Chris Bowling, Head of Digital Marketing and E-commerce at BWH Hotels, shared with our Content Writer, Meghna Kanwar, his expert insights on driving direct bookings and maximising digital marketing strategies. From optimising channel mix to leveraging social media for conversions, he unveils the key tactics that have led to BWH Hotels’ success in the competitive online landscape.
MK – Can you share your journey in the hotel industry and what led you to your current role at The Reach Hotel?
MK – Can you share your journey in the hotel industry and what led you to your current role at the BWH Hotels?
CB – To be honest, getting into the hotel industry wasn’t planned. The opportunity originally came up for me to join BWH Hotels GB just over 8 years ago as a website executive. This started my journey into everything hotel marketing. In an industry this complex and diverse, there are always things to be learning and improving. Over my time at BWH Hotels GB I been in several roles, this has led me to my current position of Head of Digital Marketing & Ecommerce.
Chris Bowling, Head of Digital Marketing and E-commerce, BWH Hotels
MK – What are the most effective digital marketing strategies BWH Hotels uses to increase direct bookings?
CB – With anything digital marketing there is no silver bullet. It is a combination of factors that come together to have a wider impact. One of our focuses over the past 12 months has been diversifying our channel mix. Looking beyond last click attribution to the harder to measure sections of the funnel is having a big impact. If you are new on your book direct journey, the quickest place to have an impact is metasearch (Google Hotel Ads, Trivago etc). These are high intent users that may already be looking for your hotel. As long as you have rate parity with the OTAs, a well thought out website and a sufficient bid, there is no reason why these bookings shouldn’t be direct.
MK – Can you share some successful campaigns or initiatives that have significantly boosted direct bookings?
CB – As I mentioned above, diversifying our channel mix has had a large impact.
MK – How do you use social media platforms to convert followers into direct bookers?
CB – The first thing to do is think, what are people on social media for? People go to social media to catch up with friends, follow their favourite influencers, be inspired and have an escape from the day to day. The content you are creating needs to inspire people. After someone has seen your content, you want to people to want to take a trip to your hotel or the area around it. Social is all about planting a seed. If people visit your website from a piece of content, there are various retargeting tactics you can do at that stage to influence the conversion.
MK – What are some common barriers to direct bookings, and how does BWH Hotels address them?
CB – The biggest one for direct bookings can be parity. If a hotel doesn’t have there parity sorted there is no reason to book direct when an OTA is cheaper. If a hotel doesn’t have parity, all of the other marketing strategies are going to be ineffective.
MK – Can you discuss the impact of personalised marketing on direct booking rates?
Anything you can do to make someone’s journey unique is a good thing. People are travelling for different reasons and have different preferences. The main channel for delivering these experiences at the moment is email. Based on the data you collect in your CRM, you can tailor you communications to be more relevant. This could be from the kind of promotions you send to different kind of guests through to direct emails based on website activity.
MK – What metrics do you track to measure the success of your direct booking strategies?
CB – There are various different things you need to measure to ensure different channels and strategies are working as planned. The main overall metric though is the percentage of bookings that come directly vs OTAs. If the direct percentage is growing, you have a successful strategy in place.
MK – How do you stay updated with the latest trends in hotel marketing?
CB – There are various sources I like to look at. Two of them being Skift and Phocuswire. If you are unsure where to start I would recommend my weekly hotel marketing newsletter, The Hotel Hype (The Hotel Hype | Hotel marketing newsletter). Every Monday I break down hotel marketing strategies and the last news hoteliers need to know about.