9 ways to ramp up your holiday marketing

‘Tis the season to be fully booked! Get the most out of the holiday season with these holiday advertising and online marketing tips.

Update your website

If it snows your region and you’re still showing sunny summer photos, you’re going to lose out on potential reservations. Not only do your potential guests like seeing what the property looks like now, but the search engines like websites that are updated frequently. Make sure your photos are current and that you’re promoting in-season activities and events.

Turn on gift certificates

Your booking engine provider should have the option for selling gift certificates for your property. Turn on this feature! Did you know that about 93% of U.S. consumers give or receive a gift card during the holidays? Did you also know that on average, those recipients will spend about 20% more than the certificate’s value? Let your repeat guests do the best word-of-mouth marketing around by giving their friends and family a great reason to visit your property.

Decorate or add holiday-specific amenities

Make your property a bright and magical retreat since it’s already dark and glum outside by decorating for the season or even adding a few seasonal amenities. This could be as simple as a carafe of hot chocolate in the lobby with a few goodies to choose from or revamping the breakfast menu with seasonal dishes.

Offer holiday packages or specials

Beyond adding some boughs of holly to your property, think up some specials or packages that tie into the season and encourage some off-season reservations. Perhaps it’s a snowshoe package or themed spa package.  

Highlight the season on social media

Share photos of your property all decked out for the holidays on social media as well as links back to your site to see your holiday rates and packages.

You could also host themed contests like an ugly sweater contest, an Elf on the Shelf guessing game around your property, or even a recipes contest to encourage engagement with nominal prizes like a discount or free bottle of wine for the winner’s next stay.

Send seasonally-appropriate email campaigns

We bet your inbox is already flooding with Black Friday and Cyber Monday announcements but these days are very important to savvy shoppers. Everyone loves a discount and will be on the lookout for exclusive deals and savings, especially on bigger ticket items like vacations. You can also tease the deals in a series of emails to generate buzz and excitement and see who is most likely going to make a purchase.

Do your guests need an idea for a stocking stuffer? Why, you’ve got one ready for them with suggesting a gift certificate to your property as the perfect holiday gift in addition to your Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers.

Update PPC copy on AdWords and Bing

Update your ad copy to focus on the holiday season and your special offers or unique amenities. You can also use promotion extensions to highlight holiday discounts, it’s recommended to use a percentage if it’s a smaller discount or a dollar amount if it’s bigger, or you can highlight Christmas deals or your gift certificates as a quick option for a holiday gift.

Help guests plan

Blogging is a wonderful content marketing tactic to engage repeat guests with your brand as well as bring in new audiences from the search engines and finding things to write about in the holiday season is pretty easy! Write blogs that highlight holiday events, holiday traditions in your town, where to get the best holiday cocktail or meal, where to shop, family-friendly activities, and more.

Remarketing for specific pages

Say a potential guest landed on your holiday blog or a page about your holiday-specific promotions but didn’t book. Will they just turn into the ghost of a Christmas’ lost guests? Not if you add remarketing to your advertising budget! By remarketing, or retargeting, you can add specific code to specific landing pages and create an ad targeting people who land on those pages and entice them to come back to your site and complete their booking. Your ad could display on other websites or you could try a Facebook-specific campaign.