Based on our experience designing websites for hospitality venues such as The Botanist, The Watershed Hotel and SoCal Sydney, we’ve learned that many hospitality marketing managers want to blog, but don’t see it as time-efficient or cost-effective. That’s why we compiled the Hospitality Marketing Manager’s Guide to Blogging, which outlines a 10-point content strategy showing you how to maintain a profitable, lead-generating blog on your hospitality website, even if you only have about 10 minutes of spare time a week.
Tip #2 – Be Consistent
Half the battle of blogging is doing it on a regular basis. Many businesses post new content on their blog whenever they get around to it, with no consistent vision or timetable. However, if you want your hospitality blog to work for you (i.e. convert readers into customers), you need to communicate with your readers regularly.
Sporadic blog posts are usually the result of confusion about the blog’s purpose. What are you using your blog for? The ultimate goal should always be to convert readers into customers, period. Sure, you can entertain and talk with your readers, but you need to have that goal in mind. As we’ll discuss in later articles, you can achieve these conversions by solving a problem, fulfilling a desire, or answering a question for your readers. But even if you are doing this in each post, you won’t be able to get a steady stream of conversions unless you post on a consistent basis.
Why? Infrequent blog posts simply go unnoticed; they stay under the radar of social media feeds and search results. How can you make conversions if people aren’t expecting your posts and actively looking for them? Consider how many items are in each person’s news feed on Facebook or Twitter! And avid blog readers will have a flow of posts from several subscriptions.
To make sure people see your posts, set up an editorial schedule for your blog. It doesn’t have to be complicated. At the beginning of each month (or quarter, or year, whatever you prefer), consult with your blog writer and plan out some topics that you’d like to cover over the next weeks. Post at least once a week, though two or three times per week will increase the blog’s exposure. Try to always post on the same day(s) each week so that your readers can expect a new post at a certain time and look forward to it. This will help them fall into a rhythm of reading your blog and it will increase the chances that new readers will come across one of your posts.
Consistent blogging keeps your brand in front of your audience and demonstrates that you care about solving problems, meeting needs, and answering questions for your customers. It shows you are constantly thinking about what you can do for them and how you can improve their experience at your venue. This strengthens the trust between you and your patrons. They will be more likely to give you repeat business and favourable reviews if they can rely on you to do something as simple as maintaining a blog geared towards their interests.
Thank you for reading the second installment of our series, the Hospitality Marketing Manager’s Guide to Blogging. You can download the full series as a zip file FOR FREE by clicking the link below. The zip file contains the Guide in PDF format for easy reading, as well as a Hospitality Blog Template in both PDF and Word format to help you get started.
Also check out:
- Tip #1 – Stay Close to Home
- Tip #2 – Be Consistent
- Tip #3 – Join the Conversation
- Tip #4 – Get Their Attention
- Tip #5 – Focus on the Customer
- Tip #6 – Time Is Money
- Tip #7 – Generate Leads
- Tip #8 – Call Them to Action
- Tip #9 – Think Outside the Box
- Tip #10 Promote, Promote, Promote!
Image © Algirdas Mazeika
