Turning Hospitality Guests into Effective Marketers

Start by providing educational or informational content that goes beyond basic product descriptions. Choose a team member or employee to share behind-the-scenes of their work day, showcasing not only features of their work or your brand, but what it looks like to be a relational part of your brand. Include on your website or app a page or section for resources like local guides, travel tips, or stories or deeper information about your partners or contributors. Offer in-house seminars like cooking classes, craft workshops, or historical tours that guests can sign up during their hotel stay or for local residents to visit your business. Having avenues for education or instruction not only informs but also engages guests and customers, making them feel like insiders to how your business operates.

Encourage guests and customers to share their experiences with your brand. Design Instagram-worthy photo ops that are too beautiful not to share on their personal feed, or run photo contests monthly or seasonally for guests to post photos of them enjoying your hotel, restaurant, or product with a specific hashtag. Utilizing guests as content creators, even if they don’t consider themselves influencers, provides proof of people in the wild enjoying your business, but also gives customers a sense of ownership in your brand’s story.

Loyalty programs that reward customers for broadcasting their support of your business go beyond rewarding them for making purchases. Offer a discount on a future visit or a small gift for guests who write a review or tag your brand on social media. You can also provide exclusive, early access to new services, events, or promotions in exchange for sharing their experiences or providing feedback through surveys or questionnaires. Incentives not only boost the amount of interactions from guests and customers, it also encourages them to become more involved with your business and think critically about their interactions with your products or services.

Not all your guests and customers will be experienced influencers or ambassadors. Providing simple tools and instructions to all guests increases the likelihood of them sharing their experiences. This could include beautiful and shareable graphics on social media, easy-to-use links or QR codes in rooms or on receipts that lead directly to writing a review, or branded social media templates for sharing their own photos on social media. Making the sharing process as easy as possible will equip your guests and customers to articulate their enthusiasm for your hotel, restaurant, or brand to other potential guests or customers.

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