Optimizing Hotel Black Friday Deals for Guest Engagement

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Blogs / Hotel Marketing

30/08/2024

Harman

Black Friday has an interesting past. As we talk about the Hotel Black Friday deals and how to make them more attractive in this blog, you need to understand the history of Black Friday and realize the significance and importance of going big on this day.

Black Friday is a big day for businesses. Why? Let’s see.

The term was first applied to a financial crisis in the United States in the 1860s and then was used to indicate a disaster or misfortune, until the 1960s when it was used by Philadelphia traffic cops to describe the day post-Thanksgiving and later in the 1980s when city merchants reinvented the term to give it a positive outlook.

But what happened in the 1960s and 80s?

Cities started brimming with visitors who traveled to start their holiday shopping and thus, the cops had to work 12-hour shifts in bad traffic. Sometimes this day coincided with the annual Army-Navy football game. The huge crowds were a pain to handle for the police and hence, they termed it a ‘Black Friday’, to signify all the chaos around.

However, capitalizing on the situation, the city’s merchants tried to give the day a pretty makeover and call it ‘Big Friday’, but failed until the 1980s.

Eventually in the 1980s, they were successful in removing the negative connotations from the term and turning it into a positive emotion that marked the beginning of a happy, joyful holiday/shopping season for customers.

Since then, businesses have been launching exciting deals and offers on Black Friday to attract and engage with visitors and hotel Black Friday deals are part of such marketing campaigns.

Black Friday day/week is a great opportunity for hotels to attract and cater to the surged visitors/shoppers seeking discounts/bargains. This time offers them to increase guest engagement and hence, their occupancy rates and revenue.

Let’s understand the spending psychology of shoppers around this time and how to make the most out of the Hotel Black Friday deals.

What is Black Friday and why is it important for the hospitality industry?

A colloquial term for the Friday after Thanksgiving, Black Friday originated in the United States back in the 1980s.

This day traditionally marks the beginning of the Christmas/holiday shopping season in the US and the rest of the world. For businesses around the world, it is the perfect time to attract guests, retain them, enhance visibility, and boost sales.

For hotels too, it is the time to curate deals, packages, and offers to attract guests, showcase their properties, create unforgettable experiences for them, and forge lifelong connections.

Customers are especially lured during the holiday and festive seasons to shop and grab the hottest deals of the year presented to them by businesses.

For example, hotels globally offer some attractive deals around this time of the year. One might find 50% off on a one-night stay or even buy-one-get-one-free deals. They also view this time as an opportunity to clear out low-demand inventory and boost revenue.

But what is so alluring about this time that businesses experience a surge in sales?

The festive fervor nudges customers/guests to increase their serotonin and dopamine levels through some self-pampering that comes in the form of shopping or vacations, not only for the present times but even for the future.

Moreover, a lot of people shop for their loved ones because of the more positive outlook and increased aspirations during the holiday season.

Some other reasons for increased spending are believed to be these contemporary theories:

The shopping momentum effect: This theory states that a customer gathers shopping momentum after an initial purchase provides a psychological impulse that enhances the purchase of a second, unrelated product Thus, once a shopper starts spending money or once the wallet is out, he/she tends to keep spending it. This translates into increased opportunities for businesses to make sales.
FOMO: This stands for the fear of missing out. People fear missing out on attractive deals and if businesses offer ultimate offers/deals of the year, customers will not shy away from grabbing and spending on those deals.

Properties that offer enticing deals, discounts, and offers and promote them in a way that makes guests fear missing out on them, definitely witness a rise in their sales and revenue.

Factors to keep in mind while crafting Hotel Black Friday deals/offers

Hotels need to understand that Black Friday offers do not just mean lowering prices but creating promotional campaigns that add value to your guest’s life.

A hotel must offer them experiences to be cherished for a lifetime, some additional services such as spa treatments, wellness programs, fine dining options, etc. A hotel can also curate packages that cater to its most valued travelers or traveler groups.

Some other factors to keep in mind while crafting hotel Black Friday deals for maximum guest engagement are:

Identify your target audience: This is basic yet one of the most crucial steps for any marketing campaign planning and success. Identification of the targeted audience, their behavior, and spending patterns, especially during this time, and tailored offers are important to hit the bull's eye.

Time is money: Although Black Friday is a one-day event, many businesses offer deals throughout the week for higher sales and revenue. Hotels should start their offers from the week leading up to the day to attract early bird shoppers.

Create offers that are hard to say no to: Create value for your guests through your offers. Curate your offers keeping your target audience, and their tastes and preferences in mind. Make your offers irresistible and stand ahead of the competition.

Promote smartly: Multiple or almost all businesses launch their most ambitious and grand deals around this time. So, it all comes down to presentation and promotion. Leverage social media, WhatsApp email marketing, and other online platforms to reach the targeted audience and gain maximum guest engagement.

Keep your language simple and straightforward to avoid any foregone opportunities due to ambiguity.

Offer special/exclusive treatment: Make your loyal guests and email subscribers feel extra special with some exclusive offers and deals. Reinforce their loyalty with some special offers and discounts.

All things good have an expiration date: Put a deadline for your hotel's Black Friday offer and create a sense of urgency among your guests to book fast and without much contemplation that may cause delays.

Now let’s look at some strategies to implement the hotel Black Friday deals or offers and gain the most out of them.

Some strategies to implement for Black Friday offers

If you are doing it, you have to do it right! So, here are some strategies for hotels to implement to gain high guest engagement from their Black Friday deals:

1. Optimize your website and offer direct bookings

Any offer can be a missed sales opportunity if it’s not communicated well and simplified to avail, for the guests/customers.

Thus, to get the most out of the holiday season, the first and foremost thing hotels should ensure is to optimize their website for more visibility, loading speed, ease of use/navigation, and direct bookings.

Leverage website SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important to making marketing campaigns a success. With so many hotels offering their biggest deals, you must ensure that you are visible on the top. Otherwise, you would be just lying under the big pile of offers and no guests would be able to reach you.

Optimizing the website for SEO comes in handy here. It allows a hotel to rank at the top on some of the most widely used search engines globally. Using keywords, meta tags, clear and compelling call-to-action buttons, and optimizing content to make it more readable, helps a hotel website to reach heights.

It further makes the content short, crisp, navigable, and more absorbable for the visitors. This optimization increases the clarity and magnetism of your website. Thus, before launching your hotel Black Friday offers or deals, optimize your website for search engines.

Add a booking engine to your website

After guests visit your website, it is important to provide them with a mobile-friendly or responsive booking engine that would encourage them further to grab hotel Black Friday deals. This encouragement will bear fruits only if the booking engine has simple steps that would get them what they are seeking quickly.

The payment processing should be a secure process, with multiple language and currency options to cater to the international crowd. This booking engine should further be seamlessly integrated with the other key hotel software such as PMS, channel manager, etc.

This would help a hotel avoid the risk of over or double-booking and update room availability and prices correctly across all the distribution channels in real time.

Offer additional perks on direct bookings to save the commissions paid to offline and online travel agents/agencies (OTAs). However, ensure that your booking engine is well-integrated and has all the required features and functionalities to make it a profitable affair.

Choose the most reliable options for the booking engines out there like the Smart Booking solution by BOTSHOT. While it offers all the key integrations, its mobile-friendly functionality allows hotels to convert visitors into actual bookings through a hassle-free booking process with 24*7 availability, among other things.

Create a dedicated hotel Black Friday deal landing page

A dedicated landing page for the Black Friday deals or offers or a full campaign on the website would help the hotel grab attention more easily and engage more guests.

Attractive property images and graphics, details about the deals and offers, a countdown to create urgency and excitement, and clear CTAs that will redirect to the booking engine, are all the drivers to a successful and lucrative marketing campaign.

2. Use marketing channels to your advantage

Communicating the Black Friday deals through the right channels is as important as carefully curating them to suit the needs of your target audience. The following online channels could be leveraged for the promotion of the hotel Black Friday deals:

Email marketing:

While there are many modern ways of communication and marketing, e-mail will always remain relevant. It is a simple, traditional method that many generations are familiar with and comfortable with. Thus, hotels must leverage e-mail marketing to reach out to old and potential guests.

With catchy subjects and visuals, hotels must send out targeted e-mails. The content should have:

Clear, catchy image and brand logo with alt-text.
Short, crisp, and relevant headline; ensure it does not have “Re:” and “Fwd” abbreviations.
Clear and attractive CTAs.
Where to reach you at; hotel’s contact details.
Unsubscribe button for privacy compliance.
Buttons to connect on social media (optional).

While e-mails could be sent for initial communication, they are also effective for gentle reminders and follow-ups.

In the process, a hotel needs to ensure that the right content goes to the right guest. Hence, it must automate this process rather than manually doing it and committing errors.

Marketing tools such as eMark-IT can simplify as well as streamline this process. This 360-degree marketing tool creates personalized campaigns and reaches out to prospects not just via e-mail but also with WhatsApp notifications.

Social media platforms:

Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, etc., make great marketing mediums. These platforms have a lot of global engagement and hence, offer businesses a fair chance to promote their goods and services.

Hotels must create catchy, engaging, and interactive ads that bring users to their website or dedicated landing page.

Paid ads/ campaigns on these platforms as well as on Google ads have positive ROI, especially during the holiday season.

Booking platforms:

OTAs and other booking platforms can be a great way to reach a wider audience. Hotels can thus offer exclusive deals to attract and capture a large user base of these platforms.

Moreover, some popular OTAs also launched their own Black Friday deals, so hotels could collaborate or participate with them and engage more crowd.

However, for this to work, hotels must ensure that all the distribution channels, including the hotel website, are coordinated and updated correctly and in real time.

Room availability and prices across all the distribution channels must be reflected correctly and the same is stored and displayed in one place. Centralized distribution management is extremely important in this case.

Also read: Complete Guide to Hotel Channel Manager System

This is only possible through a channel manager or a PMS with an in-build channel manager. Solutions like ChannelSyncro allow for the proper management of all distribution channels. It helps a hotel to maximize occupancy, with the most optimal pricing and eliminates the risk of over or double-booking.

With seamless integration with other key hotel systems, ChannelSyncro offers the best channel management for hotels.

Conclusion

Black Friday signifies a period of positive emotions that comes with a holiday season and the resultant spending by shoppers to keep their spirits high. Businesses stand to benefit from this spending spree of customers and boost sales and revenue. Hotel Black Friday deals are also launched to attract more guests, create value for them, and turn them into loyal army.

This marketing campaign must strategically go out to create the kind of impact the hotel has hoped for. Some factors to keep in mind are:

Tailoring the hotel Black Friday deals for the right audience and communicating with them through the right channels matters a lot.
The hotel website must be well-updated and engaging. Further, the hotel must ensure that the booking engine/process is easily accessible, simple, and secure
The content of the marketing campaign in ads, and on the landing page should be catchy, relevant, short, and crisp, with CTAs and around-the-clock customer support for guest queries.
All the distribution channels should be managed and updated in real-time to avoid any sticky situations with the guests.
Lastly, hotels must ensure they are offering/serving whatever has been promised in the campaign.