If you're in the hospitality industry, then you know just how important branding is. It's how you establish your brand as a professional business that people can trust and rely on. Unfortunately, hospitality is one of those industries which has a reputation for not being too fussy when it comes to branding and as such many hotels and other businesses have failed and/or been forced to downsize and/or merge due to the fact they haven't been able to come up with a good brand strategy. Fortunately, there are some simple principles that you can follow to help you promote and develop your brand in the hospitality industry.
In terms of your own branding, it's always best to start small and work your way up. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket when it comes to branding, but do be open to working with others in the industry in order to gain branding benefits from their experiences. As an example, there are tourism organizations in various parts of the country, which may help you promote your own brand in a particular area. Not only will they be able to show you examples of successful branding in the hospitality industry, but they may also be able to show you where it's going wrong, so that you can make sure you don't repeat the same mistakes. The same goes for hospitality organizations in your own industry - if they are promoting a new conference or seminar that you can promote at a price that you can afford, speak to them about it!
One of the biggest mistakes that many hotels make is focusing too much on a single aspect of their branding. For example, many hotels put out press releases about how great they are, and about how they want to impress customers, but they forget to mention their other aspects. For example, they may only mention how great their food is. However, they might mention how they feature excellent cuisine in their restaurants, or how happy their guests are once they arrive at their hotel. This kind of one-dimensional approach is not likely to help your tourism or hospitality business achieve a good reputation.
It's important to have a well-planned strategy for branding in hospitality. You need to work with branding consultants and visual elements specialists to create a branding strategy, and then use it to promote your hotel brand. You should first work to improve the overall appearance of your hotel website and then add in some solid branding elements. There are many different things you can do to improve the look of your hotel website, and here are just some examples:
o Include strong graphic design elements such as clear photos of the outside of your hotel and of the surroundings. Make sure that the photos are taken in natural light, rather than artificial light, as this will have an impact on the emotional intelligence of the customer. In addition, you may wish to consider the colour schemes of the photos you have used. This can have a real impact on the emotions of your guests
o Try and include as many different images and colours as possible - but don't let them overload the page. You want to ensure that there is enough room on the page to properly display all the information about your hotel brand. Some good brand strategies involve using a colour wheel - where each colour represents something positive that your brand will stand out for and try to limit the number of colours that you use on your website. In order to fully understand how your brand will be perceived in your particular industry, it's best to practice and test your branding in hospitality first with print ads and then with online ads. You may find that online ads work better than print ones for boosting your brand, particularly if you target potential holiday tourists.
o Use as many emotion-based words as you can, as this will help in building the credibility of your brand. The more emotions that you include in your marketing mix (such as happiness, anger, surprise, etc), the more emotional impact you will have on the minds of your potential customers. The main thing is to make sure that your customers are always thinking of you and how they can benefit from your services. By using real people as your brand, you can easily evoke very personal reactions - and remember that this will help you in making your customers feel emotionally attached to you. Emotionally appealing websites also tend to be more successful at luring in potential tourists.
In summary, the main points on which branding in hospitality revolves are to incorporate as many emotions as possible in your branding, and to make sure that you are able to back up the claims that you are making with your brand name and logo.
Emotional branding is very effective in the tourism industry, but remember that it needs to be supported by other branding techniques such as print advertising and online marketing to help reinforce your brand name. If you have already begun branding in hospitality, take time to build up a solid network of suppliers and customers and begin using some of the more effective techniques mentioned here. Don't be afraid to expand and grow your brand name into your field of expertise.
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