It is a well-known fact that one of the most important things in the hotel business is the first impression and that impression will be the deciding factor on whether you win or lose a valuable customer. With the digital world reaching an all-new high, it is not uncommon for the first impression to be one of your visual pieces of content found online and it can be quite an alarming thought that your potential client could gain the first impression of your Hotel from visual content accessible at their fingertips on their smartphones before even making an initial contact or seeing your pristine facilities in reality. In fact, this could be the factor why they have or haven’t booked their stay with you in the first place.
Therefore, photography in the hotel industry is becoming more crucial than ever before. It can be confusing in the world of digital marketing when you must create engaging written content, manage your AdWords account, master your SEO and still lose a booking courtesy to a poor imagery. According to Industria Marketer, content with beautiful and relevant imagery gains 94% more views than the one without. If you think this might be one of the reasons why you keep missing out on some of the bookings, make sure your visual content is grabbing and keeping the attention of your potential customer with these few guidelines.
Grab your potential customers interest & secure a booking.
Since the first impression is a seven-second window and there is a huge amount of hotels flooding the online world with images, you must put your best foot forward and show the best sides of your facilities. By showcasing your unique selling points, you’re highlighting what makes you different from other hotels and what helps you to stand out. This is not an easy task, to get your best points across in a photograph and combining them with valuable written text can be challenging, but it is do-able. In the end, the coercive photo will always take the lead. It is also essential to use your best photographs when you utilising social media platforms as the average Facebook campaigns with images engage around 65% more audience than those without.
Work with your hotel branding.
Chose photographers with a style of photography that supports your brand and be consistent with it. Consider your brand guidelines and make sure that photographs are reflecting these ideas; lightning, angles, colour schemes etc. Once you have found your photographer stick with them, consistency will go a long way to ensure that your content will be recognised by your hotel visitors online. Consumers’ brain is conditioned to make a judgment on a subconscious level, therefore, a professionally taken photograph will always build a trust.
Tell your story.
Work with your photographer, convey your story to them and let them add their professional opinion to it. Make sure your photographs are dynamic, emotional, clear & timeless, this will help your potential hotel visitors to fathom the message and appreciate it more and this will benefit your brand purity and loyalty. Often more times than not, consumers are influenced by emotion before booking their hotels the Hotel website content made them feel relaxed, happy, excited, festive or even related to them in a different way it made them feel like having a great family time. Let your potential visitor imagine themselves in your hotel having fun or enjoying relaxed dinner with the family, allow them to see how this will improve their well-being and make the decision to visit your hotel. Before taking these images with your photographer, consider the visitors you like to welcome through your door and create your photographs specifically for them.
It is not a coincidence that the famous saying “One image can say a thousand words” exists, you could have the best SEO strategy in place, combined with well-written content, and it all will be worth very little if this will not be joined with appealing photographs that tell your story.
