Tease, Amplify and Echo: Google’s advice on creating hotel video ads

 

Creating hotel video adverts may seem like an exercise reserved for large companies with big budgets, but every hotel can benefit from video marketing.

When you consider 66% of people watch travel-related content when thinking about or planning a trip, it’s a detriment to your business if you don’t use some form of video content.

There are ways for all hotels to utilise video to enhance their brand. If anyone knows what works and what doesn’t when it comes to branding and advertising, it’s Google.

Take a look at these eight video marketing tips from the search engine giant:

1. Think broadly about the metrics you measure

While views may be the easiest and most obvious way to measure success, this method won’t give you an entirely accurate picture of your results. There are many other useful metrics you can look at to assess how effective your video has been in driving revenue or brand awareness.

These include:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Sign-ups
• Unique viewers
• Watch time
• View-through rate
• Sales
• Calls

That’s just to name a few. There’s also a range of ways to measure these indicators using Google Analytics, YouTube analytics, Facebook Insights, and Google AdWords.

There are ways for all hotels to utilise video to enhance their brand.

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2. Start small

If creating video content isn’t something you’re familiar with don’t expect, or try, to create the next viral ad campaign (think old spice guy). Attempt to repurpose previous content on different platforms or make short videos that you can more easily perfect before you move onto bigger projects.

3. Don’t fall for fads

It may be tempting to jump on the bandwagon of the latest video or advertising craze to send your brand viral, but it’s not conducive to long-term success. You need to build a strong foundation for your brand that can be extended over time to strengthen and enhance your message.

4. Be realistic about your time and resources

Neither you nor your potential guests have much time to waste so it might be prudent to use shorter videos predominantly. Six second bumper ads on YouTube can often be more effective than longer form videos. Save your extended content for when you know viewers will be more receptive, such as evening Facebook posts.

5. Make it meaningful to the consumer

Instead of celebrating your own brand, plan your content to revolve around moments that will be meaningful for guests. There are numerous events and milestones throughout the year you can capitalise on to achieve this including Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Halloween.

6. Tease your audience

You want to create interest, anticipation, and excitement in your target audience. You can do this by planting a seed with shorter content and give them more days or weeks later, revealing pieces of the campaign puzzle to keep them engaged. When the time comes to ask for their booking, they may be very familiar with your brand and more likely to convert.

7. Amplify your content

To attract more people, you should combine short and long content at the same time. You should also vary the platforms you use to host your content, and even use different content on each, depending on who you’re likely to connect with. This will help increase your incremental reach.

8. Echo your message

Once you have established a story or message in longer videos, make sure you create multiple shorter versions that are distinguishable from each other. You can then use them in a number of circumstances to reinforce what you introduced in the entirety of other videos.

How should you share your content?

When you create your video, the first thing you want to do is host it on your own website and also on a YouTube channel. However, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are also worthy places for an audience to be influenced by your content:

• Facebook
  The number of videos people post to Facebook went up 75% in 2016, while recent figures reveal that 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook every single day. Storytelling also works well on Facebook, so try to take an audience on an engaging journey rather than selling your room.
  
• Instagram
  Offering video in a similar format to Vine, Instagram videos can be 15 seconds long and you can also apply one of their many filters. Instagram has also made it easy to create easy time-lapse videos. Snapchat
  Snapchat stories are easy to digest and can be created instantly, lasting for 24 hours and ensure your brand is top of mind for followers.

The most important thing to remember when creating video content is that people want to be shown creative and emotive ideas. For examples, see this SiteMinder article on the best hotel video marketing.