How To Use ClickFunnels For Hotels
To run a successful hotel business in the 21st century, you must have a strong online presence. Customers will do most of their hotel searching and booking online, so you must have an infrastructure in place to capitalize on this traffic and convert searches into sales. To this effect, there is no website-building platform better for doing this than ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels is an excellent platform for hotels because it specializes in converting leads to long-term, repeat customers; this will help the hotel reach its customer acquisition and retention goals.
As repeat business is essential for maintaining occupancy and steady profits in the hotel industry, a website specializing in sales funnels can have many advantages over a traditional, blog-based platform. ClickFunnels is the industry standard-bearer in creating funnels, making it the best choice for hotels.
What is a Sales Funnel?
It is essential to have a thorough understanding of what a sales funnel is before looking into ways ClickFunnels can use their industry-leading software to help a hotel.
A sales funnel is the path a customer goes through on their journey from a lead who is browsing for information to a dedicated, repeat client. The online sales funnel is meant to provide several features that guide visitors through this process, such as upsells, down-sell, and one-time offers.
While sales funnels can vary widely in looks and complexity, all funnels have one thing in common: They want to increase a business’s conversion rate.
A conversion can be something such as turning a cold lead into an interested prospect who is actively searching for more information or an interested individual into a paying customer. The end goal will ultimately be to secure long-term, repeat clients who spread positive word of mouth for the business, which will be a key driver of company revenues.
How ClickFunnels Can Help Hotels
ClickFunnels is a powerful platform for any business but can be especially beneficial to a hotel. With thousands of hotel choices available to consumers and fierce competition from home-sharing services such as Airbnb and Vrbo, it can be difficult for a hotel to make its mark in the sector.
Furthermore, customer loyalty and repeat business are as crucial in the hotel industry as anywhere else. Hotels will not reach their revenue goals without a significant number of guest nights booked, so customers who stay once and leave do not add appreciable value to the hotel.
Let’s look at some of the tools that ClickFunnels offers that can help hotels convert Internet traffic into repeat customers.
Drag-and-Drop Editor
Founder Russell Branson markets ClickFunnels as a digital marketing solution for entrepreneurs who are not incredibly tech-savvy. Through ClickFunnels’ intuitive drag-and-drop editor, users of all technological ability levels can create high-quality landing pages that catch the attention of visitors.
A landing page is essentially the “front door” of a website. It is the place that visitors arrive at, or land, when typing in your website’s URL or clicking on a link that directs them to your site. Among the features of a quality landing page that can be achieved when using the drag-and-drop editor on ClickFunnels include:
- Eye-appealing layouts: the user can include classy headlines, high-quality pictures, and easy-to-read texts with the drag-and-drop editor.
- Highlighted competitive advantage: all customers know that a hotel will provide a bed to sleep in and a place to shower. However, ClickFunnels allows you to quickly feature your point of differentiation, whether that be a low price, elite lobby, or breathtaking views of the surrounding areas.
- An initial step in conversions: your ClickFunnels landing page will be your new company salesperson. As such, the landing page needs to work to pique the interest of leads without being “pushy.” Overly spammy landing pages can cause a customer to quickly exit, so use the drag-and-drop editor to create a landing page that is inviting while also urging them to further explore the hotel.
- Multimedia: when designing the landing page, try to be as informational as possible and include features that will appeal to all types of visitors. The drag-and-drop editor allows you to incorporate a wide range of media, including text, pictures, videos, and appealing template art.
Intuitive Payment Portals
One of the challenges for online entrepreneurs in converting leads is integrating a payment option into their website. Nobody likes forking over their hard-earned money, so if it is a chore for customers to find a place to pay, they are likely to drift away from your site.
ClickFunnels is designed to quickly integrate with several API payment options, with Stripe and PayPal being the most commonly used; this allows hoteliers with limited technological know-how to start collecting payment on their site without having to consult the services of a professional web developer to integrate a payment platform.
Email Management and Automation
Email has revolutionized the way businesses market, with a well-planned email campaign costing next to nothing and reaching a multitude of prospective clients with a single click. And with ClickFunnels, you may not even need to click, as the software can be programmed to send out automated emails. Some automated features include:
- Sending follow-up emails to customers who do not open an original message
- Removing addresses from the mailing list who have not opened any communication in over 30 days
- Sending one-time offers to customers who have opened message but have yet to take action
- Upselling past customers with special offers that can make them a more profitable customer
Another way users can take advantage of ClickFunnels to optimize their email marketing strategy is by using special incentives to get visitors to subscribe to email lists. For example, subscribers to your hotel’s mailing list may receive access to exclusive discounts or free Wi-Fi during a stay.
Email can also be an excellent tool for sending out newsletters to keep people in the loop with your hotel, as not all communication should overtly be about making sales, especially when trying to build trust with clients.
While all of these are elite features of ClickFunnels’ email management software, arguably the most important characteristic is its advanced split testing.
Split testing is the process of sending out the same email with two different headings and seeing which version gets the best open and response rate. From there, the entrepreneur can update future correspondence to include the content that performs the best.
Analytics
Information is powerful, and ClickFunnels gives hoteliers the insight into seeing how well their website is performing. In addition to the email open and response rates mentioned above, some of the key analytic features offered by the platform include:
- The average length that visitors stay on the landing page
- How many clicks an average visitor makes on the site
- Which pages visitors exit from
Integration with Social Media
In the digital landscape, a business cannot truly flourish unless it has a strong social media presence. Fortunately, ClickFunnels is well-suited to help your hotel run with its social media marketing.
Whether through Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, your ClickFunnels site can have buttons that can help ensure a smooth two-way flow between your website and your social media accounts.
Furthermore, as most people are on social media much more than they are on other Internet-based platforms (and thus more likely to see social media advertising), it is important to keep posting up-to-date information about your hotel consistently.
ClickFunnels can help you achieve this by using messenger bots to help respond to customer questions and automated marketing posts to help traffic know when your business is extending a special offer.
Best ClickFunnels Template Ideas for Hotels
As mentioned earlier, there is no limit to the number of designs you can use to create a successful sales funnel. However, there are a few ideas that can be incredibly powerful for the hotel sector.
Business Launch Funnel
This template is an excellent idea for new hotels that are getting ready to open their doors or an established hotel set to open a new branch.
This ClickFunnels template allows you to launch a series of four videos to get customers excited about the launch of your new property. As long as you get traffic to sign up (usually with something as simple as an email address), ClickFunnels will give them access to the exciting new content about the property.
The videos in this template can be most successful in converting traffic through the following sequence:
- A “wow” video, which catches customers’ attention and shows them how your hotel is disrupting the current landscape
- An “edutainment” video that builds on the “how” in the previous video. This video will likely have significant footage of the lifestyle and quality associated with your hotel.
- An “own the experience” video: This is a challenge to the customer to hop on board with your hotel’s lifestyle.
- An “offer” video, in which the customer takes advantage of all your hotel has to offer and makes his or her reservation.
Self-Liquidating Funnel
The idea behind the self-liquidating funnel is to use the revenues from a successful conversion to pay for advertising that allows you to continue to grow your hotel’s footprint.
You may use a discount code or other type of coupon to entice leads to make a reservation at your hotel. During the reservation process, they will provide an email address that keeps them in your sales funnel. With the money from the sale, ClickFunnels automatically purchases more advertising that is sent to these clients through email and other marketing materials.
Eventually, when enough sales have been made, and the network expands through this automated advertising, the marketing begins to pay for itself. Increasing revenues will lead to highly effective marketing campaigns that reach many customers and yield high conversions.
Survey Funnels
This template is self-explanatory, but one of the most popular and effective sales funnels in existence. As such, it can be a strong choice for your hotel.
Using this template, customers are offered a special offer (discount, rebate, etc.) in exchange for their email address and completing a survey. Some information that your hotel may want to collect using this funnel template includes:
- The type of amenities customers look for during a hotel stay
- What length of hotel stay customers view as “just right”
- What are customers’ views on housekeeping requirements
- What type of surrounding attractions do customers look for when making hotel reservations
Not only can the survey funnel be beneficial in getting contact information that gets leads into your funnel system, but it can lend valuable information that allows you to improve your property for the future.
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Perfect Webinar Funnel
This is another robust ClickFunnels template that can benefit a hotelier; this can be a valuable model for extended-stay properties in which visitors are looking for detailed information ahead of making a sizable purchase.
This type of funnel can also be useful for educating people amid a public relations crisis and keeping their loyalty intact to your specific brand.
Opt-in Funnel
This is one of the simplest templates that a business can use. The goal of this funnel is to obtain contact information (most likely an email address) to keep leads in the loop of special offers with your hotel. The simpler, the better with this type of funnel. It can be useful in conjunction with a different sales funnel or company website.
ClickFunnels Value Ladder for Hotels
There is some research that likens ClickFunnels to a “value ladder” for hotels. Upon entrance into the funnel, leads are plentiful. Hence, the wide mouth of the funnel. However, as the funnel begins to narrow and customers move through the funnel (or up the ladder), they become fewer in number but more valuable in terms of the revenue they generate for the hotel.
At the lower rungs of the ladder, your hotel will offer some benefit, such as a discount code, in exchange for what the lead may view as a “micro commitment,” such as providing their email address. This is a worthwhile exchange for your hotel; although the discount will cut into profits, it allows you to develop a relationship with a lead and demonstrate your worth.
Funnel Front End
Once you have used this initial micro commitment to form a relationship and demonstrate your worth, you will move up the ladder as customers begin to develop trust in your hotel. This period after the initial “bait” is taken by the lead is referred to as the funnel’s front end. It will likely result in a lead making a reservation at your hotel and giving your business a chance.
Middle of the Funnel
Moving up the ladder, the funnel begins to narrow as the relationship gets stronger. In the middle of the funnel, the customer has started to enjoy your hotel. They will continue to subscribe to your marketing and social media efforts, with your hotel being a top choice for them when considering a stay.
In many cases, they will make a reservation without requiring any coupon or special offer.
Funnel Back End
At the top of the ladder, where the funnel is most narrow, you will find the most high-value customers. These are frequent repeat customers who likely have some kind of membership or loyalty program with your hotel. They will likely plan their trip around staying at your hotel. This is known as the funnel’s back end.
Can ClickFunnels Serve as My Hotel’s Website?
Although it is possible to build a stand-alone website using the ClickFunnels platform, it may not be ideal. ClickFunnels’ expertise is in digital marketing, with pages revealing as much. As its name implies, ClickFunnels excels in getting people to “click.”
Therefore, if you want “about” sections or other text-heavy pages that are meant to be informational and tell the story of your hotel, then it may be advisable to run two separate websites: one for informational purposes and a ClickFunnels site that handles the marketing side of the business.
You can even use your ClickFunnels site to link back to your hotel’s “home” site.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, to run a successful hotel these days, you must have a robust online presence, as customers overwhelmingly turn to the Internet when looking for a place to stay while traveling. To this end, ClickFunnels is one of the most powerful digital marketing solutions available to businesses, with a proven ability to turn leads into valuable, long-term customers.
While no two sales funnels will look exactly the same, all have the same purpose: conversion. This may involve converting a lead into a paying customer or a paying customer into a long-term client.
With funnel templates such as business launch, self-liquidating, survey, webinar, and opt-in at the hotelier’s disposal through the ClickFunnels platform, you can move customers through your funnel and up the value ladder, with a small, initial micro offer leading to thousands of dollars of revenue and profit for your business.
Ready to boost your hotel’s marketing and sales? Start your two-week free trial today!
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