Omnichannel is a term online marketers know for a while now. Especially in the B2C market Omnichannel marketing is 'hot' but it has also found its way to B2B businesses.

Let me start by explaining in short what Omnichannel is. Omnichannel is brand experience to the Max, with a capital M. When a company has an Omnichannel marketing strategy all their channels and platforms breathe the same ambiance, promote the same unique selling points and have the same look and feel. In short: their brand identity is visible everywhere you go and because of this, easily identified by your target audience. This way, a customer or client recognizes your business immediately, which makes for the ideal way to make sure your business is and stays top-of-mind in your client's heads.

Think about Disney, the brand breathes the same magical look-and-feel in everything you see, hear or read about them. They executed this so well that we as their guests really experience their brand throughout all of their platforms. Their success in this is supported by the fact that despite the quite heavy bill that comes with a visit to one of their theme parcs, we all still feel happy and magical when we think about our stay there. You have to admit: THAT is magic!

As Disney is one of the most famous resorts in the world, this makes the perfect bridge for me to talk a little about Omnichannel in the hospitality business. Omnichannel experiences and the hospitality business go hand-in-hand very well. Think about it: leisure, travel and tourism are experiences people love to spend time on and talk about. This makes for the perfect opportunity to use their user generated content to optimize your marketing strategy. For example: if your hotel, apartment or B&B has a social media account you can keep track of which posts scored the most likes and/or shares so you can go off these analysis to produce future content. But also check out which content is posted using your location tag or a hashtag with your hotel's, apartment's or B&B's name. This makes for step 1 of the Omnichannel strategy: know your customers/clients. When you know what your target audience likes, you can optimize their customer journey. And that's actually step 2 of the Omnichannel strategy. Make content which your target audience wants to see, not what you THINK they want to see. Online metric tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar and Facebook Statistics make online analysis easy. The input of this data should be the guideline for your Omnichannel marketing strategy. When you know all this, it's key to make sure all your platforms have the same look and feel and that you are consequent in your tone-of-voice, use of colours etc. When you succeed in this – and are truly Omnichannel – the boundaries between all your platforms for communication with your guests fade away as they are so intertwined and complementary of each other.

But Omnichannel goes further than just the above. The final step is going that extra mile: the personalization of content. And this is where the hospitality business has a big advantage. Guests stay with you for a considerably longer period of time than they spend in a supermarket or clothing shop for example. This gives you as an hotelier more time to gather our guests' preferences and make sure this information is stored for future reference. Because we all love it when a hotel, apartment or B&B knows we have stayed with them before and remembered that we like that extra fluffy cushion or prefer a non-alcoholic welcome drink. For this you will need to be able to keep track of your guest's preferences. With RoomRaccoon's Property Management System, this is as easy as 1-2-3. It lets you keep track of all their wishes, wants and needs in a clear overview per guest. This will make sure people credit your hotel, apartment or B&B on social media and tell their friends and family about their amazing stay with you. And what better advertising than Word of Mouth? What also works is actually re-posting content made by your guests. For example, a picture they made of their dinner at your restaurant or a picture of them relaxing at the pool– you can find this content by the location tag or hashtags for your hotel, apartment or B&B. Don't forget to credit and thank them for it when you re-post this on your own timeline and/or feed. This way your guests will feel noticed and appreciated.

In short: make sure you learn from your guests and they will let you grow: success guaranteed! I would love to hear your success stories when it comes to your marketing strategy so feel free to drop a comment :-)

Marie Catherine Wetzels
PR coordinator

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