Hotel marketing should create or capture demand at a cost the hotel understands. Reach, clicks and engagement are signals. The commercial result is what remains after conversion, cancellation, acquisition cost, channel cost and displacement.
Scroll through the four jobs marketing needs to perform. The machine on the left shows where the commercial signal is in the journey.
Demand starts with discovery. Search, content and social should help the right traveller find the hotel and understand why it is relevant - not just generate activity.
SEO, local relevance and paid search should capture demand the hotel understands, not chase cheap clicks.
Rooms, people, food, local life and events create a more ownable brand than generic destination posts.
The same offer should not be pushed to every guest. Business travellers, leisure couples, repeat guests and need-period audiences respond to different value.
Email, pre-arrival and repeat-guest messaging should reflect the audience and the moment in the stay journey.
A discount should solve a defined problem, for a defined period, with a metric that decides whether it stays.
Low CPC does not equal good marketing. Conversion, cancellation, commission avoided, campaign cost and displacement all affect the real result.
Compare paid direct demand with OTA commission and other distribution costs using the same revenue base.
Every recurring metric should have a possible action attached to it. Otherwise it is reporting, not management.
Reach and engagement are diagnostics. The commercial test is whether the activity produced incremental rooms revenue at an acquisition cost the hotel understands.
You do not need to be excellent everywhere. Give each channel a clear job and stop duplicating effort.
Do not let stacked or permanent discounts become the product. Review net ADR and accommodation revenue after the campaign.