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As the world begins to open up over the next year, video content marketing is going to be a priority if you want to stand out.
Stay with me to find out why you need video and an easy way for you to benefit.
Welcome to another edition of Hospitality Property School.
I am your instructor, Gerry MacPherson.
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Introduction to Video Content Marketing
Okay, I want you to use your imagination.
Imagine you want to get away, to unwind, to a hotel, resort, inn or bed & breakfast.
You go to your favourite hospitality property booking engine to search for a property. You find a location and a property that looks promising. You go through the booking procedure only to find out the hotel is full for those dates you have available.
You like the area and find another property just down the street and want to do a little more research. You go to their website but are disappointed.
The rooms look small, dark and dingy and do not feel very welcoming. Compared to your first choice, it looks second-rate but the location is perfect and it is cheaper.
So you give it some thought and then say “What the heck”. You book the place.
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A few days later you arrive at the hotel, walk into a very nice lobby and you try to remember if you had seen a picture of this lobby on their website.
You don’t remember.
The check-in is very friendly and efficient and you make your way to your room.
What happens next is totally unexpected.
You walk into your room and just stand there – shocked!
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Okay, I want you to use your imagination.
You go to your favourite hospitality property booking engine to search for a property. You find a location and a property that looks promising. You go through the booking procedure only to find out the hotel is full for those dates you have available.
You like the area and find another property just down the street and want to do a little more research. You go to their website but are disappointed.
The rooms look small, dark and dingy and do not feel very welcoming. Compared to your first choice, it looks second-rate but the location is perfect and it is cheaper.
So you give it some thought and then say “What the heck”. You book the place.
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A few days later you arrive at the hotel, walk into a very nice lobby and you try to remember if you had seen a picture of this lobby on their website.
You don’t remember.
The check-in is very friendly and efficient and you make your way to your room.
What happens next is totally unexpected.
You walk into your room and just stand there – shocked!
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Your first thought is
“What are the owners thinking? This room is amazing!”
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The room was large, beautiful, well lit, with very elegant décor. You were not expecting this.
The room you saw on their website was nothing like this. To be honest, the room looked twice as nice as the original property you wanted to book and was less expensive.
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Do you see where I am going with this story?
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Books with Tips & Strategies for Your Hotel, Resort, Inn, Bed and Breakfast
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According to statisticbrain.com hotel bookings
Per cent of all travel reservations made on the internet 57 %
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Per cent of same-day hotel reservations made from a smartphone 65 %
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And these numbers are only going up.
Do you think many hospitality property owners realize how much money they are losing by not showing their properties in the best light possible?
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If you can’t wait until the end and are wondering how you can get your own videos for your property and save, visit
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Why do you think many hospitality property owners end up in this situation?
Based on experience, I have a few thoughts.
- They don’t think that hotel, inn, resort or bed& breakfast images matter online.
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- They took their pictures five years ago and have never bothered to update them.
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- They know their property is superior and think so does everyone else. All a guest has to do is see the property and they will know it is greater. That is the problem – the average quest will not check out the property because they have already booked the competition.
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- No or poor images are preventing customers from looking at the property.
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What can you do about it?
The future of video is here and if your hospitality property is not already incorporating video into your internet marketing strategy, you do so at your own peril.
2016 has been a full-on video revolution year for marketers with 61% of businesses integrating video as a marketing tool. 66% of these companies were not using video in the previous year. This trend has progressed fast and will reach new heights sooner than you think.
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You might still have your doubts and be asking yourself.
Is it really worth using videos for promoting my hospitality property?
Do you have the resources to create video content for my market?
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The easy answer: Yes!
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Video is one of the most flexible and profitable digital marketing tools available and is taking content marketing by storm.
In an age of information overload, it is easy for independent hotels, resorts, inns and bed & breakfasts to offer content that is easy to digest and It is no surprise that Axonn Research found seven in 10 people view brands in a more positive light after watching an interesting video from them.
According to Forrester’s researchers, if a picture is worth 1,000 words then one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words.
Production costs have fallen significantly in recent years and you no longer need to be a technical genius to use it.
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You will need to keep the following in mind.
- Your target audience and ensuring any videos are relevant to them.
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- That you don’t neglect social media and promote across multiple channels.
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- Make sure your videos are mobile-friendly. More than a tenth of all video plays happen on mobiles and tablets, and that number is growing.
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- Lastly, to be creative, not only with the videos themselves but in the campaign strategy you build around them.
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Let me know if this is making sense by leaving a comment.
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Need more convincing? I’m going to give you 10 more reasons you need video content marketing and then what you need to know to create your own.
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Impact
There was a time when including an image to your marketing was enough to enhance your properties attraction with potential customers. Today, with the overload of information blasting people all the time, videos have a much further reaching effect on today’s media-driven culture.
Every day, people are inundated with information and they have to decide, what they take the time to read and view. Good video promotion can bring a clear understanding of the benefits of your property & service and with the use of eye-catching visual media will help a customer feel more confident in their decision to book your property.
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Video Increases Bookings
Videos can increase your profits. Adding a video on your website can increase booking conversions.
It makes sense that the effectiveness of video is not even that surprising. Vision is our most dominant sense and most information transmitted to our brain is visual.
So if already pictures can boost engagement, imagine what moving images can do to your business.
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Video Shows a Return on Investment
76% of businesses say that video provides a good return on investment. Even though video production is not yet the easiest nor cheapest form of marketing, it has already proven it can pay off. Besides, online video editing tools are constantly improving and becoming more affordable. Even your smartphone can make pretty decent videos.
Another good news is that your videos don’t have to be perfect. It’s the content that matters! Customers are mainly put off by videos that don’t explain a property or the services they offer clearly enough. Low quality and poor design don’t matter as much.
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Video Builds Trust
Trust is the foundation of conversions and sales. But building trust should be a goal on its own.
Video does it all.
Video content is likely to engage and ignite emotions in us, so, if you are serious about content marketing, you must be serious about video, too.
Effective marketing videos can present your hospitality property in a conversational form which can give customers more confidence to book online.
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Google Loves Videos
You’re 53 times more likely show up first on Google if you have a video embedded on your website. Since Google now owns YouTube, there has been a significant increase in how much videos affect your search engine rank.
Make sure to optimize your videos on YouTube for SEO. Write interesting titles and descriptions. Add a link back to your website and services. Give possible guests the way to take the next step.
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Video Appeals to Mobile Users
Video and smartphones hand in hand. From 2012 to 2014, mobile video views have increased by 400 percent. YouTube reports smartphone video intake rises 100% every year. Since people like to watch videos on the go, and the amount of smartphone users is growing, your video audience keeps getting bigger and bigger.
In addition, Google tells us that smartphone users are twice as likely as TV viewers and 1.4 times more likely as desktop viewers to feel a sense of personal connection to brands that show video content on their devices.
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Video Can Explain Everything
45% of businesses who use video marketing said that they have an explainer video on their home page. Of those businesses, 83% said that their home page explainer video was effective.
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Video Engages On Multiple Levels
A video is a great tool for learning but it’s also super easy to consume.
Video marketing can capture a wide audience and it works on many levels. Make sure you target not only to the eyes but also to the ears of potential guests. Your competitive advantage gets double power!
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Video Encourages Social Media Shares
YouTube is the second most popular social network in the world. Social networks encourage video content with their new features. Facebook has launched Live Video. Instagram put in place 60-Second Videos & Instagram Stories, Twitter has Periscope.
However, in the social media context, video marketers must remember that people share emotions, not facts. 76% of users say they would share a branded video with their friends if it was entertaining. So create fun entertaining videos to encourage social shares.
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10. Video in Email Campaigns
When your creating videos, make sure you integrate them into your email marketing campaigns. An introductory email that includes a video receives an increased click-through rate of 96%!
That’s an amazing way to stand out from the competition and get your message across.
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Here’s what you should consider.
- Why good quality photography and video are essential to your bottom line.
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- Deciding what type of images you need.
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- Establishing a budget wisely.
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- Find the right photographer/videographer for the job.
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- What you need to do to help the photographer/videographer.
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- How to get the biggest bang out of your images/video.
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Let’s look into these a little more closely.
The internet is an extremely visual medium and in the hospitality industry, potential guests tend to look at any images before they start reading any text about amenities or services. In most cases, they’ve already made up their mind with their first impressions.
Depending on what they saw, you may have already secured or lost the booking.
People tend to subconsciously look at a picture or video and visualize themselves in that setting. If they like themselves in that setting, they will want to be there and act appropriately.
They will then try to fit their needs into the list of amenities rather than the other way around.
If you don’t believe me, think back to your own experiences and the last time you booked a hospitality property or bought a product online. Did you read all the text or check out the images first.
I bet, if you like the pictures then you skimmed over the amenities and if you didn’t like the images you probably scrutinized the amenities almost hoping they would not suit you so you could move on.
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Think about it. That is the way most of our brains are wired.
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At the very least, your images should truthfully reflect your property. Don’t over exaggerate but it would be fine to use a certain degree of creative license when it comes to the photography.ie. Good lighting, clean sheets, everything in its place.
As I had mentioned, video is taking marketing by storm, but you’ll have to do more than just make one realize its full potential.
If it were five years in the future, would you be reading this article or would you be watching it? As online video continues its inimitable rise, it’s an interesting question to ponder.
According to Cisco, a worldwide leader in IT and networking, this year, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic. Video-on-demand traffic alone will have almost tripled.
Is creating marketing videos really imaginable for small businesses?
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Absolutely!
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What do You Need to Consider When Creating a Video?
Contemplate Social Media
Social media’s focus has been slowly morphing from images to video for a while now, with the uprising of video sharing sites like the decade-long dominance of YouTube and recently, the development of Instagram Stories and Facebook Live.
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“Not only are video sharing platforms being used, but they’re also flourishing.”
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Consumers view videos as a convenient, easy and quick way to get useful information about a product, service, organization or idea.
Therefore, businesses need to understand that videos provide a special type of easily-consumed, detailed content that potential customers increasingly engage with, enjoy, share and use as an educational step in the buying cycle. It is now up to businesses to create captivating videos to help spread their messages and maximize their customer base. Viewers are standing by.
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Shorter is better
The Internet, coupled with the range of portable devices, such as smartphones and tablets, transform every person into a potential guest. Long lost are the days where hospitality properties had to actually find their target audience and hope their property’s messages reached them.
For example; print ads. radio & TV ads, billboards)
Now, we have analytical data on narrowed-down possible guests, targeted online ads, landing pages and social sites that clearly and efficiently spread messages to specific groups of people to increase interest.
While the everyday person travels to and from work, shopping centres, events or leisurely relaxes in front of the TV in the evenings, studies show that same person’s mobile device is by their side most of the time, if not, all of the time. This person is certain to browse the Internet on their phone, and when a long article or dense product description seems too boring to read, a short video is often the preferred method of research. Easy to swallow content most often wins the hearts of possible guests.
Short videos are beneficial to hospitality properties because they establish creditability, enhance interest and have been proven to boost bookings. (They are also less expensive to produce.)
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Know the technology
Creating marketing videos and online marketing can be very fluid. It is not “one size fits all” and nothing about it is “written in stone.” Technology changes quickly, causing customer’s behaviours to change. You must be able to make the right changes as needed.
A good piece of advice for any hospitality property owner is to have at least one passionate marketing specialist who can keep your company up-to-date with modern marketing strategies, or hire a competent marketing agency.
Many consumers now look at businesses that are not using current technology as out of date, and might immediately discredit the business as not being trustworthy or legitimate.
According to an Online Publishers Association study, 46% of Internet users who recalled viewing a video advertisement recently took some action after watching the video.
To put it bluntly, if you’re not taking advantage of video marketing right now, you might as well be pointing your potential customers to your competitors.
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How long should your videos be?
The first 10 seconds is everything.
20 per cent of people who watch videos will close the video within the first 10 seconds.
When a video reaches the 30-second mark, about 1/3 of the original viewers will be gone and by one minute, 45 percent of the viewers have left and roughly 60 percent by two minutes.
Here are two of the most important rules about creating marketing videos:
1. The video must immediately capture people’s attention.
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2. Marketing videos should be kept as short as possible.
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For the video to immediately capture attention, it has to be relevant to the people watching. It should answer a pressing question by providing a solution to a problem.
That is what gives the video value.
Additionally, videos need to clearly exclaim a clear and unique message, but the video must also be condensed, straightforward, intriguing or entertaining, story-focused and leaving the audience wanting more. Leaving viewers eager to take the next step (AKA: a call to action, which should be clearly pointed out in your video).
How Long Should Your Marketing Video Be?
Studies show that when creating marketing videos the so-called “sweet spot” is two minutes, while other studies reveal that the best length for an online video advertisement is only 15 seconds. A large study from 2010 revealed that social video advertisements of 15 seconds or less are shared nearly 37 percent more than video ads longer than that.
My suggestion? Start by making a video as long or as short as you feel it needs to be. Experiment and analyze the results. An even better idea would be to create one video 1 to 2 minutes long and then a condensed version of 15 to 30 seconds, and see which video gets more engagement, such as shares, comments and clicks.
Most effective places online to put short videos
Website
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Company blog
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Email marketing
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Social media sites
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Online advertising
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In Conclusion
Video content marketing is becoming more and more imperative, affordable and a creative video can be spread online in a matter of days, and even possibly go viral.
If you don’t have the time to create your own videos, we can help.
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Here are two options:
Your property review video
We will help you increase your bookings by creating a video highlighting the best of your property reviews.
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Your next option is your property promotional video
We will help you enhance your visibility and branding by creating a promotional video emphasizing the best your property has to offer.
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With both video options, you’ll be able to use them on your website, YouTube & other video platforms, on social media, and at events.
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To find out more about getting your own video visit:
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to find out how easy it is to start using the power of video to increase your bookings and profit.
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Are you currently using video content marketing in your promotional strategy?
Let me know in the comments.
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You will have access to this post for the next six weeks and then it will get locked in the vault for Hospitality Property School Group members only.
When you see that we have something new, don’t mark it “Unread” or file it away in the belief you’ll read it later because you might miss your chance.
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To see all the other valuable material you’d have access to as a member of the Hospitality Property School Group, check out the short video in the episode post-show notes.
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In the next episode, I will talk about the Keystone HPD Library.
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That’s it for today’s episode,
Until next time, have a fun day.
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Get a jump on your success by getting tips & techniques to help your property grow by signing up for your weekly editions of INNsider Tips? You can find the link in the show notes.
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⇒ TO READ OR LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE ON KEYSTONE HOSPITALITY PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT:
https://keystonehpd.com/video-content-marketing-227
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