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What does MARKETING mean to you and your organization?

Marketing is more than just advertising and selling products or services. It’s about understanding your customers, meeting their needs and wants, and building long-term relationships with them. In today’s fast-paced world, where competition is fierce, effective marketing is essential for the success of any organization. So, what does marketing mean to you and your organization? Let’s take a closer look.

Marketing is about understanding your customers

The first step in effective marketing is understanding your customers. Who are they? What are their needs and wants? What motivates them to make a purchase? By answering these questions, you can develop a marketing strategy that speaks directly to your target audience. This can involve researching your customers’ demographics, psychographics, and behavior patterns, as well as analyzing their feedback and engagement with your brand.

Marketing is about meeting customer needs

Once you understand your customers, the next step is to meet their needs and wants. This involves developing products or services that solve their problems, fulfill their desires, or make their lives easier. Effective marketing involves creating a unique value proposition that differentiates your brand from competitors and positions it as the best solution for your customers’ needs.

Marketing is about building relationships

Finally, marketing is about building long-term relationships with your customers. This involves engaging with them on a regular basis, providing them with relevant and useful content, and offering exceptional customer service. By building trust and loyalty, you can turn customers into brand advocates who will promote your brand to others.

In conclusion, marketing is an essential part of any organization’s success. By understanding your customers, meeting their needs, and building relationships with them, you can create a powerful marketing strategy that drives growth and builds a strong brand. So, take the time to invest in your marketing efforts and watch your organization thrive.

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If you want to rank higher and get more organic traffic to your website, free SERP checker tools are the great ones to help your rankings in the search engines. Let’s look at what a SERP is and why a SERP checker tool is vital for your business.

SERP checker tools are essential to get an insight which websites are ranking at search engine results and Google rankings for the keyword you targeted. This crucial data you acquired is not only learning the positions you targeted, but also for the strategy that you will follow to rank higher.

Ranking higher is quietly equivalent to getting more leads to your website. With the help of the keyword rank checker, you will be closer as a strategy to converting the leads into sales.

Whether you are an agency or a small business, the online ranking & presence is an indispensable optimization for all levels of business you are carrying out.

With the free SERP checker & tracker tools, you just need to type the keywords you want to follow whether desktop or mobile. Once you analyze them, integrate the SEO tools to your website in order to audit your website according to the data you acquired from the SERP results.

Top 5 Free SERP Checker & Tracker Tools for analyzing your targeted keywords 

Here we gathered the free SERP checker & tracker tools to help you to see search results from any country in real-time. With these free tools, you will learn more about the ranking difficulty, organic traffic, and position history. Then, you will have a chance to change your selected keywords with low difficult keywords, such as more long-tail keywords.

Let’s now compare 5 free SERP checker & tracker tools to find the best fitted for your business:

• Ahrefs
• Whatsmyserp
• SpySERP
• AccuRanker
• SerpWatch

Ahrefs

Ahrefs offers a limited free version to analyze the SERP and website rankings for the keyword you targeted, there will be an opportunity to see the first three ranked websites as free.

Unlike other tools, Ahrefs has plenty of free SEO tools that you can use and test your website performance easily. If you would like to see the whole results for your search, you can sign up for a 7-day free trial or paid versions to improve your SEO in an organized way. However, there is no multiple keyword ranker entries in their tracker, you can just search for one keyword ranking.

 

Whatsmyserp

Another keyword rank checker alternative is Whatsmyserp. With the tool, you will track your keywords for unlimited domains for your targeted keywords as free.

 

 

With this rank checker, you will be able to track your keywords unlimited way without signing up. Whatsmyserp offers an exclusive opportunity as an unlimited way compared to the other tools to track SERP features and your site & competition.

SpySERP

With SpySERP, it will be so easy to check the SERP results whether for Google, Bing, Yandex and Yahoo, you can select your specific browser you would like to see in the results.

By selecting the device, you will see the differences between the desktop and mobile versions in terms of ranking of the website as location. SpySERP provides a double report for you as desktop and mobile.  If there is any different ranking position for your website at mobile, the tool will give you an insight into it and you will take quick action to optimize it.

 

Also, the rank checker tool gives you an opportunity to search for user language, the report reflects the differences for it and it gives advanced reports for your platform.

AccuRanker

If you are looking for basic SERP tracker software, AccuRanker offers you top search results as Google appearance. You will be able to see the results as exactly how Google shows you.

This rank checker tool is extremely useful as it’s free version. AccuRanker shows you ads, local and search results with up to 5 times free searches every day. With the help of this tool, you can check the differences between mobile and desktop separately.

 

SerpWatch

SerpWatch is an advanced rank tracker tool with deep rank tracking insights and workflow optimization. It differentiates with other rank tracker tools in terms of sophisticated image-recognition systems. Also, they particularly show you the exact ranking position of your website domain for the keywords you entered to their checker.

There is a limitation for the keywords you would like to check on SerpWatch, a maximum of 5 words you can analyze every day as a free for your website and see the rankings. You must sign up for further details about the tool provided for the SERP results.

Conclusion

It is so obvious that the right keywords improve your organic CTRs and ranking at the search engines and your website will be more visible at SERP. These rank checker tools help you to narrow your keyword gap with your competitors and rank higher at the browser you selected for your business.

Through the effective usage of those tools, there will be no obstacle in converting your website traffic to potential sales.

 

Ramy Ayoub

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Videos are an undeniably powerful marketing tool, especially for the hotel and travel industry. After all, they have the ability to capture the attention of the audience much quicker than text and have the power to generate extremely high traffic to your website. No wonder video marketing has taken the Internet by storm. This effective tool is so versatile that you can use it for promoting your hotel’s services and building customer rapport.

What is Video Marketing?

Video marketing isn’t just about selling content to a target audience. There are different aspects of this online marketing tool that can be used to promote website visits, products and services as well as to attract bookings. You can even improve your customer service through effective video marketing strategies.

How Your Hotel Can Benefit From Video Marketing

A professionally created hotel video will help your business gain credibility in the marketplace. Video content won’t just help you tell your story, but it also allows your potential customers to get a feel for your hotel’s facilities and services before they book a room on your website. In this article, get to know the 5 essential video marketing tips and some amazing video examples to increase your hotel revenue.

1. Focus on quality

High-quality videos tend to attract more viewers than low-quality images. The fact is if your hotel video looks like it has been created by an amateur, the chances of room bookings will be much less. By creating a high-quality video, you will get the best possible returns on your investment. If your video doesn’t quickly or effectively address the needs of the guests through quality pictures, they will simply move on to another property and your video will be forgotten in seconds.

2. Wow Your Audience With a Great Intro

The hotel industry relies on effective videos to promote their services to prospective customers on the Web. A brief intro is the most essential part of your video as you will want to capture your viewers’ attention from the second they watch it. Remember to keep your intro direct and short. It must tell the viewer everything about your hotel while at the same time set the tone for the rest of your content. By incorporating an intro video into your website’s homepage, you will be able to successfully grab your visitors’ attention.

3. Make Your Video Stand Out

If you want to create a unique video, you must first highlight all the unique features of your hotel. Your business has a rich story behind it and you must emit this through your video. Find out what makes your business stand out from others and emphasize on that. Only then will you be able to find your tone and uniqueness. Whether your tone is inspiring, passionate, or serious, you need to think of all the characteristics that make your particular hotel different from all the ones in your location and portray these in a positive tone of voice on your video.

Adding value to your hotel video doesn’t mean creating a sales pitch that’s all about your brand. You should think of video marketing as an opportunity for adding value at every stage of the potential customer’s online journey. While you might think that it’s easy to produce a great hotel marketing video without much pre-planning, in reality, you could end up with a low-quality content that will only harm your brand. It is, therefore, important to start with a script to keep your filming crew on track and your viewers engaged.

5. Share Your Video With Your Audience

Another important tip for your video marketing campaign is that you must enable your video to be shared on your other social media channels. This will help spread the video from one platform to another and reach a wider audience. YouTube is one of the most important social media sites since millions of people use this platform to watch videos every month. You need to include a link to your website on your YouTube video so your audience can visit your homepage after watching your video. Remember to use 360-degree shots of the hotel’s rooms and facilities as customers will get a closer look at the hotel and will feel comfortable staying there.

360 and Virtual Reality Videos for The Hotel Industry

Virtual reality goes beyond just video games and entertainment. With the continuing advancements of this technology, it now offers an interactive guest experience through immersive headsets and 360-degree videos. Nowadays, many kinds of businesses are benefiting from VR, and the hotel industry is no exception.

Difference Between 360 and Virtual Videos

One big difference between the two is that the images in a virtual reality video are created digitally whereas a 360-degree video is captured from a real-life setting. These live videos capture real places exactly as you would see them in everyday life, unlike virtual reality where a virtual environment is created for the purpose of interacting with.

Why Are 360 VR Hotel Videos Becoming So Popular?

Virtual reality has the power to transport people from one exotic place to another and this is the reason why the hotel industry is increasingly using VR and 360 videos for promoting their brand. A 360 video invites people into a scene and offers them an accurate picture of where they will be staying. This makes the hotel guests feel more comfortable placing their trust in that hotel and the chances of booking a room will be greater.

5 Great Examples of Powerful Hotel Videos

Video marketing is a powerful tool that helps luxury hotels grab the attention of the audience and engage them throughout the online journey. Here are 5 great examples of hotel videos on YouTube:

#Video 1: Byzantino Boutique Hotel Monemvasia in Greece

The video of Byzantino Boutique Hotel, located inside the castle of Monemvasia, provides guests with a 360-degree view of the hotel’s location and its facilities. The video of this hotel taps into the viewers’ different emotions in relation to travel, relaxation, and getting a sense of luxury. The aim is to encourage visitors to explore the sights of Greece and stay in this luxury hotel.

#Video 2: Kalima Resort and Spa in Thailand

This 3-minute promotional video features the hotel’s rooms, facilities, and all the activities guests can take part in. The visual content is the most important part of this video as all the images are blended together in harmony. The effective call to action at the end of the video prompts viewers to visit the hotel’s website.

#Video 3: Holiday Inn Express in Adelaide, Australia

This newly-built hotel offers a 2-minute 360-degree tour of its premises with special emphasis on the hotel’s features including conference rooms, bar, fitness facilities, and of course its rooms. The tour allows viewers to see the whole hotel in true lighting and proper proportions as though they are actually in the hotel themselves.

#Video 4: Agrovela Hotel Alacati in Turkey

The short movie-like video presents the authentic aspects of the destination, the characterful hotel rooms, and the visitors’ experiences within this charming Turkish village. The 2-minute video mainly focuses on elaborated and intimate moments of people enjoying themselves in a rustic hotel so you get a good feel of what the hotel has to offer.

#Video 5: Cape Dara in Pattaya in Thailand

The immersive 360° VR Walkthrough of the 5-star luxury resort allows viewers to visualise the hotel before making a booking. The main focus of this video is on the guests’ experiences. The audience gets a sense of the scale and size of the rooms as well as the hotel’s exotic surroundings.

As the world of technology evolves, so should your hotel marketing strategies. Powerful videos that take the viewers’ experience to another level are growing at a rapid rate. If you haven’t yet started optimizing your audience’s engagement through videos, now is the time to start putting your strategy into practice.

Ramy Ayoub

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From a look and feel perspective all chatbots look similar. However, some will deliver excellent service to your guests, others will generate frustration. If you want to make the right choice for your hotel or group make sure to look for these essential decision criteria. This article provides you with 4 tips that will help you to choose the right chatbot to achieve your hotel(s) strategic goals.

4 Tips to Select a Chatbot

Below you find tips that help you to select the right chatbot for your hotel.

1. Work With a Specialist

Training in artificial Intelligence (AI) requires a lot of time, effort, and a huge volume of customer interactions. To avoid unnecessary costs by starting from scratch, but choose a tailor-made chatbot.

Focus on providers, such as Quicktext, that are able to offer pre-trained hotel chatbots that are already calibrated to answer hotel guests’ queries. Hoteliers only need to populate these chatbots with their property information and their chatbot is ready to go.

Such chatbots are affordable, offer the best possible level of accuracy, and usually have existing connectivity’s with your booking engine, upsell and task management system, etc.

2. Employee Count on LinkedIn is a Good Proxy for Development Capabilities

It is simple math, if the company you are considering only has a handful of employees, it is extremely likely that they will focus their effort on the appearance (frontend) and compromise on the chatbot abilities & back-end. Such solutions won’t hold in the long run. So have a good look at the company you are considering and investigate the expertise they have, for example by checking their employees at LinkedIn.

3. Have a Clear Vision of What you Want to Achieve with a Chatbot

In a demo call, you will receive a lot of information and every solution will look great. But you need to filter out what the solutions are that will best help you achieve your strategic goals: Answer customer questions instantly, increase direct bookings, save time for your team.

Ability to Increase Direct Reservations

Check essential reservation abilities: Is the chatbot able to handle multiple room bookings? What about groups, events, and flexible travel dates?

How does the chatbot integrate into your sales process: Online visitors that interact with your bot are highly qualified so you really want to make sure that in case a customer doesn’t book online your hotel sales team is able to follow up and close the deal. To verify your candidate chatbot ability to capture customer data & opt-in and pass them to staff efficiently.

Below you find an example of a booking request sent to staff by a hotel chatbot. With this summarized information hotel sales team can easily follow up on booking requests that weren’t converted automatically.

Handle Customers Questions & Requests Instantly

Look for short and precise answers instead of long all-encompassing texts. Customers expect clear answers and do not read long texts. Look for a chatbot able to deliver precise and accurate information instead of broad answers that won’t really be relevant to anyone.

Save Time for Your Team

Some providers will claim that their chatbot can handle customer requests but if the answer to “I want to book for a group”, “I want an upgrade” or “I need to cancel my reservation” is “Please email johndoe@email.com” which is the kind of answer that will not really be helpful to your customers and generates extra work for your staff. Look for chatbots that are able to manage full processes seamlessly instead of the glorified FAQ.

How does the chatbot interact with your team when escalation is needed? Chatbots should help your team and not create additional pressure. How does the chatbot react if human service is necessary but there is no one to answer?

4. Data Management and scalability

How the chatbot handles data management and scalability is essential Below you can get inspired by questions you need to take into consideration when choosing the right chatbot for your company.

Data Management is Usually a Blind Spot for Hoteliers

How does the chatbot handle dynamic content, such as hotel availability and prices, upsell opportunities, etc? Is the chatbot connected to your booking engine and potentially other systems?

How does the chatbot handle static content? Static content is the information that doesn’t change every day such as check-in time, swimming pool, parking, spa, etc. How easy it is to manage these data in different languages with the chatbot you are considering?

Make Sure That Your Chatbot Has a Scalable Architecture

Is the chatbot you are considering able to answer via Live chat on your website, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, Alexa, Google Assistant, etc.?

For groups: How is the multi-property chatbot working? Do you have to select a specific hotel before you get an answer or is the bot able to find instantly all the hotels that have a swimming pool in Berlin? This is essential if you have several hotels in the same geographical area. Your chatbot needs to be able to guide customers to the hotel that best fits their needs.

Ramy Ayoub

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Keyword research is essential to increase organic search traffic if you want to develop targeted traffic streams to your website. Keyword research is basically the process of discovering the right keywords and phrases your target audiences are using to get any product or service. 

Mostly finding the keywords is not enough to benefit from the results of search engine optimization. You also need to check them against which keywords are commonly used among your target audience. Therefore, there are a great number of keyword research tools providing both suggestions on keyword search data and analytics to give you an idea about traffic volumes related to search results.

Keyword research tools and SEO tools are helpful for data marketers and businesses to gather essential data that can be used to obtain a better fit between your prospects and services. It is a great way to audit your services and website traffic most effectively.

If you desire higher rankings in search engines and more traffic to your website, you need to know how to choose the right keywords and how to benefit from the best keyword research tools.

Top 5 Keyword Research Tools for Best SEO Practices

Here we guide you about the keyword research tools with best practices in 2021. Read this article carefully to get general information about what features they are offer and how to choose the most effective one to meet your business needs for increasing traffic and sales on your website.

Traffic growth on a website depends on an expert keyword research tool offering well-organized SEO, intelligent strategies, and on-site optimization.

Google Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner offered by Google helps businesses and advertisers research keywords for search campaigns. It also helps them see estimates on the number of searches a keyword gets and the average cost for the ad to target them.

Unlike other paid options, Google Keyword Planner runs free and it only requires an account on Google Ads. After completing the account setup, you can discover new keywords or upload existing keywords to get search volume and performance forecast.

Ahrefs

With Ahrefs, you do not need to be an SEO expert to increase your traffic and get higher rankings on search results. Its Keyword Explorer tool helps you discover lots of effective keyword ideas, analyze their ranking, and estimate their traffic potential.

Through a massive database of more than 7 billion keywords, Ahrefs can be a great option for you to get intended results on keyword research. This tool gives you detailed information on each keyword, search volume, and how many backlinks you need to rank higher on various platforms. When you type a keyword in the search box, Ahrefs also gives you a list of keyword suggestions and ideas.

Ahrefs offer several plans with various features and pricing. You can check out them to choose the most effective and useful plan to meet your keyword research needs.

Serpstat

Another excellent keyword research tool is Serpstat which is a growth hacking tool for SEO and keyword analysis. You can use this tool to expand your online presence by benefiting from its massive keyword database for SEO and PPC campaigns.

The most favorable feature offered by Serpstat is its Competitor Graph that visualizes your competitors’ experience in attracting leads with organic or paid search. It means that you can track what your competitors do to improve their content and increase leads to their website.

Serpstat is an all-in-one SEO platform providing its clients with a number of distinctive features to fulfill their keyword research needs and desires. There are several plans offered by Serpstat for both SEO-individuals and industry leaders.

SEMrush

When you search for an experienced keyword research tool, it is impossible not to see SEMrush on the lists. It is another all-in-one marketing toolkit for digital marketing professionals. If you are looking for a complete SEO tool to improve your SEO rankings and increase leads, SEMrush is a perfect option with various effective services.

Through its user-friendly interface, it is quite fast and simple to get an overview of everything you need to know about a keyword. You can check out monthly search volume, trend keywords, and similar keywords you might want to use.

Along with its analytics on organic search results, you can also see your competitors’ keyword data and organic traffic metrics. SEMrush introduces the keywords that your competitors rank for. This is a great opportunity to compare your content with your competitors to see which keywords are trend and bring more leads. You can also read Semrush vs. Ahrefs article to choose the right tool for you.

AnswerThePublic

If you are just getting started with keyword research and SEO, AnswerThePublic is a great choice with its innovative solutions to take action faster. You do not even have to register to use this tool. You can just type a keyword and see what you need to know.

AnswerThePublic is a practical keyword research tool showing what content is ranking for any keyword and keyword suggestions to enhance the relevance of your SEO campaigns. If you want to use this tool on a regular basis, you need to create an account to upgrade your plan.

Conclusion

Through an effective keyword research tool, you can figure out what topics people are searching for and what keywords are top-performing to increase leads.

There are several tools offering keyword research and SEO to discover the most trending and relevant keywords to develop your business through enhancing your content.

By using those tools, you can also have an opportunity to compare your content with your competitors and understand how to organize your campaigns to attract more people.

Ramy Ayoub

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In a low-demand context, hotels need to focus on maximizing their conversion rate. A proactive sales strategy augmented by Artificial Intelligence (AI) proves instrumental to navigate these difficult times.

Practical Ideas to Increase Direct Conversion Rates

In these low-demand times, every reservation counts. Just making hotel direct booking easy from a technical perspective is not enough. If you want to increase conversion, you need to convince hesitant customers and make sure that no potential customer leaves your website without booking.

This article will give you practical ideas and examples of how smart hotels leverage human common sense and some artificial intelligence (i.e. chatbots) to increase their direct conversion rate.

1. Focus on Hesitant Customers & Help Them Choose Your Property

Hotel self-service direct booking strategy is no longer sustainable. Hotel direct booking strategies used to rely only on highly motivated customers that would go to the hotel website, make the effort to spend time looking for the information they needed, and eventually click on book now or leave.

Before 2020, hotels could perfectly live only with this type of self-service approach to sales. Demand suddenly shrunk due to COVID -19, so hotels needed to set up proactive sales processes to capture the hesitant & lazy customers that they can no longer afford to ignore.

Rethink Your Content From Your Customers’ Perspective

The first thing you need to do is to rethink your content from the customer perspective. Instead of only having a one-size-fits-all website; why don’t you try to adapt your content based on your different customer profiles. This would make it easier for customers to “connect” with your content and for you to push the right arguments to convince specific traveler segments. For more details see this quick tutorial on how to make hotel content and sales process more engaging.

Video: Tip to Increase Your Hotel Direct Sales: Leverage Customer Personas

Joie de Vivre Hotels is a good example. Online visitors can engage with their website and signal what is important for them and get the right argument to book.

On Joie de Vivre Hotels website customers can access content based hotel amenities but also based on their interests.

Chatbots Help Your Customers Find The Right Information Instantly

Some travelers have precise doubts and require answers that might not be on the hotel website because too much information kills information. That’s where chatbots become essential, since most customers won’t call your hotel. Chatbots conversational format makes it effortless for customers to instantly access the precise hotel information they need to be reassured and make a purchase decision. On top of delivering information, chatbots are actively guiding customers through the booking process.

Chatbots deliver highly relevant content instantly and on-demand.

2. Re-Engage Customers That Didn’t Complete Their Direct Booking

It is important to make sure to re-engage customers that have stopped somewhere in their booking process.

Create a Proactive Sales Follow Up Process

The key to maximizing conversion is to master the concept of a qualified lead. Sometimes anonymous visitors on your website will turn into customers immediately and that is great. Some other times anonymous visitors are not ready to book, but can still share valuable information with you such as their name, contact details, key interests, dates of stay, etc. In that case, they become qualified leads. Remember that traffic is expensive and you can’t let them go just like that! You must proactively follow-up on by email or phone. See below an example of a booking request sent to staff by a hotel chatbot. With this summarized information hotel sales team can easily follow up on booking requests that weren’t converted automatically.

Hotel Sales Follow-up Best Practices

Many hoteliers used to rely only on website conversion because they did not have the necessary human resources to follow up manually on the leads that originated from their chatbots. In 2020, chatbot providers, such as Quicktext, are able to integrate with email automation solutions & CRM so that customers can be proactively reengaged with a relevant email (in accordance with GDPR principles your chatbot must, of course, capture customer opt-in).

Customers will welcome your email as long as you follow certain best practices:

Summarize the Customer’s Request
Customers must be able to instantly recall your hotel and their search.

Make an Attractive Offer & Direct Link to Your Booking Engine
Keep things extremely simple and clear. Focus on relevant options & bestsellers. Avoid giving too many choices.

Use the Right Arguments
If the customer asked details about breakfast to your chatbot, it is probably important to leverage it in your follow up email. Here the best thing to do is to identify your key selling points and the benefits you can offer to direct customers and use them based on what is relevant for them.

If you want to sell your hotel rooms you need to do more than display them and expect customers to buy. If you want to succeed you need to convince your customers. At the end of the day, booking a room is like a love relationship: you don’t need to be the best looking hotel, but you definitely need to be the one that makes each customer feel that you are the best possible match for one night or more.

Ramy Ayoub

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