex task to analyse the results.

6. Analyse and improvise

Once you start the promotion of one vertical, start analysing these 3 aspects – 

• List Authenticity
• The number of users reading it
• Action taken by users.

Post analysis, you can work on strategies to get more attention from the audience. It could be designing promotional messages which are sent to them, attractive offers, highlighting social activities, and so on.

What types of WhatsApp messages can hotels send?

Based on your requirements and choice, you can keep multiple messages for each query. Here, I’m listing out various types of messages you can send to your contacts.

1. Pre-arrival message
2. Post-check-out message
3. An instant reply to queries
4. Feedback collecting message

How to analyse hotel WhatsApp marketing campaigns?

An analysis helps you take corrective measures and improve your strategies. 

Here are 3 major aspects that you need to take into consideration for analysing any WhatsApp campaign.

1. Data authenticity

It’s not necessary that all the messages and broadcasts you send would be delivered to everyone. Sometimes, they might get skipped or remain undelivered due to incorrect numbers. 

You need to filter out such numbers from your list. It’ll help you get accurate results for the active users. .

2. Readers count

As I said above, you need to check for delivered messages, but there is an addition to it – the readers count.

Depending upon the number of readers, you’ll be able to analyse the right audience for your promotions. Moreover, while filtering data, you can just keep the engaged readers in broadcast lists. 

3. Click to action count

Every WhatsApp campaign is associated with a certain click to action. This can be in the form of website redirects, calls, or instant replies. 

These analytics also give you the details of action taken on your message. This allows you to keep a track on how effective your promotions are.

What are the mistakes to avoid in hotel WhatsApp marketing?

Every marketing strategy can be success or failure. Hotel WhatsApp marketing isn’t an exception. The reasons for failure can then turn into your learnings. Here I am listing out some of the common reasons behind those failures: – 

• Flooding guests with frequent promotional messages 
• Targeting the wrong audience
• Ignoring performance
• Using the group to communicate instead of broadcasts
• Irregular campaign schedule 
• Poor content quality

Make sure you avoid these mistakes, if you want to achieve results from your hotel WhatsApp marketing strategy.

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