The best time to get started was 20 years ago, the second best time is today and now! So why, in the #hotel and #restaurant sector, we don’t go further in the transmission of content for our customers? Did we really understand the stakes ?
#Digital is at the heart of any company’s strategies. But that means a lot of things and it’s not just investing in technologies that facilitate management or customer relations.
One of the components of a good digital strategy is to :
“create content” and “build visibility”
Some numbers // We Are Social and Hootsuite unveil the latest edition of their annual digital report.
Early 2020: 4.54 billion people are now online, an increase from the previous year of 298 million people (or 7%). We are approaching a penetration rate of 60%.
The average internet user will spend 6 hours and 43 minutes online in 2020 every day, or more than 100 days online in total. People in the Philippines lead the rankings with an average daily use of 9 hours and 45 minutes, compared to just 4 hours and 22 minutes in Japan.
The report shows that 49% of the world’s population (or 3.8 billion people) now use social media, an increase of 321 million (or 9%) from 2019. The most used social platforms in the world are Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp. The world average is 2 hours 24 minutes.
Finally, Google and YouTube are once again the most visited sites in the world, but Yahoo! still popular (12th place).
Position your sales activity in this context….
Everyone today uses what is called “content marketing“. It is a discipline of creating quality content for a brand, a company to engage potential buyers, strengthen the loyalty of its customers and spread its message. Professionals in this discipline use the blog to improve their expert status, their authority and legitimacy as well as their visibility in their sector of activity.
However, it is necessary to clarify certain received ideas :
- The blog market is not saturated. We had the radio, television and print media so far, there is now the media “online” ;
- The blog market is not going to collapse. Today, according to the McKinsey firm, nearly 75% of luxury goods purchased, even physically in a store, have been purchased because of what customers have done and seen online! This figure is expected to increase to nearly 99% in the coming years ;
- Experienced bloggers won’t always have the advantage. The rules of success for blogging are more and more known and the cogs to monetize your blog are developing and evolving. It’s not about doing what everyone else is doing either, it’s about doing it better or differently.
If you develop an imaginative blog full of great resources and content and work hard, the opportunities have never been greater !
Why ? Many industries have understood it, many industries use it. By focusing on informative or formative content, your professional blog can become your most powerful marketing tool and bring you :
- Receive new requests ;
- Attract requests to its website and direct reservations channel ;
- Increase customer loyalty and their recommendations ;
- Establish your authority in the workplace ;
- Bring other business development paths that can go up expert interventions, press interviews or even publications.
HOW ? For a hotel, restaurant or any business activity, today you can develop a blog through a fairly simple process :
- Find your #niche // Your property is unique and is aimed at a clientele in search of this difference. How can you put it forward ?
- Define your #audience // What are your customers looking for? What content do they need? What are their preferences, their passions, the subjects that concern them ?
- Set up your #blog // At the heart of your website, your blog must appear as essential. A dedicated page or nothing !
- Create #contents // Prepare articles that will bring #benefits to your customers, no matter what. Involve your teams, your prescribers but also your partners, suppliers and customers.
- Share on #social networks and converse // Choose your two main social networks and your two secondary networks and share the contents of your blog. Answer questions, discuss and build a lasting relationship.
- Listen and learn from your audience // The process is continuous and your conversations will be enriched with the feedback from your customers. Learn from your mistakes and correct.
- Renew content to disseminate, exchanges on social networks again and again on a regular basis // It is a question of doing tests and seeing the reactions.
Just do it !
“The secret to moving forward is to start”
Mark twain
Today, we must understand that blogging for his business is not just desirable, it is #crucial. Our customers are on the internet and today, more than ever, it is a way to learn about products or services, glamorous or not! One of the ways to make your mark on the web is the skillful use of a blog: your traffic increases, your reputation improves, your position in search engines is optimized to position you first in Google, your customers you will appreciate and trust you even before contacting you !
We have to blog and we have to blog now ! It’s an adventure and we don’t know exactly where it will lead us but it’s the path that counts at the end and not necessarily the final destination…
The question is ultimately not “why should we blog?” but rather “can we risk not blogging today?”.
Arnaud Bamvens Hotel Management Report – THE Hotel, Restaurant and Leisure activities Toolbox // http://www.A3amvens.com
It’s never late to start blog….