Tips For Incorporating Reviews Into Your Hotel Marketing Strategy

In today’s business world, when taking into consideration the connectivity of people and the mobile-first society, it’s safe to say that guest feedback is the thing that can make or break your hotel marketing strategy.

Especially when it comes to hospitality, reviews are something that help or harm the success of your hotel. They also either encourage more bookings or prevent travelers from booking. Excellent, good or not so great, they are all there in the virtual world, representing your hotel’s reputation. The good news is that, once you learn how to manage them, you can use them in your favor and make guests the ambassadors of your hotel.

Here are some tips on how to incorporate guest reviews into your hotel marketing strategy:

1. Respond to reviews, both positive and negative

This is probably the most important thing when it comes to making good use of guest feedback. When you ignore a guest’s opinion and/or suggestion, you make them feel unappreciated or is their experience in your hotel does not concern you. Regardless of what type of review you are facing, you need to take responsibility for the good and for the not-so-good. This will not only show your previous guests that you care. It’s a simple yet effective way of advertising the fact that you value your customers and you take their input into consideration, in order to meet their needs and expectations.

When in doubt, you can always check our previous best practice guides, to learn the best way to reply to positive reviews and to negative reviews.

2. Include Meta-Reviews and Widgets on your website

Let’s think for a moment about what we all do when deciding to make a purchase on Amazon, for example. It’s safe to assume that most of us check the product reviews, to see if it’s worth the buy or not. This is what a Meta-Review does for your hotel: it provides a summary of previous guests’ opinions and feedback, a quick way of evaluating the key attributes of the establishment. TrustYou Meta-Review and TrustScore represent verified review summaries that are displayed on dozens of travel and search sites worldwide, including Google and allow your hotel’s reputation to influence millions of travelers. And there’s no better way to reach those heights than by advertising your hotel’s features and score on its own website.

3. Encourage guests to share their reviews on social media

There’s no denying that social media is is one of the most effective pieces of a hotel marketing strategy. By taking the initiative of using a survey, you not only make sure that the reviews that you get are verified, but you can also use them for social media exposure. The TrustYou survey tool is an advanced guest satisfaction survey tool that allows hotels to actively collect post-stay reviews. The feature enables you to ask guests to share their feedback on Google and Facebook, allowing them to influence a large number of travelers.

4. Incorporate the guest feedback on your hotel website

While it is important to launch your guests’ feedback into the vast sea of social media, this goes the other way around, too. A very good way of showing appreciation towards clients’ reviews is to incorporate them into your hotel’s website. This is the exact purpose that was attributed to the Social Gallery Widget feature of TrustYou Reputation  Management. Integrating social content on a hotel website, through Social Gallery widget is a simple step that can add emotional value. It also gives insights into experiences and personal stories and that is something that encourages travelers to book directly. 

Reputation management solutions help hotels incorporate these best practices into their hotel marketing strategy. To start turning guest reviews into hotel bookings, contact our team of experts and they will help you leverage your excellent reputation.