Building an SMS Inbound Marketing Campaign for Your Hotel Business

SMS flies under many marketers radars when it comes to building an inbound marketing strategy. But if Buzzfeed’s news app is to be believed, there are days when SMS generates the greatest percentage of shares on that channel, beating out Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and email. SMS share buttons are reported to have been used 4 times more than Twitter buttons. When you consider Twitter has 317 million active users, then SMS marketing has huge potential.

Best of all, taking advantage of SMS is as simple as using our powerful SMS API solution to integrate SMS services across all your applications.

If you’re thinking of experimenting with SMS, then tracking is essential. Make sure you tag the links your SMS buttons share so any referrals can be properly attributed and users segmented.

That way you can begin to drive sales by targeting your inbound campaigns. We’ve blogged about the basics of inbound marketing before and you can read our thoughts here.

But what if you don’t have a high profile social presence and can’t afford a marketing consultant? Let’s say you’re a small, local hotel that generally relies on repeat custom and the odd review on TripAdvisor? How do you leverage the power of SMS to construct an inbound marketing strategy that works for you? We’ll show you how, but first you need to know the difference between inbound and outbound marketing.

Outbound campaigns can be costly and aggressive, bombarding customers with unwanted email, flyers and cold calls. In contrast, inbound campaigns rely on direct and personal communication through social media and SMS messaging to supply your audience with timely, relevant and interesting content that converts them from viewers to customers.

Think of yourself as a fisherman, retaining loyal customers with your SMS bait and potentially attracting new ones. In the hotel business, repeat bookings will be crucial to your business, and SMS inbound marketing is a smart way to reward your customers’ loyalty.

Most people have a tablet, and building a contact capture form is straightforward – just make sure you include an opt-in to SMS that will keep you ICO compliant. When your guests register, simply ask them to fill out the form and incentivise them to opt-in to SMS by giving them a discount on their next booking.

Quickly and simply, you’ll build your SMS database through your lead capture form. Now you’re ready to develop your SMS-based inbound marketing strategy.

Next, you need to integrate all the data you’ve captured with your form. Now that’s done, you’ll need to think of some messages you want to send and think about when to schedule them for – remember, no one likes being woken up in the middle of the night by a beeping mobile.

For a small, family-run hotel it would be appropriate to send your guests information such as:

• A welcome message when they arrive and a parting message looking forward to their next visit
• Off-season discounts
• Promo codes for loyal customers
• Christmas and birthday greetings
• Targeted campaigns – SMS works particularly well when it’s personalised
• Pro-active messaging related to check-in and check-out, room service and local travel information

Although only 17% of consumers say they find SMS contact intrusive, you’ll still need to handle your content and timing with sensitivity, and scheduling can help with that. SMS messages are often more effective when your customers are out and about rather than at home. Timing is everything with inbound marketing and SMS, so try and anticipate when customers might be thinking of booking a weekend away or a family holiday.

Your shortcode keyword is the gateway to growing your contact list further. As a hotel business, you won’t want to do away with printed publicity like brochures and business cards, but they’re a prime opportunity to include a call to action that includes your shortcode. Keep it simple: you only need to include a line like ‘Text HOTEL to 87007 for discounts and more’.

For your inbound marketing strategy, you’ll need to promote that message consistently across social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Though you may not be a prolific social media user, it is a key tool for inbound marketing and you’ll find some useful tips on how SMS and social media can work together here.

Not only is it cheaper than social media, SMS is a far more personal medium which users appreciate. It’s easy for generalised social media posts to get lost in the digital noise, but SMS messaging is a very direct form of communication.

Because your customers have opted in to receive your messages, you’ve already established a level of trust. Send them discounts or offers on repeat bookings, or relevant travel information, and you’ll increase that trust level further. And by speaking directly to your customers, you’ll encourage them to book again in a way that a message generated over a social network feed may not. Offer information with a clear call to action that will be useful to your customer right now to ensure they act on your suggestions.

Check out what your competitors are doing. The chances are they’ve overlooked SMS marketing in favour of a social media focused inbound marketing campaign or are still relying on outbound marketing techniques alone. Therefore, the advantages of SMS can give you a real edge in your local business community.

You don’t need a huge budget to make SMS inbound marketing work for you, just some imagination and common sense:

• DO provide an opt out like ‘text STOP to 87007’
• DO show some courtesy by scheduling your SMS in a timely manner and at an appropriate frequency
• DO use simple, formal language that your customers are familiar with and try to avoid text speak
• DO use a cross-platform approach that integrates SMS with a social presence and print publicity to offer repeat customers immediate value.

If you’d like to know more, check out our blog and our SMS solutions to start designing an SMS inbound marketing strategy for your hotel business.