How to Create a Marketing Plan for a Hotel

Peter Drucker is considered to be the ultimate guru when it comes to marketing and management concepts. He said, "Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business." Running a hotel is more than just cleaning and booking a room. You need to establish a clear and thorough marketing plan to distinguish your hotel from the others in your area. The competition amongst hotels is stiff, as many are usually located in the same section of town. Once you sit down and start creating your marketing plan, you may brainstorm that one special "light bulb" idea that will make your hotel stand out from the rest.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Pen or pencil

Instructions

1. Write down the four P's of marketing at the top of your marketing plan for reference. These are: price, promotion, product and place. This will help you understand that the marketing of your hotel is more than just deciding what advertisements to place. Delete this line from your final marketing plan before you present it to other parties.

2. Discuss your overall goal for the hotel and your current status. For example, "Our goal is to achieve a minimum 80 percent occupancy rate during busy seasons, and 60 percent in off seasons. We are currently at 40 percent and 20 percent, respectively."

3. Identify your target customer(s). Is it a business traveler or families with kids who vacation? Is it a mixture of both? Use the location and theme of your hotel to decide who is most likely to book your rooms. If you are located near a ski resort, your customers most likely will be adventure seekers, outdoor lovers and skiers.

4. Decide on a marketing message to reach each target audience that you identified in Step 3. For instance, "A comfortable hotel for budget travelers" or "An ultra-luxurious get away for lovers."

5. Determine the average per night price that you will charge your hotel guests and write this into your marketing plan. You can establish a range of prices that will apply across all of your market segments.

6. Discuss any changes and renovations that you need to make to your hotel to make it more attractive to the segments that you identified. The hotel itself is your product---what enhancements can you make to grab the interest of your target customer? For example, maybe you need to establish a free WiFi service if your main customer is a business traveler. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your hotel and how improvements can be made.

7. Decide on an overall strategy for reaching each marketing segment that you identified in the last step. What do those people read? What sites do they visit online? How often do they travel? Do they search endlessly for a good price, or just book the first hotel that looks pretty in a picture? Do they call in hotel reservations or book online? For instance, if your target audience is thrifty and technologically savvy, they will most likely go to a website like Priceline.com or Hotwire.com to book a room. If you run a luxury hotel that will serve customers that do not care about price, seek to reach customers through arrangements with travel agencies that serve wealthy segments.

8. List all of the activities, advertisements and promotional ideas that you will implement to reach the customers in each segment you identified. These should be well-defined action steps that you will take toward reaching the customer. For instance, "establish an account with Hotwire," "hire a web designer to develop out our site," "solicit hotel reviews." Consider the place and promotion element of the "four Ps" of marketing here.

9. List the marketing budget to go along with this plan. List each cost next to the action steps in the previous step to clarify where your dollars will be going. Estimate the cost of renovations and other hotel costs that you decided on in Step 6.

10. Establish a plan of action for how you will respond to the competition. For instance, if the competition mimics your strategies, discuss how you will modify your plan to maintain an advantage.

11. Re-evaluate your marketing plan every year or two to keep your ideas fresh and account for changes in the market.

Tips & Warnings

• There is no standard template or strict guideline for how to write your marketing plan. Organize your marketing plan in a way that will make the most sense to you and your investors.

• Hire a marketing professional to look over your plan and make recommendations and adjustments where needed.

References

• Marketing Plan Help

Resources

• Sample marketing plan
• A marketing kit with forms and other useful tools