Are you tired of being asked about your company’s brand? It is a difficult question that often leads to a broad, vague answer or, worse, a shrug. If you can’t quite define your company’s unique brand, don’t worry! We will help you answer that important question with confidence! Read more to discover the three steps for defining your hotel’s, vacation rental’s, or bed & breakfast’s brand.
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3 Steps to Defining Your Brand
1. Ask the Right Questions
Defining your brand starts with a deep dive into your hotel, bed & breakfast, or vacation rental company. Questioning what your company does and who you are may seem insignificant, but thinking about your company at its core is crucial to building a distinguishable brand.
Examples of the questions that you should ask about your business include:
- What adjectives describe your business?: Asking for descriptive words about your property will serve as a baseline for how you describe your business on your website and social media. Additionally, it is also essential to ask what adjectives don’t represent your business (and make sure to avoid messaging that promotes these).
- What attracts guests to your property?: This is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself about your company. You need to know why you have a competitive advantage and what sets your property apart from the competition. Asking a stranger or guest about your hotel, bed & breakfast, or vacation rentals can provide insight from an unbiased perspective.
- What do you do well?: Asking yourself what you do well and what you don’t do well can identify what your strong suit is. We want to highlight the advantages and avoid weaknesses in our branding.
2. Think About Positioning Beyond the Basics
Positioning is one of the most critical aspects of building a brand. This concept is often defined in terms of pricing and quality, but it is important to think about your hotel, bed & breakfast, or vacation rentals from a new perspective—one that goes beyond this simple model. Dive into the five Ps of your company (Product, Price, Place, People, and Promotion) to fully understand who you are targeting and what value your “product” provides to your customer’s vacation.
Another important aspect of positioning is aligning yourself in the marketplace. Obviously, as a boutique hotel, you are competing against major hotel chains. as a vacation rental company, you are competing against individual property owners’ listings on Vrbo or AirBnB. Positioning yourself to compete with your direct competitors is an undeniable part of branding your business, but thinking beyond your apparent competitors is vital to understanding the entire competitive landscape. Thinking about what makes your destination a better option than the competition, or what differentiating features your property possesses can lead you to position your business in a way that results in more bookings over your competition.
3. Get the Message Out There
The last step is putting together the information listed in the previous two steps and figuring out how to best portray this information in your unique brand voice. Using the information that you uncovered while thinking about your business tailor your website’s messaging, your social media content, and your email campaigns in ways that will attract your ideal customer! Make sure that you use consistent messaging across all of your company’s mediums, especially when it comes to adjectives describing your property/amenities. For more information, check out our free Brand Voice Guide!
Create Your Brand Now!
Now you are equipped with the three most important steps to defining a brand for your hotel, bed & breakfast, or vacation rental. Put these steps to work and you’ll be on the right path to increasing conversions! Still unsure where to start? Reach out to our team of marketing and branding experts to get your digital marketing strategy (back) on track.