6 Ways Hotels Can Utilize Facebook's Lead Generation Tool in 2023

January 31, 2023 by Erin Fischer

New year, new ways to utilize Facebook advertising for hotels. When you think of Facebook advertising, most of you probably think about ads aimed at driving awareness, website traffic, or online purchases. What if we told you that Facebook can also serve as a key component to collect first-party data for your hotel in a world where we so desperately need it?

Facebook’s lead generation tool has been around for years, but it’s been getting a “glow-up” in recent months and is now one of the primary ways we drive leads and collect email data for hotel clients at GCommerce. New functionalities continue to release as we enter 2023, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the tool’s ability to put first-party data in our clients’ pockets.

Here are six ways your hotel can utilize Facebook’s lead generation tool in 2023.

Increase Your Hotel’s Email Database

Are you looking for easy ways to increase the size of your hotel’s email database and create cohesive hotel marketing strategies across multiple channels? Utilizing the lead generation tool on Facebook can quickly help you build up your databases with qualified users.

See It In Action

Prompt users to enter their information with messaging centered around staying up to date with the property, new available offers and promotions, or offer a special incentive to sign up and subscribe. From there you can download the leads directly from the Instant Forms section or utilize a third-party platform like Zapier to send leads straight to your email.

Further Qualify Your Hotel’s Remarketing Audiences

Lead generation isn’t only good for your email marketing, it can also be utilized to bolster your hotel’s remarketing efforts. While you could just re-upload your leads list as a custom audience, you would need to be constantly updating it. Instead, set up a new audience based on Lead Generation data within your remarketing adsets to keep the audiences fresh with any additional work.

See It In Action

Under the custom audiences section, select Lead Form. From there you’ll want to include anyone who opened and submitted a lead within your desired timeframe (we recommend 90 days). Voilà, you will now be incorporating active lead data into your hotel remarketing campaigns.

Pro Tip: If you are going to utilize your leads for multiple purposes, such as Facebook remarketing and adding them into an email list, make sure you disclose this in the lead form settings.

Support and Grow Your Hotel’s Wedding Business

What better way to find real-life engaged couples for your hotel’s wedding space than by reaching them where they already spend large amounts of time each day–social media. Facebook lead generation forms are one of our favorite ways to advertise wedding spaces for our clients at GCommerce because it’s easy and effective. Not only can you directly target engaged people, newly engaged people, and even friends of engaged people, it also allows the couple to fill out a lead form to receive more information or a quote.

See It In Action

When creating your lead forms, think about the goal of your hotel’s wedding campaigns. Do you want to qualify guests before sending them more information? Use questions such as wedding size, potential wedding dates, and even wedding budget if you have a higher-end wedding space. If the goal is to simply get your wedding venue out there, keep your form questions simple and opt for name, email, and wedding dates.

Increase Business Travel and Showcase Meeting Spaces At Your Hotel

Similar to the wedding business above, using lead generation is also a great way to gather quotes and potential leads for your hotel’s onsite meeting rooms. This strategy is great for hotels also looking to increase their business travel segment in 2023.

See It In Action

While the setup will be similar to wedding lead generation, your form should include questions such as group size, reason for group meeting, and even information about catering. In the targeting section be sure to include specific job titles of people who might be planning these events, small business owners, and/or email lists of past and potential companies.

Drive More Visits to Your Hotel’s Blog and Grow Subscribers

Do you have a blog on your hotel’s website and struggle with growing your subscriber base? Facebook advertising is a great tool to drive both awareness and new readers. Use the on-Facebook forms to intrigue users into joining the subscription list.

See It In Action

This lead form will look similar to our first example for growing your hotel’s email database; keep the form simple with only name and email address. However, instead of reasons to join the email list entice users with excerpts from the latest blog post or offer them exclusive content only available to subscribers. Utilize the link at the end of the form to send users to your most recent blog or top ranking blog from the past year.

Once leads are created you’ll still need to manually add them into your blog’s subscriber list, but you’ll ultimately be gaining new readers you wouldn’t have had before.

Find and Convert Event Guests For Your Hotel

Facebook lead generation is an effective, and often overlooked, tool to advertise your on-property events and convert potential guests. Not only will you be advertising your hotel’s event to Facebook’s massive audience, you’ll also be ingesting first-party data for interested attendees that you can use for email marketing, Facebook remarketing, and much more.

See It In Action

Set up your hotel’s Facebook ad to introduce your event details before prompting users to sign up for event updates and news. Is your event not open for registration yet? Prompt users to get on the list now and be the first to RSVP when registration opens up. Once your event is over, utilize your list for remarketing future events or to convert event guests into hotel guests.

There you have it, six easy ways to incorporate Facebook’s lead generation tool into your 2023 marketing campaigns. Need help getting started? Reach out to the experts at GCommerce today for all your digital marketing needs.

The Power of Brand Collaborations

January 24, 2023 by Barry Lott

That "brand X brand" construct is such a fun and effective way to inject fresh excitement into your established brand or borrow some instant equity/credibility for your new one. Collaborations can serve as badly needed awareness boosters and do wonders for expanding your natural marketing footprint.

Importantly, collaborations are particularly effective at both underscoring what your brand is all about (through the strategic platform and value alignment) or challenging folks to think about you in a whole new way (sometimes, value "misalignment" can really turn thinking upside down).

Last, they don't have to be forever. Sometimes "limited time only" messaging is great for forcing immediate consumer action.

We’ve been thinking a lot about collaborations lately. Our client, The Hermitage, has two significant platform-aligned relationships; one with Reese Witherspoon's Draper James brand and the other with Chef Jean-Georges. Both collaborations say a lot about what The Hermitage stands for and underscore its enduring relevance in a super-hot Nashville hotel market.

In fact, their collaboration with Draper James is all about burnishing their long-term rep as THE Nashville hotel, with a foot in both the past and present. Draper James' platform — classic Southern contemporary yet timeless Southern style — conjures up the kind of gracious living and Nashville legacy The Hermitage has always been about.

https://www.nfocusmagazine.com/dining/the-hermitage-hotel-and-draper-james-form-a-splendid-partnership/article_acb26ef6-3608-11ec-9f7d-dfd8c288b596.html

That it's also a feminine construct makes Draper James the truly perfect match for the hotel's unique-to-Nashville experience.

Then we ran across this terrific piece on the wisdom of collaborations written for the AMA by Jaime Klein Daley, VP of Strategy at NYC brand shop CBX: https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/from-gaga-to-goldfish/ Her piece is CPG-centric, but it's definitely educational and inspired us to go further down that rabbit hole. We thought we should share.

Another defining collaboration comes courtesy of our client Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa. In reimagining what once was the Ritz-Carlton, they collaborated with designer Jonathan Adler to actively challenge how people thought about traditional Palm Beach luxury. Adler's "irreverent luxury that refuses to subscribe to established rules" design philosophy was the perfect take Eau needed to communicate their "new-fashioned" brand platform that promised prospective guests the chance to experience Palm Beach in a truly modern, unconventional way.

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/jonathan-adler-eau-palm-beach-resort-slideshow

So, Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa is a great example of using somebody else's brand equity to help you immediately communicate what your brand-new brand is all about.

There are so many ways for hotels to use a good collaboration that go even beyond The Hermitage's Draper James Afternoon Tea experience and specially designed ditsy floral pattern, and Eau's Adler distinctive room designs.

You can also create activations, adventures, curations, ongoing content plays, pop-ups, and packages. Or maybe a signature room or suite, music or movie playlists, cocktails, and itineraries at the property or for around town. The opportunities are seemingly endless, and we’re sure there are new ideas to be had that nobody has thought of yet. But here are a few links to articles we have saved over the last couple of years that lay out what some hotels are doing with their collaborations:

https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/the-next-era-of-brand-hotel-partnerships-fila-byredo-frame-loccitane

https://www.lemongrassmarketing.com/brand-collaborations-luxury-hotel/

A last but really important thought here: the key to collaborations isn't just about the lift you get from surfing somebody else's equity wave. It's also about fully leveraging your partner's earned and owned channels to grow our clients' exposure, eyeballs, email lists, and advocacy.

It's a move we’ll call "Other People's Media" which is so effective in stretching a small marketing budget for no additional media investment. Therefore, getting meaningful access to their platforms and databases is a crucial point in any collaboration contract (folks sometimes forget that part).

Moves like securing real estate on their website, shared digital display, joint PR releases, and emails, ensuring your collaborator mentions your property in print and on TV and podcast interviews, all social platforms, signed influencers, POS display in retail locations, shopping bag stuffers, on-location catalog shoots, and a developing a dedicated line of merchandise named for the hotel. That integrated approach is really where you squeeze max value from these relationships (as is anything that can get first-party data).

That's a great — and fresh — marketing move that can reawaken the property's brand platform while extending the reach and efficiency of our marketing programs.

Flywheel News | December 2022 Hotel Digital Marketing News | GCommerce

January 4, 2023 by GCommerce Solutions

Metasearch Is Your Best Tool For Increasing Direct Bookings

Metasearch can be directly correlated with direct business. But, is your hotel truly optimizing metasearch? Learn how to take control and manage your metasearch here.

Google Updates EAT With Another E

Google updated it’s search quality raters guidelines by adding another E to E-A-T for experience. The new acronym is now E-E-A-T, standing for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Although these ratings do not directly impact rankings, they provide important feedback that helps Google improve its algorithms. Learn more here.

Meta Adds New Instagram Audience Targeting

A new audience type we’re very excited to test here at GCommerce, Meta announced the addition of audience type to target your Instagram followers. Now, you may be thinking - didn’t this already exist? Well, it didn’t. In the past you’ve only been able to target your Facebook followers, not your Instagram followers. Read more on this new audience type here.

Check Out Google’s 2022 ‘Year in Search’ Overview

Take a walk down memory lane with Google’s 2022 Year in Search Overview, showing a recap of what was trending in search this past year. You might just stumble across some new ideas on what to watch, where to travel (or not) and a new recipe to try.

GCommerce Hosts Annual Employee Retreat

On December 1st and 2nd, the entire company met in beautiful Park City, Utah for two days of incredible sessions on travel and digital marketing, team activities and a fun year-end holiday party. Our team wishes you all a happy, healthy and prosperous new year!

Flywheel News | November 2022 Hotel Digital Marketing News | GCommerce

December 7, 2022 by GCommerce Solutions

Hour & Date Dimensions Now Available in GA4

It seems like every month there are new announcements coming out on changes in GA4. In November the newest update was that hour and ate dimensions are now available across Google Analytics 4 explorations and reporting customization. Learn more here.

GCommerce Launches 2022 Digital Marketing Trends eBook

It’s hard to believe 2022 is almost over. Get ready for your 2023 digital marketing journey with a look back at the top trends of 2022. Download our eBook here.

Google’s Similar Audiences Are Going Away

Heads up if you’re using Similar Audiences on Google Ads! They are sunsetting this audience type in August 2023. Learn more about how to prepare for this transition here.

TikTok Launches New Audience Insights Tool

Looking for more insights on who is interacting with your business on TikTok? Good news! TikTok advertisers can now access audience insights in the ad manager to dive into audience data including age, interest categories, interactions, device types and more. Read more about this announcement here.

You’re Now Able to Add Music To Still Image Posts in Instagram

Previously only available for Reels and Stories, the ability to add music is now available for still image posts on Instagram. Music brings emotion, context and personality to your content. Will it enhance engagement with your still posts? We recommend at least testing it to find out.

6. There's more to metasearch than they're telling you

Most hoteliers believe that once they've connected their booking engine to the metasearch channels there's nothing more they can do.But in reality, metasearch can help you address specific need periods, target your ideal guests, and increase direct bookings. Learn more here.

Community Marketing: How To Build Your Own Fierce Brand Community

November 28, 2022 by GCommerce Solutions

Download our free presentation on how to build your own brand with community marketing.

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[E-book] 2022 Digital Marketing World Updates: Changes, What's To Come & Trends

November 17, 2022 by GCommerce Solutions

The digital world is always changing and evolving and, as digital marketers, we get to be the trail blazers on how to use new channels, technologies and techniques.

In our latest ebook, we've compiled the top digital changes of 2022 so you too can leverage the latest and greatest tools in our space.

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