This is a guest blog by Rocky Westbrook (pictured below left) from Sabre Hospitality on the effecitveness of using videos in hotel marketing.
In today’s online battle for room nights, a video can make all the difference.
Video is growing as a contributing factor to room night bookings. In a recent study by Google, they reported video consumption among travelers increased
year-over-year: leisure travelers increased 6% in 2013 and business travelers increased 5%. Videos made by hotels; trip reviews by individuals; and commercial ads are just a few types of videos that are attracting potential guests.
Unlike the 1990’s when you had to lug a brick of a camera about to capture video, today’s video is simpler to capture and produce. However, connecting with your audience to sell room nights takes some planning. I’ve put together a few things I’ve learned to help you out.
1. Guess who’s coming for dinner
If you want to engage your audience, you need to know the people in the audience. Past experiences, likes and dislikes, location, job function … make up the stories of your guests. Make a list as you would if you were taking an order for dinner. This list will help you find content in the “kitchen” to relate with your viewers.
Here are a few examples I came up with from some of my travels :
- Looking for good internet connection on a business trip
- Taking the kids to the hotel’s pool (giving my wife some free time)
- Dragging my bags in.
2. Clear as Mud
The backbone of every video is its message or theme. Every scene and action is built around it. Your theme should be short and to the point. Don’t muddy the water with some complex statement. If you can’t write it out in a sentence or less, you need to simplify.
Here are a few examples of themes I’ve found:
- A good night stay
- We’ll take the stress out of booking
- Stay unique
3. Show Me How You Feel
The right tone can help connect your video with your audience. If theme is the spine of your video; tone is its nervous system – how it feels start to finish. Viewers engage more if you can connect them emotionally to the action on screen.
Think about how you want your viewers to feel and use that as the baseline for your video’s tone. Your goal isn’t to “tell” them how to feel, but to use action to trigger an emotional response (show don’t tell).
Here are a different ways hoteliers are utilizing tone in their videos:
- La Quinta uses humor to combine a booking experience with their theme, “we think outside the box”
- NYLO combines music and images to express “we are unique.”
- Best Western’s “Indie (independent) Films” series draws on more dramatic tones to build a more personable connection.
4. Are we There Yet?
The length of your video and pacing can make or break the experience. Too long, and someone may not click on it. Take too much time getting to your point, and they’ll move on. The rule I like to follow is – take only as much time as you need to reach your destination (to tell your story).
Here’s an example from Marriott that flows start to finish, sticking to its core theme of change (starting with images of uncooked vegetables and concluding with satisfied diners). It spends only as much time as needed to connect you to their theme and setting the right tone.
5. Needle in a Hay Stack
There are tons of video circulating daily. How do you get your video out for the world to see and experience? Remove as many “hay stacks” as you can.
- Get to know which location your guests go for information and display it there.
- Tag your video appropriately. YouTube uses tagging functionality to help with searches. With the right tags, your video is more likely to show up in searches.
- Spread the word. Share your video and encourage others to share it.
Conclusion
We’d like to hear your comments on what you think about using video and what effects you’ve seen from it in the comment section below.
• Rocky Westbrook works in Sabre Hospitality’s training department, and is the face behind the camera in many of the video interviews you’ll find on our YouTube channel
