5 Tips for Marketing Your Wedding Venue: 2025 Edition

in Event Venues, General Marketing Insights by Hawthorn Editorial

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s anyone in the wedding industry knows, the holiday season is a prime time for couples to get engaged. Since the first step for many newly engaged couples is selecting their venue, now is the perfect time for wedding venues to get a step ahead of the 2025 trends — and ahead of the competition.

This upcoming year, cutting-edge technology, immersive experiences, and a commitment to sustainability are taking center stage when it comes to marketing trends. To capitalize on these opportunities, high-end wedding venues should strategize ways to integrate AI-powered tools, virtual and augmented reality, and eco-friendly practices into their marketing strategies. These approaches not only elevate the customer experience but also position venues as forward-thinking, socially responsible, and unforgettable. Below are key digital marketing tactics to help your venue shine in this competitive landscape.

1. Get to Know AI

If you aren’t already, it’s time to get on the AI-powered bandwagon. What started as an interesting experiment has quickly become a smart tool for helping marketers thrive, from creative ideas to analytics. Luxury wedding venues can harness AI to create powerful connections with prospective customers.

For example, you can use AI to create personalized online portals for couples that showcase tailored packages, venue layouts, decor ideas, and food and beverage options based on their preferences. To engage with newly-acquired leads, AI-powered chatbots on your website can handle inquiries, suggest packages, and schedule tours seamlessly. On the back end, AI can use predictive analytics to analyze trends and help you time your marketing campaigns to match peak booking times.

2. Immerse Couples in AR and VR Experiences

One of the best ways to encourage a couple to visit your venue in person? Let them see it virtually first. Offering virtual tours with interactive features allows couples to explore your venue remotely, customize their setups, and truly visualize how their big day could look. This is especially enticing for couples who are traveling long distances to get married and may not be able to see the venue in person prior to booking.

You can take the experience one step further by offering couples an augmented-reality experience where they can actually see what the venue would look like with various floral arrangements, tablescapes, and seating setups. (This is similar to the “View in your room” feature available on some Amazon products.)

If AR/VR is out of your budget, you can still give customers the same feel by hosting live streams that showcase your venue and its amenities. And even better, a live feed allows you to interact in real time and answer questions from prospective clients.

3. Highlight Sustainability As A Core Value

About 62% of Gen Z shoppers prefer to buy retail from sustainable trends, and it stands to reason that this conviction will also apply to their choice of wedding venue. To show off your eco-friendly effort, promote green initiatives such as solar-powered lighting, zero-waste policies, and partnerships with sustainable vendors in your marketing materials. (And if you don’t have any eco-friendly efforts, it’s time to invest in that strategy, too.)

Another way to highlight your efforts is to create specific wedding packages that prioritize sustainable options, such as locally sourced menus, biodegradable decor, or digital invitations. And then, as an important part of your marketing mix, promote it far and wide to your online audiences.

4. Create Trend-Focused SEO Content

Typically, couples in search of a wedding venue will start in one of two places online: Google or social media. It’s essential to have a strong SEO strategy in place in order to raise your search engine rankings. One of the best ways to do this is to publish blog posts and videos that are not only SEO-friendly but highlight current trends and how your venue incorporates them.

For example, blog post topics could include “AI Trends Shaping Luxury Weddings” or “Top Sustainable Wedding Ideas for 2025.” These keyword-heavy topics (that are also on-trend) will help web crawlers push your content toward the top of the results page. For social media, develop a hashtag strategy that will accomplish the same goal.

5. Get Creative on Social Media

Your social channels are the place to let loose and have a little fun. Designing Instagram or TikTok filters that let users visualize themselves at your venue can not only enhance engagement and reach but also create content that’s truly shareable. While social media has generally been trending toward authenticity, the advent of AI filters presents a great opportunity to do both — begin with an authentic photo or video of a real-life wedding, then apply a hyper-realistic AI filter to emphasize your venue’s immersive and luxurious experience. Especially for younger couples, participating in trends like these is a great way to increase your social proof.

Social media can also be a great channel for showcasing sustainability efforts, including real-life eco-friendly weddings, through stories, reels, and posts.

Understanding Trends is the Key to Success

Trends change over time, so it’s important to do regular research and understand not only what’s shifting in your target customers, but why. To ensure that your 2025 digital marketing efforts are aligned with all the year’s biggest trends, partner with our in-house experts to develop a strategy that helps your venue stand apart from the competition.

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This or That: SEO vs. Social Media

in Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

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arketing is a high-stakes business for DMOs, hotels, and resorts—the battle for visibility and engagement is relentless. With ever-increasing tactics vying for a spot in your marketing mix and algorithms that constantly move the goalposts, even choosing between two staples — SEO and social media — can feel like a tug-of-war. While both are critical to success, understanding their unique strengths and demands can help you optimize your marketing mix for maximum ROI.

Let’s take a deep dive into two very different worlds: the high-effort, ongoing demands of social media and the foundational, long-term benefits of SEO. We’ll break down how their approaches differ, the type of results you can expect from each, and a look at why quality content still reigns supreme for both.

Social Media: Dynamic, Immediate, and Engaging

Social media platforms are the powerhouses of real-time engagement. For hotels, resorts, and DMOs, platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook can serve as virtual storefronts where stunning visuals, engaging captions, and timely interactions can captivate prospective guests.

The benefits of social media are based on its immediacy and flexibility. For example, social campaigns can drive instant traffic, engagement, and bookings with just a click or two. In addition, content like livestreams, polls, and direct messages offer a real-time way to foster one-on-one connections and build customer loyalty. Social platforms are also the only channels that allow brands to jump on trend bandwagons and produce viral content, especially when targeting capabilities enable precise audience segmentation.

Conversely, social media’s immediacy is also one of its downfalls. Because algorithms prioritize fresh, frequent content, accounts require constant posting and reacting. That content also has a short shelf life — days at most — which means that relevancy becomes even more difficult to maintain. Those dreaded algorithms are also frustrating simply because they can be confusing to understand.

As you develop your social strategy, keep these things in mind:

  • Post consistently.
  • Experiment with different content types like videos, stories, and carousel posts.
  • Invest in paid advertising to boost your content’s visibility.
  • Engage with your audience through comments and messages to build loyalty.

SEO: A Long-Term Investment

Where social media is the sprinter of digital marketing, SEO is the marathoner. Successful SEO rests on a strong foundation of keyword research, optimized meta descriptions, and high-quality content that helps grow an evergreen digital presence. SEO efforts, once implemented, can yield consistent traffic over time with minimal ongoing input.

The pros of SEO can be tracked by how your content rises through the rankings of your various keywords. When properly optimized, SEO leads to sustained growth that can drive traffic for years. (Appearing high on the search rankings builds authority and trustworthiness, too!) Although initiating SEO can be an initial investment, the long-term ROI can be substantial because it captures potential guests actively searching for the specific services or destinations you offer.

SEO is the opposite of social media in that it takes a significant initial effort to set up, followed by months to start producing results. In a world of instant gratification, this can cause frustration. SEO can also fall victim to Google’s algorithm, which likes to introduce updates and disrupt the rankings. And, since the advent of Google AI Overview, many marketers are scrambling to understand how that changes their strategy and how they can get their links to appear as part of this new section.

These actions can help you develop a strong SEO strategy:

  • Conduct keyword research to target phrases your audience searches for.
  • Optimize your website’s loading speed and mobile-friendliness.
  • Regularly update older content to maintain its relevance and rankings.

Choosing Between Social Media and SEO

For marketing managers at DMOs, hotels, and resorts, the decision between SEO and social media isn’t about choosing one tactic over the other — it’s about aligning each strategy with your goals and resources:

1. Goals: If your goal is immediate visibility and engagement, prioritize social media. For long-term traffic and increased bookings, SEO is your best bet.

2. Resources: Social media requires a dedicated team to produce, post, and monitor content daily. SEO requires an upfront investment in expertise, tools, and content creation but less day-to-day management once established.

3. Audience Behavior: Understanding where your audience hangs out online can determine whether to prioritize social or SEO, so research where your audience spends their digital time. Are they browsing Instagram for travel inspiration or searching Google for specific destinations?

4. Competitor Activity: Analyze your competitors’ digital presence. A strong social media game might mean they’re weak on SEO, giving you an opportunity to dominate search rankings.

Combine Forces for a Hybrid Strategy

For some organizations, a hybrid approach can yield the best results. Consider this strategy, for example:

1. Leverage SEO for foundational growth: Build optimized landing pages, publish evergreen blog content, and ensure your website ranks for critical keywords.

2. Use social media for engagement and amplification: Share your blog posts, showcase destination highlights, and run campaigns to direct traffic back to your website.

3. Monitor and adjust: Use analytics to identify what’s working and adapt your strategy accordingly.

Content is the Common Ground

Whether you prioritize social media or SEO, one truth remains constant: content is king. Both strategies thrive on high-quality, engaging, and relevant content that resonates with your target audience. On social media, that means eye-catching visuals, compelling stories, and user-generated content to keep your audience engaged and coming back for more. For SEO, strong content means informative blog posts, detailed guides, and keyword-rich web pages that make your site visible to search engines and valuable to users.

At Hawthorn Creative, we have an experienced staff of marketers who are well-versed in both social media and SEO strategies. If you’d like help perfecting your marketing mix, let’s talk.

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How to Get the Most Out of Your Year-End Metrics

in General Marketing Insights by Hawthorn Editorial

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024 has come and gone, and you’re sitting on a treasure trove of data that can help you as you begin to make your 2025 plans. For many marketers, though, being creative in the brainstorming phase and understanding spreadsheets full of numbers are two very different things. How can you make the most out of your data if you aren’t sure what it’s telling you?

To help you analyze your year-end metrics, we put together a list of tips and tricks that will simplify all those numbers. We’re breaking down what to look out for, what data matters, and how to apply it to your 2025 planning.

Identify Your Most Important Metrics

The list of “important” metrics will vary by your company’s industry, your overall business objectives, and upcoming plans for the year. However, marketing metrics typically fall into three categories: business outcomes, audience engagement, and operational efficiency. Here’s a closer look at each:

Business Outcomes
These metrics directly measure your financial results, customer value, and overall growth. They include:

  • Revenue, like return on investment (ROI), return on ad spend, revenue growth, and revenue per customer.
  • Sales and lead generation metrics, like cost per acquisition, sales conversion rate, number of leads, lead conversion rate, and cost per lead.
  • Customer metrics, like customer lifetime value, customer retention rate, and net promoter score.
  • Industry and benchmark metrics, like market share growth and benchmark performance.

Audience Engagement
These numbers reveal how users interact with your content, channels, and campaigns. They include:

  • Website and digital engagement, like click-through rate (CTR), bounce rate, session duration, and page performance.
  • Content performance, like top-performing content, time spent on content, and content ROI.
  • Social media engagement, like engagement rate, follower growth, and social ROI.
  • Email engagement, like open rate, click-to-open rate, and unsubscribe rate.
  • SEO metrics, like organic traffic to your site, keyword rankings, and search impressions.

Operational Efficiency
Finally, these data points assess the overall cost-effectiveness and productivity of your marketing efforts. They include:

  • Advertising performance, like cost-per-click (CPC), and impressions vs. conversions.
  • Campaign efficiency, like cost-per-acquisition (CPA), lead conversion rate, and ad spend ROI.

Many of these facts and figures are accessed using an analytics dashboard — the most common of which is Google Analytics 4 — but even with innovative visualization software that presents your data in graphs and charts, deciphering them can still be overwhelming. As you sift through your 2024 numbers, here are some techniques you can use to uncover the gold:

5 Ways to Apply Your Year-End Metrics to Future Planning

1. Conduct a comprehensive performance review

First, look for the highs and lows of your campaigns — those will help you identify patterns and trends. (If you have 2023 data as well, you can also look for year-over-year changes.) Focus on metrics like conversion rates, engagement, and ROI across all channels. Plus, keep in mind any seasonal patterns or anomalies in customer behavior. This can help you predict next year’s periods of high (or low) interest.

2. Revisit your customer segments

Compare your year-end data to your current buyer personas — do they match up? If you see discrepancies, such as demographics, preferences, spending patterns, or actual vs. anticipated online engagement, that’s a sign to do a little fine-tuning or create some new segments. Other watch-outs include shifts in demographics, preferences, or spending patterns. The more you know your customer base, the more personalized and effective your marketing strategies will be.

3. Identify your top (and bottom) sellers

As you look through sales data, identify the products or services that performed the best and the worst. Ask yourself questions like: Why were they successful? Why were they not? How did they perform compared to the same time last year? What did the average shopping cart look like? With an overall performance picture, you can create strategies that replicate your successes, improve your weaknesses, and take advantage of trends like product bundlings.

4. Evaluate your marketing budget

If there’s one thing about marketing, it’s that things are always shifting — it’s rare that your marketing mix will be exactly the same from year to year. To see where you need to make adjustments, compare performance across all channels to determine which produced the highest ROI. This information is invaluable in helping you trim the fat, which is especially helpful if you’re working with a smaller budget.

5. Make improvements to customer retention

In addition to engagement data, it’s also important to assess customer churn to look for patterns or common factors, including bounce rate, loyalty program data, or re-engagement campaigns. This valuable information, along with customer feedback collected throughout the year, can guide you in adjusting your retention strategies to address recurring issues or level up successful areas.

Leverage Predictive Analytics to Set New KPIs

Many analytics dashboards now include predictive analytics, which is a machine-learning enhancement that uses historical data to make future predictions about customer behavior and sales trends. These predictive insights empower you to be proactive across the board when planning, including the allocation of resources toward areas more likely to yield results, and the ability to make smart KPI decisions, set baseline metrics, and track progress.

Hawthorn Creative’s full-service team of marketing professionals is experienced at both analyzing data and using it to help build future marketing campaigns. If you’re ready to improve your performance in the coming year, let’s talk.

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Do Magazines Still Have a Place in Hospitality Marketing?

in Content Marketing, Hotels & Resorts, Print Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

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otel and resort marketers from the not-too-distant past would barely recognize the industry landscape today. From rapid advancements in technology to massive changes in both consumer behavior and traveler expectations, marketing in the 21st century has redefined the entire hospitality industry.

The digital revolution has opened new doors for marketers, but what does that mean for tactics like destination magazines? Are they still relevant in an age where a company can save time, money, and the environment by publishing their content online instead of in print? (The short answer: yes.)

The Role of In-Room and Destination Magazines

If you’ve stayed in a higher-end hotel, you’ve likely thumbed through one of the high-gloss, in-room magazines that have long been a staple in the hotel and resort world. Their purpose is to introduce guests to the hotel, the local culture, nearby attractions, dining options, and shopping experiences. These publications are a valuable resource for travelers who appreciate the help building their itineraries and discovering what experiences await them during their stay.

From a marketing perspective, in-room magazines also serve as a platform for local businesses, tour operators, restaurants, and other hospitality-related services to reach a ready-to-explore audience. They also help to reinforce a brand’s image by reflecting the hotel’s style and sophistication. Destination magazines, which guests may encounter in their rooms or at airports, train stations, and tourist centers, provide broader insights and relevant regional information.

Sounds like a pretty important tactic to us!

Here’s Why Magazines Are Still Relevant

Tactile Experience and Luxury Perception

One of the main reasons print magazines remain relevant in the hospitality industry is the hands-on, luxurious experience they provide. The sensory experience of flipping through pages — especially in a high-end hotel — conveys a sense of opulence and leisure that digital alternatives struggle to replicate.

For luxury hotels, in-room magazines that feature custom layouts, high-end paper stock, and stunning photography are a great way to reinforce the brand’s image as exclusive and sophisticated. The tangible nature of these magazines can engage guests in a way that feels more personal, reflecting the hotel’s commitment to a premium guest experience.

Unplugged Moments and In-Room Experiences

In-room magazines can also capitalize on what marketers sometimes call “unplugged moments.” After a long day of travel or sightseeing, many guests may want to disconnect from their devices. During these moments, a beautifully curated magazine left on the bedside table can be exactly what’s needed, especially for older travelers or those who simply appreciate a break from their screens.

Guests of all ages also tend to spend time with the perks that are physically available in their rooms. Whether they’re waiting for room service, relaxing after a day out, or looking for a way to pass a rainy afternoon, spending time inside their luxurious room is a welcome reprieve from an action-packed vacation —- and it’s the perfect time to peruse an engaging publication.

Local Insight and Personalization

While travel apps and websites offer a wealth of information, they often lack the curated, local insight that destination magazines provide. Magazines are produced and developed by experts with in-depth knowledge of the region, which means they can introduce travelers to hidden gems they might otherwise overlook. From feature-length articles to smaller department pieces focused on a specific topic, in-room magazines give hotels and resorts a unique way to present their property and the surrounding destination.

That said, a print magazine can be the catalyst for a property’s digital marketing mix as well — especially if smaller chunks of content can be repurposed within blogs, social media posts, and on the property website.

Some Things to Consider

Travelers today rely heavily on social media, apps, and the internet to access information about their destinations. The wealth of data available on Google Maps, TripAdvisor, Yelp, and other travel services means that many guests no longer need printed materials to plan their activities.

Because digital platforms also provide a level of interactivity that print magazines can’t match, many hoteliers also choose to create e-publications, or digital versions of their magazines that offer the best of both worlds. Readers can gain access to the digital version via a landing page showcased on an in-room tablet.

Environmental Concerns and Sustainability

Another factor to consider in your decision to produce magazines? Sustainability. The hospitality industry has been increasingly pressured to reduce its environmental impact, especially by younger travelers who say a property’s commitment to sustainability could be a deal-breaker for whether or not they stay. The production and disposal of print magazines contribute to paper waste, which may be viewed as inconsistent with these green practices. If your hotel decides to use print magazines, consider using recycled paper and making sure that guests know that the magazines are recycled with each new issue. And, if reducing your paper output is central to your green initiatives, distributing the magazine as digital copies is a great alternative.

Cost and ROI

The costs associated with producing high-quality magazines can be substantial, particularly for luxury properties that want to ensure their publications reflect the same level of quality as their brand. As more marketing dollars are being funneled into digital strategies, which often offer better tracking and measurement of ROI, the financial justification for maintaining print publications can be hard to make. But while the returns may be less tangible with a print magazine, it can be a worthy investment on a number of levels — from brand reputation management to customer satisfaction.

The Final Page

While it’s clear that digital platforms are a major way people consume information during their travels, in-room and destination magazines still hold a vital place in hospitality marketing — especially for luxury properties.

Our experienced staff of writers, editors, and strategists know what it takes to produce a magazine that your travelers will read from cover to cover — reach out to learn how we can create a custom magazine that aligns with your company’s marketing goals.

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Noctourism, Set-Jetting, and Other 2025 Travel Trends to Know

in Destination Marketing Organizations, Hotels & Resorts by Hawthorn Editorial

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new year is around the corner, and research is finding that travelers are still thinking big when it comes to travel plans. The post-pandemic urge to get out and see the world remains strong, but the types of trips on the docket for 2025 are becoming increasingly unique.

Next year’s travel trends provide a wealth of opportunity for marketers to capitalize on these new traveler segments — and the best time to adjust your marketing strategy is right now. Here’s a look at what’s hot (and what’s not) for travel in 2025:

Group Travel

The year 2025 is all about travel togetherness. According to recent reports, 47% of travelers say they want to take multigenerational family trips in 2025 — a number that’s up 17% from 2024 and higher than any other type of group trip. Friend group travel is also popular at 20%.

What’s not trending? Solo trips. In 2025, only 12% of travelers say they’re interested in traveling alone, which is down a whopping 72% from just a year ago.

Ideas to Inspire Groups

  • Promote flexible accommodations, including rooms with bunk beds, suites with pull-out couches, connecting rooms, and other ways a large group can share space.
  • Create a “memory-making” service where large families can opt for photo packages that capture every moment.
  • Market to several generations at once — here are our tried-and-true tips for attracting multi-generational groups to your property.

JOMO Travel (Joy of Missing Out)

Travelers are no longer feeling the fear of missing out on big, well-known tourist destinations. Instead, guests now favor quieter, off-the-beaten-path destinations with fewer crowds.

Vrbo reports that travelers are opting for serene accommodations like secluded lakeside cabins, mountain chalets, and cozy beach houses. They’re especially interested in amenities like hot tubs, gardens, and scenic porches to amplify their experience​.

Ideas to Inspire Getaway-ers

  • Provide private dining options for travelers who want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the main dining room.
  • Offer book nooks or other cozy seating areas where there’s no Wi-Fi signal.
  • Schedule private wellness experiences, like in-room spa treatments or guided meditation sessions.
  • Emphasize your tranquility-focused amenities such as gardens, hot tubs, or hammocks.

Noctourism

Adventurers are looking for destinations in 2025 that offer nighttime phenomena that they can’t see anywhere else: stargazing under a Dark Sky, seeing the Northern Lights, watching bioluminescent illumination in the water, or ducking as bats cover the night sky.

Like those attracted to the idea of JOMO, “noctourism” travelers are also seeking brand-new experiences … and what’s more unique than experiencing the world under cover of darkness?

Ideas to Inspire Night Owls

  • Create nighttime itineraries focused on stargazing, moonlit beach walks, or evening nature tours.
  • Host themed late-night dinners or entertainment (like fire dancers on the beach).
  • If your property is in an area known for its natural wonders, highlight yourself as the perfect home base — you can even provide amenities like telescopes, binoculars, flashlights, or star charts.

Goods-Focused Travel

According to Expedia, as many as 44% of travelers shop for local goods they can’t get at home while they’re visiting a destination, and 39% visit local grocery stores. In this new travel trend, coined “Goods Getaways” by Expedia, travelers are seeking out specialty items and experiences (think: locally made chocolates or regional cooking classes). It’s an extension of the experiential travel trend, which now includes tangible items that travelers can taste, touch, and take home.

Ideas to Inspire Souvenir Shoppers

  • Create unique “souvenir experiences” for your guests by partnering with local artisans or specialty stores to offer exclusive products on-site or in gift shops.
  • Offer curated, locally-inspired gift baskets upon arrival as part of a VIP guest package. This could also include product tastings or demonstrations.

Set-Jetting

Here’s another new term, designed to reflect travel inspired by TV shows and movies. After growing slowly over the past few years, “set-jetting” is taking off as travelers yearn to visit locations featured in popular television shows and films. In fact, according to Expedia, nearly two-thirds of travelers say that their travel has been influenced by their favorite movies, streaming services, and TV shows. Destinations like Montana, from the TV series “Yellowstone,” and North Carolina’s “Outer Banks,” from the show of the same name, are attracting fans who want to experience these cinematic settings for themselves.

Ideas to Inspire Movie Buffs

  • Tap into the set-jet crowd by highlighting any connection your location has to popular films or TV series — like our client Opal Collection did with this blog post about the episode of “Succession” that was set at Lake Placid Lodge.
  • Offer themed packages inspired by local filming spots or guided tours to nearby landmarks featured on the big screen.
  • Create your own cinematic experiences, like movie-inspired decor or events based on iconic scenes to attract fans of specific shows or movies.

One-Click Trips

Inspired by social media influencers, many travelers want to book entire trips directly from one post. Some social platforms are even developing “shoppable storefronts” that streamline the booking process based on influencer recommendations​. One-click travelers are the opposite of those who love going down the research rabbit hole and finding the perfect accommodations, best restaurants, and highest-rated attractions. They instead want to secure their next exciting getaway with just the touch of a button.

Ideas to Inspire the Influenced

  • One-click trips originated on social media, so it’s essential to have a solid presence on the platforms that are most important to your ideal customers.
  • Create an experience that allows guests to book rooms, experiences, and services directly from their favorite social platform. This can be even more effective if you partner with an influencer who can curate their own travel itineraries.

All-Inclusive Is In

Major hotel brands like Marriott and Hilton are expanding their all-inclusive options, which appeal to younger travelers seeking luxury without added stress (or money). By bundling amenities and activities for one flat price, these resorts offer a simplified, cost-friendly vacation experience​. To attract the all-inclusive crowd (even if you aren’t a traditional all-inclusive resort), curate your own exclusive packages that cover a wide range of activities — from dining to drinks to wellness activities. Make your options fully customizable, offer add-ons, and allow guests to personalize their stay while not having to worry about paying for everything separately.

Bleisure Is Out

In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, travelers were doing what they could to combine business travel with pleasure, such as adding extra days before or after their business trip. Now, that trend is on a downward swing. “Bleisure,” or blended travel, refers to trips that include both work and leisure time. These days, travelers are opting to keep work and play separate: 85% say they want separate trips in 2025, which is a 60% decrease from last year.

If you’d like to work with an expert team of travel marketers to take advantage of 2025 travel trends, get in touch.

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The 2025 Big 3 in Marketing: AI, Sustainability, and Immersive Integration

in General Marketing Insights by Hawthorn Editorial

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lthough each marketing campaign you tackle in 2025 will have its own unique goals and KPIs, three marketing areas are shaping up to be toolkit essentials: AI-powered personalization, sustainability, and immersive integration.

Spurred by advances in technology, changing consumer behaviors, and a greater emphasis on the environment, these areas are essential for staying competitive and building long-term customer loyalty.

1. Artificial Intelligence and Hyper-Personalization

After a few years of experimentation, AI has grown out of its “cool new toy” phase and become a powerful digital assistant. In 2025, AI-driven personalization will be a key differentiator for brands by enabling them to create highly tailored experiences using real-time data.

Hyper-Personalization at Scale

AI can analyze a massive amount of customer data, including browser behaviors, purchase history, and social interactions, to create one of the most complete pictures of your target audience ever. With that level of insight, imagine how a truly personalized message can drive engagement and conversion. Hyper-personalization has been focused mostly on email to date, but it can also include tailored ads, dynamic website content, and even personalized pricing strategies.

Automation and Efficiency

Behind the scenes, AI-powered automation will also be crucial in helping marketers streamline operations. From scheduling email campaigns to managing social media interactions through AI chatbots, automation can reduce time spent on manual tasks and allow marketing teams to focus instead on strategy and creativity. AI can also help automate customer segmentation and follow-ups to ensure that the right customers are targeted at the right time.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics — an AI application that uses historical data to forecast future trends — will allow marketers to anticipate customer behaviors and trends and adjust their marketing strategies proactively, rather than reactively. It can also be used to forecast the best times and dates to post on various social media channels.

2. Sustainability and Social Responsibility

When it comes to 2025 marketing plans, sustainability and social responsibility will no longer be optional; they will be essential components of successful marketing strategies. Modern consumers, particularly younger generations, are deeply concerned about the impact of their purchasing decisions on the environment and society. Brands that ignore these concerns risk alienating a growing segment of the market.

Promoting Sustainable Practices

With a growing number of consumers who say a brand’s commitment to sustainability (or lack thereof) is a deal-breaker, it’s imperative to showcase your company’s sustainable practices and values. This could mean designing tablescapes with eco-friendly materials for wedding venues or offering products in refillable, recyclable packages for medical spas; whatever your sustainability strategy is, be sure to focus on communicating these efforts transparently and authentically.

Aligning with Social Causes

Beyond environmental concerns, consumers also expect brands to take a stand on social issues. That can mean diversity and inclusion, fair labor practices, or healthcare access. Companies that align with social causes will build stronger emotional connections with their audience. It’s important to market this information as well, but once again, it must be authentic, or consumers will see right through it.

Building Trust through Transparency

Social responsibility is about more than saying you’re taking steps to be more proactive. You need to walk the walk, which means ensuring that your communication is honest and backed by data. This could include publishing sustainability reports, showcasing certifications, or partnering with reputable third-party organizations to verify claims. Trust is a valuable currency in today’s market, and brands that earn it through genuine efforts will be rewarded with customer loyalty.

3. Omnichannel Integration and Immersive Experiences

The modern customer journey spans multiple touchpoints, from physical locations to websites, mobile apps, and social media. To deliver a seamless experience across these platforms, your 2025 marketing plans should adopt omnichannel strategies that ensure consistency and continuity wherever your customers encounter your content.

Seamless Omnichannel Experiences

We can’t express how important it is for marketing campaigns to present a unified brand style, voice, and tone — regardless of channel. Whether a customer is shopping in-store, browsing online, or engaging with your brand on social media, the experience should be seamless from beginning to end. For example, a customer should be able to start shopping on their phone and easily complete the transaction in-store, with access to the same promotions and personalized offers. This is especially important for luxury brands, where glitches and inconsistencies detract from an exclusive atmosphere.

Leveraging AR/VR for Immersive Experiences

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are also advancing from neat experiments to expected inclusions. These technologies, when properly created, can open your customers up to entirely new worlds that go far beyond traditional marketing. For example, customers could use AR to virtually “try on” a piece of jewelry or see how their appearance would look after a spa treatment. This not only enhances the customer experience but also helps them make more informed decisions, reducing return rates and boosting satisfaction.
Get a jump on the competition with your 2025 marketing plans. Our team of experts has years of experience following trends, analyzing data, and crafting smart strategies that drive engagement. Ready to get started? Let’s talk.

 

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From the CEO: Strategies for Driving Engagement and Direct Bookings on Your Hotel’s Website

in Hotels & Resorts, Websites by Hawthorn Editorial

Editor’s note: Hawthorn Creative Founder and CEO, Jessica Kaiser, presented a webinar with the International Luxury Hotel Association on strategies for driving hotel engagement and bookings. Watch the entire webinar here.

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or hospitality marketers, enticing travelers to choose their property is getting more and more challenging. There’s so much competition out there — both in physical locations and the digital ways to research them — that travelers can quickly become overwhelmed by the choices. According to Jessica Kaiser, founder and CEO of Hawthorn Creative, hotels and resorts can cut through the clutter, but it takes hard work, diligence, and dedication to staying on top of trends.

Your website is your most important tool

To help your property rise above the noise, it all starts with your website. The clearest path to success begins with understanding what’s working and, more importantly, what’s not. And it’s about much more than clicks, bounce rates, and conversion rates. “If you can understand this undercurrent, you have a much better chance of impacting the results,” Kaiser said.

Armed with that information, you can create a strategy that refines your funnel by optimizing the good and minimizing (or eliminating!) the bad. To get a clear picture of what’s happening on your site, ask yourself questions like these:

  • Are your high-traffic pages leading to the booking engine? (If not, why?)
  • What pages are driving the highest exit rate?
  • Do you have enough CTAs throughout the site encouraging people to book? (And are they placed high enough on the high-traffic pages?)

On average, Kaiser noted, travel and hospitality websites average six page views per session. If your site isn’t seeing that level of engagement, it’s time to reassess.

Tap into buyer psychology in marketing

According to Kaiser, there are five categories to consider when developing your marketing strategy: simplicity, consistency, social proof, scarcity, and pricing. Together, these add up to what she calls “buyer psychology,” or the beliefs and behaviors that drive their decisions:

  • Simplicity: One thing buyers across all personas have in common? They don’t like to be overwhelmed by information. To avoid decision fatigue, don’t offer too many options — or, be sure to break those options into clear categories and present the information in a way that’s easy to understand.
  • Consistency: For luxury hotels, your website needs to reflect that sense of luxury and exclusivity in all areas of your marketing. That means the negative space, large images, and clean fonts that you use on your website home page should remain throughout every sub-page, on your social media pages, and especially your booking pages.
  • Social proof: Hotel reviews are oftentimes the deciding factor in which property a traveler chooses. For that reason, it’s essential to incorporate the best testimonials on your site or, even better, integrate a feed that updates in real-time. Giving travelers the chance to read reviews directly from your website also keeps them within your ecosystem.
  • Scarcity: In Gen Z terms, this is also known as FOMO, or fear of missing out. One way to address this fear is to note in your booking engine how many rooms of each type are available on a traveler’s preferred days. Or, if you’re running promotions, be sure to include how much time is left before the special ends.
  • Pricing: What should the price be? When should we shift it? How should we sort pricing on the booking engine? All of these questions have psychology-based answers: luxury hotels over $400 per night, Kaiser said, should sort prices by high to low in order to showcase premium products first. If that number decreases during the off-season, though, sort prices by low to high in order to be more competitive.

Direct bookings are on the rise

Since 2020, travelers have shifted their booking behavior away from OTAs in favor of direct bookings. And ironically, this is somewhat due to advertising. Called the “OTA billboard effect,” some hotels see an increase of as much as 25% in direct bookings when they advertise on OTAs.

The key, once those travelers make their way to your website, is to keep them there. One of the best ways to do that, Kaiser advised, is to give them direct access to what they value most about OTAs: multiple services in one location.

An OTA, for example, makes it quick and easy to compare rates and reviews for all the local hotels. Add in the benefit of booking a flight or renting a car, and it’s hard not to take that deal. Hoteliers can create that same atmosphere on their individual websites by announcing clearly and up front that travelers get the lowest rate guaranteed when they book directly. To sweeten the pot, direct bookings can also include exclusive bundles or upsells like spa experiences, a free drink at the hotel bar, or a discount on local activities as part of a direct booking package.

Focus on experience vs. amenities

Travelers today tend to book their lodging based on the type of experience they’d like to have. Spa resorts, for example, attract guests looking for relaxation, education, and personal growth for the mind, body, and soul. Family-friendly seaside retreats, on the other hand, bring in guests looking for excitement and adventure.

Once hospitality marketers understand the experience they’re able to offer (and the experience their guests expect) the key to success is to promote the concept everywhere, including your website, digital media, social media, blog, short-form video, influencer content, and whatever other tactics make sense for your marketing mix. Kaiser said targeted promotion, along with a smart SEO strategy, will go a long way toward attracting the right travelers for your property.

Understand the changing luxury travel space

The bottom line is to understand as much as you can about your industry, region, property, and most importantly, your ideal traveler. And once you have that information, never take your eye off the ball. “Every choice you make about marketing should revolve around the values and desires of your buyer,” Kaiser said.

To hear more advice from our CEO Jessica Kaiser on how to drive more bookings to your property, watch the full webinar.

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Engagement Season is Coming: Here’s How to Attract Higher-Budget Weddings

in Event Venues, General Marketing Insights by Hawthorn Editorial

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he holidays are almost upon us! This year, experts predict a record 2.5 million couples will become engaged. For wedding venues, there’s no better opportunity than “the year of the engagement” to attract clients who are ready to go big — and spend big — for their impending nuptials.

The luxury wedding industry is competitive, though, which means that getting affluent couples to say ‘yes’ to your venue requires more than a stunning location and high-end amenities. This season, it’s time to get creative with clever strategies and innovative approaches that make high-end customers take notice.

Here are six ways to help you get your venue in front of the couples seeking luxury, exclusivity, and bespoke experiences:

1. Understand the Profile of High-Budget Couples

First and foremost, it’s crucial to understand that discerning clients aren’t just looking for a venue; they’re seeking an experience that aligns with their elevated expectations. They value exclusivity, personalization, and impeccable service — in short, they want a venue that reflects their status and distinct vision.

Although each situation will be different, here are some characteristics that define a high-budget buyer persona:

  • Personalization is paramount. These couples want a wedding that tells their story, so they often opt for bespoke services, from custom floral designs to unique culinary experiences.
  • Attention to detail. Every detail, from the grand entrance to the napkin design, is expected to be flawless and meticulously executed.
  • Convenience. Venues offering an all-encompassing, one-stop-shop experience, from planning services to accommodations, will move to the top of the list.
  • Opulence meets innovation. Couples willing to go the extra mile appreciate both tradition and innovation, such as a modern-style wedding at a rustic lodge or castle.

2. Cultivate Exclusive Partnerships

If you can’t offer everything in-house, focus on developing partnerships with wedding planners, stylists, caterers, and other luxury vendors to curate your clients’ perfect day. It not only eases the burden of finding the right vendor but also positions your venue as part of an elite network within the luxury wedding space. In addition, fostering these types of relationships can lead to one of the most powerful forms of marketing in the space: word-of-mouth referrals.

Here are a few ways to make connections in the luxury wedding market:

  • Work with luxury wedding planners. Recommendations are a two-way street, and planners who have exclusive relationships with their clients can recommend your venue as the perfect option for high-end weddings.
  • Vet a preferred vendor list. Do your homework to ensure that every vendor on this list aligns with your brand’s values of luxury and quality. This could include caterers, florists, photographers, and entertainment options who all cater to an upscale clientele.
  • Offer exclusive incentives. Collaborate with vendors to offer special packages or incentives that appeal to couples who want to maximize convenience without compromising quality.

3. Invest in High-Quality Photography and Videography

When couples seek a luxury wedding venue, pictures are worth a thousand words (and thousands of dollars). For this reason, it’s critical to invest in high-quality visuals for your marketing campaigns.

We can’t stress enough the importance of speaking to your target audience’s tastes with photos that capture the essence of a luxurious experience. For this reason, it’s essential to hire a professional photographer specializing in luxury weddings to create content highlighting your venue’s exclusive features, such as stunning vistas, intricate architectural details, and lavish interiors. When you attract the right customers, it’s an investment well worth the return.

In addition, you’ll want to create cinematic highlight reels that showcase full wedding days at your venue, from preparations to the ceremony, dinner, and evening entertainment. Include aerial drone footage for a dramatic perspective of your property.

Here are some key tips for getting it done right:

  • Reflect your ambiance. Be sure that the photos and videos you take actually look like the venue. For rustic settings, for example, decorate the set and choose outfits that reflect whimsy, vintage, or countryside feels.
  • Tell real-life stories. Highlight high-budget weddings you’ve already hosted, taking care to emphasize the luxurious elements that differentiate your venue.
  • Expand your reach. Dedicate a portion of your budget to creating high-quality virtual venue tours for out-of-town or international clients who can’t visit your venue in person.

4. Tailor Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Once you have those beautiful photographs, it’s time to market them. In a digital-first world, it’s essential to reach couples where they spend most of their time: online. However, attracting a high-budget wedding requires a more sophisticated approach than traditional digital marketing. This ties back to doing your initial research and understanding how and where your target audience consumes digital information.

Here are some strategies we recommend:

  • Leverage targeted ads. Invest in Facebook and Instagram ads that specifically target users interested in luxury goods and services. Use sophisticated targeting parameters, such as income brackets and interests, to ensure your ads reach affluent couples.
  • Invest in SEO. Optimize your website for high-intent search keywords, such as “luxury wedding venue,” “exclusive wedding locations,” or “destination weddings for the elite.” High-budget couples are more likely to search for these terms when looking for a venue that aligns with their vision.
  • Create content that speaks to luxury. Your blog posts and social media should highlight the exclusive nature of your venue, discussing high-end trends in weddings, luxury experiences, and the exceptional service you provide.
  • Post on Instagram and Pinterest. These platforms are especially popular among engaged couples for wedding inspiration. Use Instagram to highlight real weddings, behind-the-scenes moments, and the luxurious amenities of your venue. Pinterest is a powerful tool to create mood boards that show potential clients how your venue can be transformed into their dream wedding setting.
  • Promote, promote, promote. As you complete the above ideas, like securing partnerships, hiring a world-class photographer, or expanding your in-house services, share that content far and wide as social media content.

5. Create Beautiful Collateral

While much of the luxury wedding market relies on digital marketing, there is still immense value in providing tangible, high-end materials such as printed brochures. These brochures can leave a lasting impression on prospective couples and serve as a constant reminder of the luxurious experience your venue offers.

Here are a few ways to create a brochure that speaks to the exclusivity and sophistication of your brand, even after couples have headed home:

  • Invest in premium materials. Use high-quality paper stock and elegant finishes, such as thick, textured paper, matte or gloss finishes, and metallic or embossed details, to create a brochure that reflects the luxury of your venue.
  • Focus on visual storytelling. Aesthetics are important. Fill your brochure with full-page, high-resolution images that capture the grandeur and beauty of your venue. For close-ups, highlight opulent decor, stunning views, and intimate moments that can help couples imagine themselves on their big day.
  • Highlight personalized, exclusive services. Dedicate space to show how you cater to couples seeking a bespoke experience. This can include customized menus, options for exclusive use of the venue, in-house planners, and any high-end amenities like spa treatments.

6. Showcase Past Successes with Testimonials and Real Weddings

Finally, nothing convinces high-budget couples more than social proof. Showcase glowing testimonials from previous clients and document luxurious weddings you’ve hosted in the past. Share their success stories on your website, social media, and marketing materials to build credibility and trust.

Here’s a look at some of ours:

Twenty Mile House
Here’s how a wedding venue rebrand and website launch combined to drive conversions.

Walters Wedding Estates
We developed a unified digital brand and content strategy fit for wedding industry experts.

The Vine
A new brand and website repositioned this Texas venue for success.

By leveraging these marketing strategies, your luxury wedding venue can become the ultimate destination for high-budget couples. As engagement season kicks off, position your brand to offer these clients the exclusive, unforgettable experiences they crave.

This marketing-focused approach will help attract more high-end clientele by emphasizing exclusivity, personalization, and quality partnerships, ensuring your venue stands out in the luxury wedding market.

RELATED READING

Inspire a Fall Getaway With These Instagrammable Content Ideas

in Hotels & Resorts, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

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or much of the country, sweater weather is finally here! The changing leaves and dropping temps of fall are the perfect opportunity for hotels, resorts, and destination marketing organizations (DMOs) to capture the hearts of travelers who can’t wait to don their coziest jackets and boots.

If you had to pick one social channel where viewers flock to see photos of changing leaves and warm coffee, one platform stands out above the rest: Instagram. This time of year lends itself perfectly to Insta-worthy moments that can elevate brand engagement — and ultimately drive bookings.

Here are some highly Instagrammable fall content ideas to showcase your property as the perfect fall getaway.

1. Seasonal Decor

Nothing defines this season more than a warm, rustic color palette. Showcase how your property is embracing the season by sharing photos and videos of your autumn-inspired decor.

Content Inspiration:

  • Feature harvest displays with pumpkins, gourds, and corn stalks.
  • Provide a video tour of cozy, inviting lobby spaces adorned with plaid blankets, candles, and foliage-inspired centerpieces.
  • Capture photos of fire pits or outdoor seating areas with seasonal floral arrangements.

Pro tip: Use hashtags like #FallVibes or #AutumnAesthetic to reach a wider audience of potential travelers looking for a seasonal escape.

2. Fall Foliage Walks and Views

If you’re located in a region where fall foliage is abundant, take every opportunity to show off the natural beauty of your surroundings. Create visually stunning content that showcases the changing colors in creative ways.

Content Inspiration:

  • Share drone shots of vibrant treetops and scenic landscapes.
  • Post time-lapse videos of the sun rising or setting over a golden-hued forest.
  • Promote nature trails or guided walks that guests can enjoy, along with the scenic vistas they’ll experience.

Pro tip: Consider creating a fall foliage tracker on Instagram Stories, highlighting when the colors will be at their peak. This adds a layer of urgency for travelers to book a stay during the most picturesque time of the season.

3. Seasonal Food and Beverages

This time of year is all about comfort food and seasonal flavors like pumpkin spice, apple cider, and caramel. Post content that showcases your fall menu.

Content Inspiration:

  • Feature your chef or bartender making signature fall dishes or cocktails.
  • Post carousel images of beautifully plated meals using seasonal ingredients like butternut squash, apples, and mushrooms.
  • Highlight any special fall menus (don’t forget to include local ingredients to appeal to the farm-to-table crowd).

Pro tip: Take advantage of user-generated content by encouraging guests to share photos of their meals with a branded hashtag, and repost their best shots on your own feed.

4. Cozy Guest Room Experiences

As the weather cools, travelers are drawn to cozy accommodations that offer warmth and comfort — so, take the opportunity to show off the coziest aspects of your property’s rooms or suites.

Content Inspiration:

  • Share images of rooms with fireplaces, hot tubs, or luxurious bedding.
  • Create short videos of guests enjoying an in-room coffee, tea, or hot cocoa, wrapped in soft blankets, while looking out at the fall scenery.
  • Post before-and-after photos of rooms transformed for the season with autumnal decor.

Pro tip: Highlight features like plush robes, slippers, or in-room amenities like local snacks and seasonal treats. The goal is to evoke a sense of warmth and relaxation that will entice potential guests to book a getaway.

5. Promote Fall Events and Activities

Take advantage of your area’s fall event calendar to attract guests to your property. Whether it’s a pumpkin carving contest, a local harvest festival, or a wine-tasting event, these events can lend themselves to Instagrammable moments for your followers.

Content Inspiration:

  • Create an event-specific hashtag and encourage attendees to share their experiences on Instagram.
  • Share behind-the-scenes content leading up to the event, such as setup details, interviews with vendors, or sneak peeks at the activities.
  • After the event, share user-generated content to give potential guests a taste of what they missed — and a reason to book for the next event.

Pro tip: Use Instagram Stories and Reels to highlight the energy and excitement of fall activities, which can help even those who missed out this year start planning for the next.

6. Fall Travel Inspiration and Local Experiences

DMOs and hotels can position themselves as fall travel experts by curating fall content that showcases unique local experiences. Post guides, itineraries, or day trips that highlight what travelers can see and do during their stay.

Content Inspiration:

  • Highlight nearby apple orchards, vineyards, or corn mazes, along with tips for visitors.
  • Create Instagram Stories featuring “A Day in the Life” of a traveler enjoying the best fall activities in your destination.
  • Interview local artisans, shop owners, or farmers, and promote their fall offerings like handmade scarves, artisanal cider, or seasonal produce.

Pro tip: Partner with regional influencers or bloggers to attract both local travelers looking for a quick fall getaway and those from more Southern climates, who might be seeking an authentic experience.

7. Interactive Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories provide a dynamic way to engage with your audience in real-time. Use interactive features to spark conversation and keep your followers engaged.

Content Inspiration:

  • Create a poll asking followers to vote on their favorite fall activities or dishes at your property.
  • Use the question feature to ask for recommendations on their favorite fall destinations or seasonal experiences.
  • Share quizzes or trivia related to fall, such as “Guess this fall flavor” or “Which autumn activity should you try?”

Pro tip: Don’t underestimate the power of interactive content when it comes to keeping your brand top of mind.

8. Behind-the-Scenes Fall Prep

Giving your followers a glimpse behind the curtain can be an engaging way to showcase the hard work that goes into preparing for the season.

Content Inspiration:

  • Share a video tour of your property’s fall transformation, from putting up decorations to stocking seasonal amenities.
  • Post a time-lapse video of your team setting up a fall event or creating a stunning harvest display.
  • Highlight the local farmers, artisans, or vendors that supply the seasonal products you use in your food, drinks, or decor.

Pro tip: Harness the power of behind-the-scenes content to humanize your brand and create a more personal connection with your audience.

With a well-planned strategy focused on seasonal beauty and attractions, fall can be a content goldmine for hotels, resorts, and DMOs. Our team of social media experts can help you develop a top-notch fall content strategy that perfectly aligns with your business needs. If you’re ready to get started, let’s talk.

RELATED READING

Here’s How to Spend Your Marketing Budget Wisely

in General Marketing Insights by Hawthorn Editorial

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eeping up with the right marketing tactics for your business can be challenging. Marketing is largely a numbers game, where the winning strategy is to find not only the right amount for your overall marketing budget but also the right mix of tactics to reach your business goals.

No two campaigns are alike (or at least, they shouldn’t be) but rather designed around unique factors like audience, analytics, and KPIs. And if you’re a luxury brand, there are additional considerations, such as the brand’s premium positioning, exclusivity, and focus on high-quality customer experiences.

There’s no magic formula or template when it comes to marketing budgets and mixes, but here are some industry-typical guidelines to get you started:

According to Deloitte’s most recent survey of CMOs, companies across the board spend an average of 10% of their overall budgets on marketing, which is only slightly higher than a pandemic-era low of 9%. Of the total marketing budget, around 9% is dedicated to digital marketing, 16% on social media marketing, and another 20% on marketing tech.

Typically speaking, the marketing channels with the highest ROI in 2024 have been social media shopping and website/SEO marketing (both at 16%), followed by email, paid social, and content marketing (all at 14%.) It’s clear that no one channel stands out above all the rest as a sure-fire campaign win — so which mix is right for you?

Luxury Marketing Budgets

While the foundations of strong marketing remain the same across the board, luxury businesses and brands need to consider additional, unique factors, such as exclusivity, rarity, brand perception, and a smaller circle of potential customers. They may also need to consider that some forms of marketing that might feel dated to other brands are still necessary to reach an affluent, older audience. In these cases, it’s recommended that luxury B2C companies invest more than the average — around 12-20% of their revenue — into marketing, and B2B companies invest around 8-15% of their budget into marketing. (If you’re a high-growth brand, 20-25% is a better target.)

Within those budgets, you’ll find two main types of marketing buckets. Performance marketing has the goal of soliciting a direct response from a customer, whether that’s booking, signing up for a newsletter, or scheduling a consultation (these are the imperative calls-to-action, like Buy Now, Book Today, or Sign Up). This type of marketing is data-driven, making the results easy to track, monitor, and analyze.

The other type of marketing is brand-related, which focuses on engagement, awareness, reach, and reputation building. This form of marketing, which includes content marketing, social media engagement, and influencer marketing, is a little less tangible but nonetheless essential to building authentic, emotional connections that build trust and loyalty.

The key to a strong campaign? Finding the right mix of both.

A Sample Marketing Mix to Drive Conversions

Your ideal marketing mix will depend on what type of business you have and what your objectives are. For this example, we’ll use a metric that luxury businesses of all stripes find important: conversions. To achieve this essential KPI, here’s one way you might slice up your marketing budget pie.

Digital Marketing (55%)

The breakdown:

  • SEM, PPC, and SEO: 25%
  • Social media: 15%
  • Content marketing: 10%
  • Email marketing: 5%

Because it’s such a ubiquitous part of our lives, digital marketing should take up around half of your budget. Within this subsection, strong conversion tactics include search engine marketing (SEM) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC), both of which use keywords and targeted search-engine ads to engage luxury shoppers. They should take up about 15% of the digital chunk of your marketing money, with the other 10% of this category going toward search engine optimization (SEO). A strong SEO strategy — broken down between on-page and off-page SEO — is one of the best ways to ensure that people searching for venues like yours find your information as easily as possible.

Social media marketing should also get around 15% of the spend, with a focus on visually-driven platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. Tactics like carousel ads and short-form videos create exclusivity and a desire for belonging. Plus, influencers who target luxury consumers can bring authenticity to the brand. Content marketing (around 10%), such as blogs, videos, or partnerships with industry magazines, offers the chance to tell your unique business story, show off your craftsmanship or legacy, and give customers a peek behind the scenes. And finally, email marketing (5%) can be used to create personalized campaigns based on past booking behaviors, customer preferences, or seasonality.

The majority of these tactics are performative, although some brand-building happens in digital marketing as well, especially when it comes to building a community online and engaging with followers on social media.

Public Relations (15%)

The breakdown:

  • Press releases and media features: 5%
  • Influencer marketing and partnerships: 5%
  • Trade shows: 5%

These are traditional brand-building marketing tactics designed to reinforce your luxury positioning and increase awareness to wider audiences. Public relations tactics, like mentions or guest articles included in high-end lifestyle magazines, can help elevate your brand perception to a discerning audience. Influencer marketing can also fall under this category, especially if your chosen partner is a well-known lifestyle blogger, luxury travel influencer, or someone affiliated with a related magazine.

Luxury trade shows, which can either be B2C or B2B, are great opportunities for networking with professionals in your industry, expanding your reach, seeing what the competition is up to, and showing off new products and services.

Branding and Creative (10%)

The breakdown:

  • Photography and videography: 5%
  • Website maintenance: 5%

Although it’s a small part of the overall marketing mix, it’s important to invest in high-quality photographers and videographers who can not only showcase your business’ luxury appeal, but do it in a way that’s authentic, real, and lets potential clients picture themselves doing business with you.

Another small chunk of the budget should go toward making sure that your website remains up and running without issues.

That said: In addition to, and separate from, your overall marketing budget, it’s essential to invest in making your website the centerpiece of your entire online operation. It will be the destination for most (if not all) of your CTAs, and especially for luxury brands, customers expect slick design, intuitive functionality, and little to no downtime. To guide you in this important process, please check out our website series, starting here.

Offers, Promotions, and Partnerships (15%)

The breakdown:

  • Limited time offers: 5%
  • Loyalty programs/referrals: 5%
  • Brand partnerships: 3%
  • Vacation planner partnerships: 2%

This subcategory includes promotions like limited-time offers and loyalty programs and referrals. These are part online and part offline marketing, since digital channels are used to promote real-world offers. For example, exclusive packages that bundle med spa services or wedding ceremonies and receptions can be promoted through email marketing, social media, and PPC campaigns. Loyalty programs offer incentives for repeat business and referrals from happy customers; special offers for loyalty members build trust and encourage repeat business.

Another small piece of the marketing puzzle is partnering with fellow luxury brands for co-promotions – a wedding venue with a bridal dress designer, for example, or a high-end event space with a limo service. Collaborations can also extend to local businesses, such as wineries, golf clubs, or cultural institutions, to offer exclusive, VIP packages. Finally, you can expand your reach by building relationships with luxury vacation planners who specialize in booking premium experiences for their clients.

Experiential Marketing (5%)

Finally, allocating a small portion of the budget to experiential marketing hits on the hot trend of consumers seeking immersive experiences. Some examples include hosting exclusive events, pop-up experiences, or even virtual tours that highlight your company’s ambiance and style.

Prioritization Strategy

This example plan is just that — an example. Many times, though, budgets get slashed or tactics don’t get approved. In those cases, how do you triage your strategy?

  • The straightforward answer is to go with what’s already working the best. Focus on your high-ROI channels and tactics that have already seen the best results.
  • Prioritize digital marketing tactics like SEM/PPC, social media, and email marketing, all of which can be carefully targeted and drive direct bookings.

Note: This advice is based on campaigns that are intended to drive conversions. If you’re looking to expand your reach, reinvent your brand, or drive engagement, your priorities will be different: tactics like public relations, events, and high-end partnerships are more effective at growing both reach and loyalty.

All these numbers can feel overwhelming — that’s why our experienced team is here to help you create the perfect marketing mix for your brand. Contact us and let’s work together!

RELATED READING

How Embracing Culinary Experiences Can Attract Hotel Guests

in Destination Marketing Organizations, Hotels & Resorts by Hawthorn Editorial

E

ven when two people don’t speak the same language, they often find common ground over good food. The act of sharing a meal is a universal language, and in an era where travelers are increasingly seeking authentic and immersive experiences, “slow food” has emerged as a powerful vehicle for cultural exploration and connection.

By definition, slow food is more of a concept than anything else — a movement that advocates for the enjoyment of traditional and locally sourced foods, emphasizing sustainable practices and the preservation of regional food cultures. It promotes a more thoughtful, deliberate approach to eating, in stark contrast with the fast-food industry’s focus on convenience and speed.

For travelers who label themselves as foodies, a destination’s local cuisine and dining experiences can be the No. 1 reason they choose to visit. Food travelers typically are younger, (around 70% are millennials and Gen Z), more affluent, and more likely to spend. They’re also heavily involved in social media, both for seeking travel recommendations and posting about their experiences online.

For hotels and destinations, leveraging their area’s food history, traditions, and expertise can be a game-changer in not only engaging current foodies but even creating new ones. Capitalizing on this tourism trend is also a way to offer unique experiences that stand apart from the competition.

Slow Food Strategies for Hotels and DMOs

For travelers experiencing a location’s culinary heritage — its local ingredients, traditional recipes, and unique cooking techniques — it’s a first-hand way to gain a deeper understanding of the place they are visiting, making their journey more meaningful and memorable.

Destinations with rich food histories should invest in crafting experiences that showcase their culinary uniqueness. A loving focus on food not only enriches the travel experience but also encourages longer stays and repeat visits. Here are just a few ideas to inspire you:

Create Authentic Culinary Experiences

One of the most effective ways to leverage food history is by offering hands-on culinary experiences. Collaborate with local chefs and food experts to design cooking classes, food tours, and tasting events that highlight regional specialties. To enhance the experience further, bring them right into your hotel’s kitchen for a VIP glimpse behind the scenes.

For properties that may not have on-site restaurants, a good alternative strategy is to curate on-site food festivals or markets that celebrate local cuisine. These events can draw both locals and tourists, creating a vibrant atmosphere that showcases your area’s food culture.

Integrate Local Flavors Into the Hotel Experience

Incorporating local flavors into your dining options can not only elevate your guest experience but also help you compete in a crowded market. This strategy can include using locally sourced ingredients in restaurant menus, offering signature dishes that reflect the area’s culinary heritage, or even designing themed dining experiences around local food festivals or traditions.

For example, the historic Wentworth by the Sea Hotel & Spa in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, leaned into regional flavors and historic plates for their 150th-anniversary reception menu. The property team gathered inspiration from turn-of-the-20th-century menus at the hotel, boasting fresh twists on Gilded Age classics. Offerings like this not only provide guests with a taste of the regional cuisine but also foster a deeper connection to the destination.

Collaborate With Local Food Artisans

Partnerships are often win-win-win for everyone involved — whether they take the form of featuring local wines and cheeses in the hotel’s restaurant or organizing joint events with local bakers, farmers, and producers.

Food-based partnerships offer travelers a chance to sample and learn about artisanal products that might not be available elsewhere. Local partnerships (especially when you change them up several times a year) could not only drive more sales for the local artisans but repeat bookings at your property for guests who are yearning for more.

Promote Food History Through Storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful tool in marketing, and it can be particularly effective when it comes to food history. Hotels and destinations should highlight the stories behind their culinary offerings — whether it’s the history of a traditional recipe, the origins of a local dish, or the background of a renowned local chef.

These stories can be shared through various channels, including hotel websites, social media, and in-room materials. This type of elegant storytelling is also effective in promoting a property as a high-end, exclusive destination for discerning travelers.

Guide Visitors to Culinary Trails and Food Tours

Creating culinary trails and food tours — or partnering with existing food routes — is an excellent way to guide travelers through a destination’s history. These tours can be self-guided or organized by local tour operators and can include visits to historical eateries, food markets, and specialty shops.

A destination known for its street food might organize food tours that highlight the best local vendors and their unique offerings.

Want more inspiration for culinary tours that will excite travelers? Check out this guide to 13 unique food trails in the U.S. — from a New Jersey pizza trail to an exploration of oysters across North Carolina.

Leverage Food-Based Wellness Trends

Wellness tourism is on the rise, and incorporating food into wellness experiences can be a compelling draw for health-conscious travelers. Hotels can offer programs that focus on the health benefits of local ingredients, such as farm-to-table dining experiences, cooking classes focused on healthy eating, or spa treatments that use local food products.

For instance, a hotel in a coastal area might offer seafood-based wellness packages that highlight the health benefits of fresh fish and sea vegetables, while an inland destination could promote the benefits of local herbs and organic produce.

At The Woodstock Inn & Resort in Vermont, this takes the form of a four-course Red Barn Dinner series, leaning on local ingredients from the Kelly Way Gardens. (Read about this culinary experience on page 20 of the Hawthorn Creative-produced magazine.)

How to Measure Success

Although some of these strategies may be intangible and difficult to measure, tactics like gathering feedback from guests, monitoring social media mentions, and tracking booking trends can provide valuable insights into what works and what needs adjustment.

It’s also important to remain flexible and adapt to changing trends and preferences. As culinary tourism continues to evolve, staying attuned to emerging food trends and evolving traveler expectations will help maintain a competitive edge and keep offerings fresh and relevant.

At Hawthorn Creative, a team of experts can help you craft the perfect culinary marketing strategy for your destination. If you’re ready to get started, let’s talk.

RELATED READING

How to Make Your Hotel and Destination Social Media Content Feel Authentic

in Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

“The last decade of social media was all about being polished and put together, aspirational and inspiring. Now, everyone’s sick of it.”

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hat’s a quote from a recent Crowdriff report — and it’s pretty direct. If you’ve observed social media from a consumer perspective lately, though, it’s obvious: Perfect is out. Authentically imperfect is in.

The new authenticity standard has become expected across most age groups, but the concept took off largely thanks to Gen Z, 73% of whom say that they prefer to shop from brands with experiences that “inspire and delight.” This rings especially true in the crowded landscape of hotels and destinations, where offering the finest linens, award-winning meals, or unparalleled views won’t cut it anymore.

Don’t misunderstand — those amenities are still important, straightforward paid ads still have an essential part to play in your overall marketing mix, and not every property caters to the 27-and-under crowd. But the travel market is crowded, and social media is ripe with opportunities for hotels and destinations to create genuine relationships with potential travelers.

We put together some ideas for connecting with savvy, discerning, modern travelers on social media who prefer real, unfiltered experiences:

1. Embrace User-Generated Content (UGC)

UGC, content created by guests who want to share their travel experiences on social media, is near the top of the list for authentic content. These photos and videos are usually captured via smartphone, feature real people, and offer candid views and opinions on the property that viewers trust. When harnessed to its full capability, UGC is a powerful tool for luxury hotels and destinations. This type of content serves as a powerful word-of-mouth endorsement and goes a long way toward showing potential guests that your property delivers the experience they’re seeking.

Ideas and Inspiration

  • Create a branded hashtag: A unique, catchy hashtag encourages guests to tag your property in their posts. This also makes it easier for your marketing team to find and share UGC. (One caveat: Research hashtags before using them to make sure they’re not either tied to something untoward or have the potential to be read incorrectly.)
  • Showcase diverse perspectives: Highlight UGC from various types of guests — families, couples, solo travelers, and business travelers — to paint a full picture of the experiences your property offers.
  • Incentivize UGC: Encourage guests to share their experiences by offering incentives like discounts, complimentary upgrades, or entry into a contest. Make sure to ask for permission before reposting, and always credit the original creator. (For more resources on making sure you’re approaching UGC legally and ethically, read our usage guide.)

2. Tell Genuine Stories

As a marketer, you can use the power of storytelling to not only craft an enticing story about your property but also give potential guests a true feel for what it’s like to stay with you. From the history of your building to local lore and staff experiences, there are endless stories waiting to be told — your job is to find and share them in a way that will resonate authentically with your target audience. Presenting your offerings as a story vs. a list of facts also elevates your content by adding depth and a personal touch.

Ideas and Inspiration

  • Feature your employees: Introduce your audience to the people who make their stay special. Share the journey of your chef — like this Reel from Wentworth by the Sea — the experience of your concierge, or the story of your housekeeping staff. Authentic stories about real people humanize your brand and help guests feel at home, especially if they recognize someone from your content. (As a bonus, imagine how special and valued your employees would feel after being recognized on social media..)
  • Highlight local culture and heritage: Dive into the history, culture, and traditions of your surrounding area. This not only educates your audience but also positions your property as an integral part of the local community.
  • Share guest experiences: Ask guests to tell stories about their unique experiences during their stay with you. This serves as a great first-person recommendation, and the information can be used across multiple formats, including video and print.

3. Show Behind-the-Scenes Content

One of the best ways to show authenticity on social media is to share what goes on behind the scenes of running your hotel or resort. From peeks behind the curtain to blooper reels, #bts content makes viewers feel like VIPs with exclusive access. Vertical, short-form videos that serve as property tours or on-the-spot interviews give travelers an authentic look at the property and what happens there. It also helps showcase the effort and care that goes into creating a luxury experience for guests.

Ideas and Inspiration

  • Daily operations: Share candid moments from the daily life of your hotel — morning rituals, preparations for events, or your meticulous housekeeping routine.
  • Event preparations: Take viewers along as you prepare for a special event, like a wedding or a conference. This is a great way to show off your strengths in both creativity and operations.
  • Seasonal changes: Create and share timely seasonal content, such as updating menus or redecorating spaces. This can create a sense of excitement and anticipation for guests planning to visit during a particular time of year.

4. Leverage Real-Time Engagement

Engagement is a two-way street, and the best social media strategies involve real-time interaction with your audience. This shows that your brand is attentive, responsive, and genuinely interested in your guests’ experiences. It’s also a great way to build community, trust, and loyal followers — both online and off.

Ideas and Inspiration

  • Go live: Use platforms like Instagram Live or Facebook Live to give tours of your property, host Q&A sessions with your staff, or broadcast events as they happen. Live content is inherently less scripted and polished, which adds to its authenticity. Just be sure to keep an eye on the comments and answer questions as you go.
  • Respond, respond, respond: Reply to comments, mentions, and messages in real-time (or as close to real-time as possible). Address questions, thank guests for their positive feedback, and handle complaints with grace and professionalism.
  • Create interactive content: Instagram Stories offer features like polls, questions, and quizzes that allow you to engage directly with your audience. This is a great way to boost engagement, but there’s an even bigger benefit: First-hand, valuable insights from your ideal audience about their preferences.

5. Go Easy on the Editing

Visual content is the backbone of social media, especially for luxury hotels and destinations. However, there’s a fine line between showcasing your property in its best light and over-editing your visuals to the point where they no longer look real. (If you’ve ever looked at real estate listings for a home only to find that the actual house doesn’t look anything like the photos, you know what a letdown that can be.)

Ideas and Inspiration

  • Go natural: Use natural lighting and real settings for your photos. Avoid excessive filters or Photoshop. The goal is to showcase your property as it truly is — beautiful, welcoming, and luxurious, but still real.
  • Candid moments: Instead of staged photos, capture candid moments. A family enjoying a meal, a couple relaxing by the pool, or a guest taking in a sunset from their balcony — all of these evoke positive emotion and authenticity.
  • Highlight imperfections: Don’t be afraid to show the human side of your property. A child spilling a drink at dinner for kid-friendly properties, a chef’s flour-dusted apron, or even a rainy day scene can add character to your content and make it more relatable.

6. Tap Into Micro-Influencing

According to recent research, 61% of Gen Z-ers and Millennials say they trust influencers, but the people they follow are not necessarily the most well-known creators. In fact, just over half of the influencers listed as favorites among Gen Z were unique to one person.

This trend toward favoring creators with smaller audiences is called micro-influencing, and what it’s shown over the past year or so is that influencer marketing is more about quality over quantity. Travelers are drawn to influencers who are relatable to them, whether they have 3 million followers or 3,000. Once again, Gen Z leads the trend, with half of this age group saying influencer recommendations are a “critical factor” in their purchasing decisions.

Ideas and Inspiration

  • Choose your advocates carefully: Partner with influencers who have a genuine connection to your property or destination. They should share your brand’s values and have an authentic following that trusts their recommendations.
  • Develop long-term partnerships: Instead of one-off collaborations, consider building long-term relationships with influencers. This allows them to experience your property over time and provide more in-depth, genuine content.
  • Stop worrying about followers: Micro-influencers may have smaller followings but often have higher engagement rates and more trust from their audience. They can be especially effective in niche markets, like bed and breakfasts or unique destinations.

Creating authentic social media content for luxury hotels and destinations is an art that balances transparency, engagement, and storytelling. It requires moving beyond the polished, staged images that dominate the industry and embracing the real, the raw, and the relatable.

Our team of experts can help you create a social media presence that resonates deeply with today’s discerning travelers. Let’s talk.

RELATED READING

Stay Another Day: How Your Content Can Inspire Guests to Book Early and Stick Around Longer

in Content Marketing, Destination Marketing Organizations by Hawthorn Editorial

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t’s been more than four years since COVID-19 kept us all at home, but we’re still feeling the urge to catch up on all that travel and exploration we missed. That sense of carpe diem has led to an increase in impulse getaways, with hotels and resorts seeing more last-minute bookings and shorter stays. Plus, it’s easier than ever to book and plan a vacation on your phone in an hour, rather than spending weeks mapping out an itinerary.

Late-arriving, here-and-gone visitors can be great to fill in holes left by cancellations and slow times, but they’re not the bread and butter of the hospitality industry. To inspire guests to book early and check in for longer stays, properties need to get creative and highlight the array of experiences they offer — making it clear that a couple of days isn’t nearly enough when there are so many enticing things to do, see, and eat onsite and in the area.

Here are some ideas for simple yet impactful content that invites travelers to stick around — plus ways to get the message out to your audience effectively.

Lean Into Seasonality

Think about timing and seasonality when crafting and sharing content: As fall begins, or even during the last dregs of winter, tap into your Northeast contacts and remind them that they can make their California dreamin’ (or Hawaii or Arizona or Florida dreamin’) a reality next year (at a lower price), if they book now.

You can also tap into the sentiments connected with holidays or other milestones. Send an email to your list around Thanksgiving encouraging them to plan their midwinter vacation: “Here’s something you’ll be grateful for in February — a week at the beach.” Or, around Mother’s Day, encourage them to bring Mom along on a once-in-a-lifetime family trip.

How to share the message: Email personalized with a first name is the best way to share offers with past customers — you want them to feel singled out and seen. (Studies show emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened, and personalized emails garner six times more revenue.) But a flash sale on social media is another approach, maybe with a 24-hour limit or for a pre-defined number of guests. Share seasonally focused content on social media as well, with images that show off your property.

Incentivize Them with Teasers

What do you want to think about when you’re not on vacation? Your upcoming vacation, of course. On the special offers page of your site (if you don’t have one, build it — they will come!), let visitors know that when they book early, say six months out, you’ll keep in touch and remind them of all the excitement in store for them.

Then, once someone books, add them to an email drip campaign for regular updates designed to entice them to plan their trip, get excited about the destination, and potentially add more nights to their stay. Emails might include details about local events happening when they’re with you, a quick video showing off your latest amenities, and other reminders of what makes your property unforgettable. It can be simple — if you’re by the sea, one of your emails could be a rundown of the average temperature and sunrise/sunset times on the week they’ll be with you, plus a gorgeous image and a message like “Wish You Were Here — Just XX Days!”

Once you’ve gotten soon-to-be guests pumped up and shown them how much there is to do on your property and in your area, throw in a few CTAs to book an extra day or two. If this seems like a lot of work, remember it won’t go to waste: All this cool content can be repurposed for multiple years and for other campaigns.

How to share the message: Ideally, your email platform will allow you to create an automated drip campaign. If not, you can schedule a series of emails weekly to each new group of guests. Plus, use the tidbits included in each email, like videos and property updates, for emails targeting new guests and social media posts.

Let Them Choose Their Own Adventure

According to a recent survey by the travel company Amadeus, 70% of global guests want hotels to provide information on unique activities in the area before they arrive, yet only 20% of them were able to get those recommendations. This is low-hanging fruit and — to mix metaphors — most of it is evergreen as well.

Create a seasonal tailored itinerary that’s tempting for both guests who’ve already booked and those who haven’t yet. You can change them up four times a year, or more often, but you don’t have to constantly reinvent the wheel. Focus on what makes your property and your area unique — cultural attractions nearby, your farm-to-table restaurant, weekly live music in your onsite wine bar, ways to connect with nature, and more.

How to share it: Make it a blog post, like this one highlighting Key Largo on the Opal Collection’s blog. And/or let guests download the PDF on your website and plan their itinerary; consider making it a day-by-day checklist (with lots of days!). Make sure to include an easy way to book — or to add days if they’ve already booked — once they see how much they want to fit in. Try a call-to-action like “Need extra days to do it all? We’ve got you covered” with an embedded link to a landing page that lets them make or add onto a booking at a discounted price.

Tap Into Their Taste Buds

Nothing slows the scroll like a luscious food photo. Tempt your list and followers to open your email or click on your post by teasing a recipe that’s unique to your onsite restaurant or bar. Highlight a seasonal ingredient, your mixologist’s latest craft cocktail, or a regional dessert that your chef has perfected.

Once you’ve whetted your reader’s appetites, take advantage when they’re onsite by leaving a card in their room that reminds them of the special regional dessert or signature fish dish they’ll find in your restaurant (feature dishes you offer year-round, so you don’t have to reprint often). You can also add treats that can be ordered between meals — like a late-night TV tray with crunchy, salty snacks, or, if your property has an outdoor fire pit, a house-made s’mores kit like this one crafted by the Ojai Valley Inn team.

How to share the message: Email and social both work well, with a link to the recipe on your website (maybe in a blog post). Include links on the landing page to your full menu and to your booking and/or special offers pages.

Invite Them to Something Special

Is there a beloved annual or one-time event in your area — and if not, are you up for creating one? Either way, you can entice guests to plan ahead and book longer stays by crafting an invitation to a weeklong, themed experience that leads up to the special occasion. It might be a big art show, a Pride parade, or a musical festival or concert — tour tourism, driven by stars like Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, is huge this year, with 44% of people saying they would use a concert as an excuse to visit a new destination.

Choose an event that makes sense for the ambiance of your property, the guests you typically host, and the audience you hope to build. If your property is a grand old hotel, partner with an antique book fair that comes to your city each year, and schedule of week of high teas, readings, and book discussion groups. (Share the books to be discussed only after visitors book their stays!) A great example is the annual Winter Wine Fest at Wentworth by the Sea, near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which runs for a full month with events all along the way, from multi-course Grand Vintner’s Dinners to Bubbles & Jazz Brunches.

How to share it: Create an invitation tailored to the vibe of your event. If you have the budget for snail mail, an invitation postcard to your list could get their attention; otherwise, start with email invitations and post on social media if you don’t sell out fast enough.

Need help putting these ideas into action and sharing your messages far and wide? Contact our team of innovative content developers, writers, designers, and social media pros.

RELATED READING

Will AI-Created Content Hurt My SEO? And Other Questions About the Future of Content Marketing

in Content Marketing, Search Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

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s artificial intelligence continues to impact almost every aspect of content marketing, it’s important to not only understand where its capabilities lie as of now, but also where they’re headed. The technology is evolving rapidly, which means that what doesn’t work for marketers one year could become indispensable in the future.

If you’re part of a creative team in today’s AI landscape, you can use the technology to brainstorm big ideas, create first drafts of potential headlines and slogans, and even design logos. Using a machine to boost creativity is a game-changing advancement, but it’s important to remember that AI is still in its infancy. Although it can be great for initial research or the start of an idea, it’s still up to us humans to refine, strategize, and make the final call.

At Hawthorn Creative, we’ve been closely following the advent and evolution of artificial intelligence, how it relates to content, and how we can better use it to serve our clients. For this article, we’re focusing on one of the most-used tactics in content marketing — SEO — and how artificial intelligence can help (or hinder) your strategy.

Here’s How AI Can Help Your SEO

One of the most beneficial things about AI is its ability to process vast amounts of data in milliseconds. When that ability is applied to SEO, it means that you can have a list of relevant keywords, phrases, and ranking data in short order without having to wonder whether you’re choosing the right mix. And since AI algorithms learn over time, they can follow trends and suggest changes or refinements that help you better navigate search algorithms.

Initial Content Creation
If you’re tasked with writing a blog post on something new, AI is a great way to learn about the topic in a plain, easy-to-understand way. Or, if you’re writing a trend piece on the top travel spots in Europe and want to see what the general consensus is online, AI can pull together that information. It’s more than just a one-time content generator, though. Because of the back-and-forth nature of AI, you can refine the process as you go with prompts like “Can this be geared toward a beginner audience?” or “Can you incorporate the most relevant keywords?”.

This process, called natural-language processing, helps AI to learn relational links between not only keywords and phrases, but also user behavior and search trends. With all of this data at the ready, AI programming can help you automate many of your SEO tasks and return better results than you’d achieve by performing them manually.

Content Optimization
Once content is created (a job that should always include a human writer’s touch!), AI can sift through analytics data to not only see which pieces of content are performing the best, but offer suggestions for refining your strategy. This makes it a strong writing partner, but it’s not just limited to blogs or traditional marketing materials.

AI can also enhance your website by providing users with relevant recommendations or answering simple questions. (In turn, it can take all of that data — a keyword that keeps coming up in customer service queries, for example — and suggest keywords, predict user behavior, and more.)

Back-End Automation
Behind the scenes at a website, artificial intelligence can help developers automate technical SEO tasks like finding broken links, fixing code, optimizing metadata, and better organizing pages. One of its most beneficial assets, however, is its ability to assist with building backlinks — a crucial yet challenging tactic in a strong SEO strategy. The ability to run these tasks on autopilot is a huge benefit for developers, who are then freed up to focus on the bigger picture of website enhancement and maintenance.

On the Flip Side, Can AI Hurt Our SEO Strategy?

As we’ve mentioned, AI is a helpful assistant for creating and refining SEO efforts, but it could lead to trouble if it’s used as a replacement for the human brain. And even as it gets smarter, it’s still a machine that’s producing output based on whatever input it receives. Typing a content prompt into a chatbot and calling it a day can not only lead to off-brand strategy or terrible writing, but also search engine penalties.

Keyword Stuffing
If you ask AI to create a blog post using five or six keywords, it may return a piece of content that’s not only written badly, but stuffed to the gills with those words or phrases on repeat. Called keyword stuffing, this is considered a black hat SEO tactic and is often penalized by search engine crawlers. The AI isn’t doing it maliciously, but rather taking whatever information it’s received and generating output. It’s imperative that a human take any initial AI-generated content and finesse it for other humans to read and understand.

Incurring Search Engine Penalties
Relying too heavily on AI can also result in duplicate content that’s published across the web, which is a red flag for search engine crawlers. When landing on the first page of the Google search results is the goal, it’s crucial to ensure that your content doesn’t get tagged for any shady practices, intentional or otherwise. (Note: Google doesn’t ban AI-generated content, but like other content, it scours the web for black hat SEO and other unethical techniques used to improve rankings.)

Unethical (and Just Plain Bad) Content
The potential problems that have guided ethics discussions around AI to date include bias, misinformation, transparency, and privacy rights. First, AI pulls its answers from data that already exists, which means that it could be using a biased site as a source. Beyond that, bots like ChatGPT don’t share their sources, which means you have no way to track down where the information is coming from.

Finally, AI can actually produce answers that aren’t anywhere close to the truth. To experience this for yourself, ask an AI bot to write a bio about you and see what it says. One of our writers once experimented with using AI to create a profile article based on interview notes, and it turned an IT specialist into the “Visionary CEO” of the company.

The bottom line is that AI can be a great helper, as long as humans remain in control of the process. One of the best ways for you to figure out what will work best for your marketing (and what won’t) is to jump in and try it. Experiment with different tools and algorithms, see how answers change if you add or remove information from prompts, create images, and input data to see how it works.

Our in-house strategists understand the best ways to use artificial intelligence to enhance your marketing campaigns. If you’re ready to dive into the future of content marketing, let’s talk.

RELATED READING

Social Media Management for Hotels and DMOs: Here’s How to Keep Your Followers Engaged

in Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

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uilding a social media following is tough work. It can take months of consistency, outreach, top-notch content creation, and more to push that snowball up the hill. Once you get to the summit, though, you look out over the horizon and see them: followers. Loyal, engaged followers who like, comment, share, and otherwise hang out in your social spaces.

Establishing a digital community is only the first part of the journey, though. Attention spans are short these days, and if you don’t take the time to nurture your loyal followers, they’ll fade away from your page (and fast). In this blog, we’re skipping past the audience building to focus on the next equally important part of the process: maintaining that audience through community management.

Here’s a look at some of the questions we get most from our clients about how to best manage, engage, maintain, and show appreciation for their online community:

Should the brand page respond to comments?

The answer here is a quick and decisive yes, because posts that receive more engagement tend to get priority in the world of social media algorithms. No matter the channel or the comment, the best practice for a branded response is to maintain a consistent, professional, and engaging presence. However, the tone of each individual response should depend on both the nature of the comment and where it was posted. Let’s break it down per type:

Public Comments (Positive and Negative)
It’s not just engagement that drives posts out to a wider audience, but quick engagement soon after the original post is published. We suggest making it a standard part of your hotel’s digital strategy to have someone available to monitor and respond to posts as soon as they go live. And don’t just have a repetitive, canned response ready – carefully read each comment and take the time to craft a thoughtful response.

If the comment is positive, start out with a sincere thank you and then engage further by asking a question or encouraging them to share even more. For negative comments, be sure to keep it polite and professional. A good rule of thumb is to thank the commenter for bringing the issue to your attention, acknowledge that they had a bad experience, and either offer a solution on the spot or ask them to contact your customer service team.

If the issue warrants, it can also be good policy to reach out to individual commenters via DM to dig further into the issue they shared. (More on that below.)

@Tags
Much of the advice for responding to tags is similar, but being tagged on someone else’s post opens your page up to a much bigger audience than just your own channels. When that’s the case, it’s imperative to respond in a way that shows an understanding of the tag, along with professionalism and personality.

Positive tags, for example, can lend themselves to a simple “Thanks for the tag!” If you love the content you’re tagged in and it’s appropriate for your brand style, let the commenter know. For neutral tags or questions, such as “@brandname, Can you add this drink to your menu?” It’s appropriate to thank the commenter for the tag and include a simple response like “We’ll pass it along to our chef!”

As with negative comments, negative tags should be handled promptly and politely to show that you take feedback seriously (or, if they’re spam or inappropriate, ignored altogether). For legitimate negative tags, acknowledging the user’s concerns or offering apologies if necessary go a long way toward building trust, as well as offering a solution if relevant.

DMs
Responding to direct messages is a bit of a different strategy in that it’s a one-on-one conversation. Like public comments, however, it’s important to respond to messages in a timely manner. There’s often a hesitation to contact a brand through social media DMs because users aren’t sure there’s anyone monitoring the page, so a quick and accurate response can go a long way to build trust and satisfaction — even if it’s an automated response saying “We’ve received your message and will get back to you within 24 hours.”

For personalized responses, put yourself in the shoes of a customer service expert: answer questions in a professional tone and to the fullest of your knowledge. But since you aren’t a mind reader, get in the habit of asking for more information or clarification if you need it to respond properly. It’s also good practice to follow up (if necessary) to see if the issue was resolved.

One final note: This may seem elementary, but use emojis early and often! They’ve become an integral part of the online lexicon, and sometimes 😂 really is worth a thousand words. Plus, it’s an opportunity to be playful without alienating your brand voice.

What are some best practices for social media community management?

When we help our clients manage their social media communities, we go through a weekly checklist to monitor and encourage engagement that includes:

  • Liking comments
  • Following new users and accounts, and liking user photos that tag or hashtag a property-related post
  • Reposting/requesting to share user-generated content when appropriate
  • Responding to select DMs (around 1-5 per month) using answers from a client-created FAQ document

We also work in partnership with a member of the client team, who is trained to help with responses during off-hours or in the case of viral posts.

Another simple yet effective best practice for community management is to ask questions. End your post with “What’s your favorite beach destination?” or ask for content, like “Share photos from your favorite activity at our hotel.” Users are naturally inclined to answer questions or provide information when asked for it, which drives not only a conversation but also encourages user-generated content.

Two common threads connect all of these tactics: acknowledging and listening to your followers. If videos fall flat but your community loves responding to polls, post more polls! If Instagram is where the action is, focus your efforts there. This doesn’t mean stop producing videos altogether or neglect your other social channels, but trends like these are signals to tweak your social media marketing.

How can community comments help my hotel social media marketing strategy?

We’ll answer the question with a real-life example: A client noticed a Facebook user commenting that they were visiting the property for a bachelorette party. The information was passed along to the on-property team, who was able to make a note on their reservation and greet them with special treatment when they arrived.

In another example, an Instagram conversation between two friends went back-and-forth about how badly they needed a mountain getaway. The client’s sales team responded to their thread with a special booking offer, leaving the comment section not only wowed by the quick and public response, but also by the hotel’s dedication to becoming their destination of choice.

In a wider sense, engaging with your social media community is also a great way to take the pulse of your audience: to listen to their feedback and keep track of what they like and what they don’t — not just in the social world, but in real life at your property. If you hear a lot of complaints that the breakfast isn’t diverse enough, for example, it could be a great opportunity to add an all-you-can-eat buffet (followed by a social media post that says “We heard you! Your breakfast choices are now endless.”)

Can I use a bot for that?

With the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, we’ve been asked quite often if AI bots can take on any of the time-consuming tasks of community engagement. Our answer is yes, with caution. These days, AI-powered chatbots can be used to handle common customer inquiries or respond to FAQs, which can free up support personnel to focus on larger or more complex issues.

Because it can learn the optimal times that your community is likely to engage with your posts, AI can be a great help in automating post scheduling to accommodate those times — especially if they’re outside of normal hours. Some programs can even go so far as to recommend content based on past posts that saw high engagement.

Beyond your own page, AI can help you track industry trends through a tactic called “social listening,” where it tracks mentions of not only your brand, but others in your industry and category, across social channels and alerts you to important conversations or potential issues.

And finally, the massive computing power of AI makes it infinitely better at analyzing data than any human brain. It can provide detailed performance tracking, predict trends, and keep your social strategy at optimum performance.

Do you know what AI can’t do, though? It can’t add that creative human touch that gives your property its unique personality and charm. Users crave authenticity, and younger generations are turned off by obvious advertising or sales-heavy language. While an AI bot can craft an answer to a question, it can’t craft a human answer. That’s why we see it as a creative assistant, and not a replacement.

If you’d like expert help with your brand’s social media community management, our team can help. Let’s talk.

RELATED READING

We Can’t Wait to Meet You: How to Write a Pre-Arrival Email They’ll Actually Read

in Content Marketing, Email Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

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o get into the right creative space for this article, put yourself into the mind of a traveler. Think about the last place you went on a leisure vacation, or where you’d like to go. How cool would it be to receive an email a few days before your arrival filled with personalized recommendations, location-specific guides, and other goodies to get your vacation started a little early?

In this email, you find out about on-property amenities, get tips on the local area, and maybe even discover a little treat as a way to say thanks.

Pre-arrival emails are a great way to greet your soon-to-be guests, deliver personalized content in a digital format, and let them know that you’re excited to see them. The type of content depends on your property and your audience, but these emails can include things like links to blog posts, audience-specific itinerary ideas, and exclusive perks.

To help inspire you, we’ve put together some ideas to help you brainstorm personalized email ideas across a variety of traveler categories.

Step 1: Know Your Audience

The first thing to know is that personalization is just that: personal. There’s no way to speak to a wide audience with a generic email, so that means putting in the work to create multiple versions that cater to multiple audiences. Depending on the size of your email list, the concept of “individual” can vary a little. For small, boutique inns and bed and breakfasts, it might be possible to craft truly personal communications for each guest.

As the number of rooms goes up, however, personalization becomes more about speaking to your guest personas, or small groups of people who share the same interests, travel preferences, and basic demographics.

Step 2: Speak to a Party of One

There are plenty of programs out there that will allow you to insert a guest’s first name seamlessly into an email, so even persona-based email versions can have personalized greetings. When you begin an email by calling the guest by name, it immediately creates a one-on-one conversation between you and them.

Beyond the salutation, your pre-arrival email should tell the traveler a story that gets them excited. Use clear headings, short blocks of text with links to further reading, and relatable content to help them imagine themselves already at your property.

Here’s a secret: You can get away with a single email template. The body of all pre-arrival emails can include content like blog posts, itinerary ideas, and CTAs that easily point guests toward on-site amenities and services like spas, restaurants, or poolside cabana rentals. The personalization happens in the details: the copy that opens the email, the type of content you serve up, and the ideas you offer.

For example, a personalized email for new guests can include a welcome, a “What to Expect” section, a property map, and some local recommendations. For returning guests, you can offer a welcome back and a blog post to say “Here’s what you missed!”

Emails are wonderful in that their real estate is unlimited, but it’s important to remember that readers skim. Always put the most important information at the top (we call it “above the fold”) and tier your email in importance from the top down, so that readers are sure to get the most essential information.

Pro tip: For longer emails, include a table of contents at the top that lets readers know what’s in store. You can even include anchor links to allow them to jump around within the email.

Step 3: Offer Them Personalized Content

It’s time to think out of the box. Put yourself into the shoes of your travelers and try to imagine what specific content pieces you could include that elevate you above the competition. We put together a few starter ideas — broken down by different types of travelers — to get your wheels turning:

For New Guests

It’s beneficial to roll out the red carpet for newcomers and make them feel like they’re VIP guests from the moment they book their reservation. These types of emails should convey a lot of excitement about welcoming them to experience the property for the first time.

To captivate this audience in pre-arrival emails, you can provide a virtual property map that allows guests to get to know the layout of your property before they arrive and provide important information to make their stay more enjoyable. This is a great time to highlight activities and programming that may be available during their stay, or invite guests to make reservations for dining, spa treatments, tee times or rentals.

For Returning Guests

Have you noticed that many businesses focus their big benefits on new customers only? Personalizing a message to return guests is a great way to let them know that you value their loyalty.

When creating content for return guests, take this as an opportunity to get down to the individual level. If guest data is available from their previous stay, you could use that information to send them personalized offers that match their preferences. If that’s not an option, consider creating a “What’s New” blog post centered around recently added activities and offerings on your property — that way, they’ll know what changes to expect since their last visit.

For Business Travelers

Sending personalized pre-arrival emails can be a great way to make business travel not so blah. If guests see long hours of work on the horizon, you can help them find ways to relax and unwind after a busy day.

One way to ensure business travelers can fully enjoy their trip, no matter how packed their schedules are? Recommend the best delivery in town. Travelers are well-versed in delivery services these days, but offering them your curated recommendations for the tastiest restaurants can help them narrow their choices — and ensure they experience the flavor of your destination, even with limited time to go out and about.

For Families

Traveling with littles is a whole different experience from traveling with just adults, or solo. For the caregivers, it requires some heavy lifting, both physically and mentally. Personalized recommendations for fun family activities can be a huge help to parents.

By curating and sharing a family-friendly local guide, you’ll set parents up for success on their upcoming trip. Let them know which restaurants are good for kids, if there are local family-friendly attractions or activities, and so on. To take it up a notch, partner with these businesses to offer guest discounts. Bonus: Share a list of no-Wi-Fi activities for the kiddos to help guests achieve a fully unplugged, in-the-moment getaway.

Things to Consider

Succeeding in your personalization efforts depends a lot on the type of property you have, the amenities you offer, and how much access you’re able to get to traveler data. One of the best ways to gather that information up front is to ask them directly, perhaps through a questionnaire attached to their confirmation email. Another way is to ask questions on social media: It may not be quite as personal as one-on-one, but it can give you a good idea of what your ideal travelers are looking for in general.

One word of advice: If your email space is tight — or you’re worried about load times — one strategy would be to tell travelers about the offers, then create the actual pages on your website. Dedicated email links can also help you track traffic drivers.

If you’d like some expert brainstorming help, our team of content strategists are experts in defining your audience — plus figuring out what makes them smile. If you’d like to get started, let’s talk.

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How to Offer Guests the Ultimate Nature Connection Experience

in Destination Marketing Organizations, General Marketing Insights by Hawthorn Editorial

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hen it comes to vacationing, the new buzzword is balance — or, as the Swedes say, lagom. Author and travel photographer Lola Akinmade Åkerström describes lagom as the “optimal” (not best) solution for maintaining balance and removing stress within your control. Lagom could also be described as a sense of well-being and harmony, within yourself and in your surroundings.

Vacationers might find that harmony in a carefully calibrated balance between lounging on the beach and shopping, between food trucks and four-star dining, or between massages and golf games. In fact, the search for the perfect, elusive blend of luxurious relaxation and active experience has been cited as one of the top trends in travel in 2024. But for those truly seeking inner equanimity and peak wellness, one proven place to find it is the natural world.

The Science Behind Nature’s Stress-Reducing Benefits

People go on vacation for lots of reasons, but one of the biggest is simply the desire to feel better. And the great outdoors can be the key to that quest — multiple studies highlight the power of nature to slow us down and lift our spirits. Time outdoors has been shown to reduce cortisol (aka the “stress hormone”), improve mood, and decrease activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain most closely related to fear and panic. A 2024 study found that people who frequently visited public green spaces — like parks, gardens, and forests — had lower levels of anxiety and depression. And the more connected they felt to nature during these visits, the greater the mental health benefits they experienced.

What makes nature such a powerful stress reducer? As with wellness practices like yoga, the alchemy involves a combination of physiological and psychological factors that work from the “top down” (mind informing body) and the “bottom up” (body informing mind). For example, Japanese researchers theorize that breathing in certain aerosols released by trees elevates our “natural killer cells,” strengthening immunity, which has been linked to stress resilience. Meanwhile, walking through a beautiful natural setting prompts us to pay closer attention to what’s around us — a form of active mindfulness that can reduce stress and anxiety levels. The exact formula may remain mysterious, but what’s clear is that spending time in nature can make us happier and healthier.

The 5 Types of Nature Vacationers

Travelers who want to incorporate a nature connection component into their vacation aren’t necessarily looking for the same things. Everyone has their own way of relating to the natural world, whether it’s a mellow family hike, a view of the ocean from behind an umbrella drink, or a kayaking adventure through alligator-infested waters. Moreover, some tourists may not prioritize outdoor experiences at all. But if they’re packaged in a way that speaks to their vacation goals and they’re willing to give it a try, the built-in benefits will likely take over from there.

Here are five ways humans interact with nature to boost well-being, plus tips for how hotels and resorts can support and enhance those experiences.

Relaxers

Most of us can relate to this one. Simply taking in a scenic vista can feed our senses and calm our minds. The hospitality industry tends to focus on this aspect of nature connection, and you can’t go wrong here. Comfort is critical for Relaxers — super-comfy benches and lounge chairs, blankets or throws available when a cool breeze whips up, perhaps a “free library” of beach (or hammock) reads, and, of course, easy access to a cold drink and a crispy snack.

Explorers

Explorers want to follow unknown paths and discover unexpected places. Scratching that itch might be as simple as cutting a trail through a small forested area on your property, and having a local landscape artist create a flower-filled courtyard with a water element for wanderers to come upon. Or you could work with a local nature preserve or adventure company to craft a unique off-site experience.

Interactors

While closely related to Explorers, Interactors want more hands-on experiences with nature or natural materials. Interactive nature offerings might include a flower-arranging workshop, an earth-based pottery class, or a beekeeping and honey-tasting experience like the one offered at Ojai Valley Inn in Ojai, California. This group would also enjoy a special dinner menu culled from local farms and wineries.

Admirers

Another of nature’s powerful stress-reducing properties is the emotion of awe. Awe — the feeling you have when you gaze at a gold and purple sunset or a rainbow after a storm — can quiet the nervous system and even trigger the release of oxytocin, the “love” hormone. Resorts might support experiences of awe by scheduling sunset or full-moon walks, arranging seating options to frame the most impressive views on site, or spotlighting a special feature of the property, like the iconic many-colored hydrangeas that burst into bloom each spring at the Woodstock Inn & Resort in Vermont.

Stewards

This group is committed to earth stewardship — actively working to protect the planet through conservation efforts and activism. Even when they’re on vacation, Stewards want to be a force for good in the world. Give them the opportunity to learn about local ecology and participate in inspiring preservation projects. For example, Opal Collection’s Hutchinson Shores Resort and Spa teaches guests about the endangered sea turtles that nest on its beach and invites them to help ensure the safety of the giant mothers and their young each nesting season.

More Ways to Provide a Nature Connection Experience

You don’t need sea turtles or sweeping vistas to incorporate nature-based wellness experiences into your offerings. Here are some ways to provide those experiences by tapping into resources you already have.

Celebrate Local Flora and Fauna

What makes your part of the world special? Whether it’s an annual maple syrup tradition, the flocks of timberdoodles (a.k.a. woodcocks) that mate every spring in your neighborhood, or a unique phenomenon or site — like Ojai’s “pink moment” when the mountains catch fire at sunset, or Ice Glen in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where you can feel cool drafts emerging from the deep rock crevices even in midsummer — make it part of your brand. Spotlight the natural beauty and richness of your region through education, outings, interactive workshops, themed festivals, and seasonal menus (see: maple syrup).

Partner with Nature Organizations

To provide varied experiences for your guests, work with local organizations like nature museums, parks, preserves, conservancies, and farms. For example, the Woodstock Inn & Resort partners with the nearby Billings Farm & Museum, providing free admission to guests so they can roam through the apple orchard and heirloom garden and meet Jersey cows and draft horses. For your Explorers, offer curated adventures through the landscape by working with local companies that provide guided hiking, kayaking, sailing, horseback riding, or biking experiences.

Bring Nature into the Spa

Spa offerings can provide the ideal melding of wellness and nature, by integrating skincare products containing natural, local ingredients. For example, the Opal Spa at the Reefhouse Resort & Marina in Key Largo, Florida, brings the seaside setting into the treatment room via products made with mud, mineral water, algae, plant extracts, and essential oils. Connect with local artisan companies that focus on ingredients grown close to home, and highlight them in your spa offerings and promotion.

Foster the Experience of Connection

As the science shows, the benefits of nature come not just from being in it, but from paying attention to it. To support that, hotels and resorts can offer guided experiences that encourage guests to tune into their natural surroundings. This might take the form of yoga classes on the beach or in the rose garden, meditative hikes, or a beautifully printed map of the grounds or menu of outdoor activities. Consider constructing a hedge labyrinth guests can wander through, or designing magical outdoor seating areas in special spots, with string lights woven through branches or along fences covered with flowering vines.

Walk the Talk

If you’re marketing natural experiences as part of your offerings, be sure to practice what you preach by doing your part to protect the environment. Most people think carefully about where they’ll spend their vacation dollars, and as many as 81 percent of global travelers say that environmentally sustainable practices are important to them. Consider how your property can become more eco-friendly — by investing in green energy, reducing waste, increasing recycling and composting efforts, and limiting the use of plastics (for example, by providing reusable bottles and water sources, or using biodegradable to-go containers and utensils). Ultimately, it’s good for business because it makes your guests and the planet happier.

Need a hand marketing these nature-focused experiences to your guests? Contact our team of marketing strategists and hospitality experts.

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Generative AI and Google Search: Here’s What We Know So Far

in Content Marketing, Search Marketing by Hawthorn Editorial

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ou’re finally starting to see real results from your SEO strategy. It’s solid, your rankings are climbing. You’re on trend to be in the top three results … and then Google changes the entire game.

You’ve probably noticed that Google’s search engine results page (SERP) looks a little different these days. Right at the top, there’s an AI-generated overview that sums up your query, along with links to its sources and other information. The results we’re used to — the sponsored and organic links — are pushed farther down the page.

This new technology is called Generative Search Experience (GSE) or, more recently, Google AI Overview. The goal is to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide search results based on more than just keywords and key phrases, and some businesses are concerned about how it will change the game for marketing.

How does Google AI Overview Work?

Google’s AI program works a lot like ChatGPT by searching the web, as well as its own databases, and compiling the information into one summary paragraph. The key difference between traditional search and AI is that through repeated interactions with a user, it learns to add context and intent to its answers — even if something wasn’t directly asked.

If someone had previously been searching for wedding dresses, for example, AI can use that data to infer that if the next search is “event venues” the user likely means wedding venues. If someone searches “lodging,” the AI bot sees their location and that they have kids based on previous search history and streamlines the search results to cater to those inferred needs.

This type of technology is still considered experimental and has yet to achieve the level of trust that users are accustomed to when they just return a regular search page. And unlike Google’s previous Knowledge Boxes, which just provided short snippets of information based on the regular search algorithm, AI Overview’s attempt at context sometimes produces nonsensical answers that leave readers scratching their heads.

Google AI Overview Challenges

Gartner predicts that AI may cause organic search volume to drop by as much as 25%, and you may already be seeing a dip in your numbers. A number of factors are at play here, including AI’s ability to answer questions quickly and succinctly. If someone gets the info they need, they may bounce without clicking any of the organic SEO links.

Another related challenge is digital real estate. Despite web pages having seemingly endless space, the section at the very top is the most valuable to marketers. This area is known as “above the fold” and much like its newspaper namesake, it’s the spot that’s guaranteed to be seen, even if a user doesn’t open the paper (or, in our case, scroll.) The new challenge will be getting your links to appear in that coveted spot, but just how that works is still a mystery as the feature continues to work out bugs.

Finally, because of AI’s tendency to hallucinate answers, some brands are worried that negative press or comments online could needlessly harm their reputation, or that the bot could incorporate biases into its answers that don’t reflect reality.

But where some people see challenges, we see opportunities to innovate and get ahead of the curve.

Opportunities for the Hospitality Industry

For hotels, resorts, DMOs, wedding venues, and other hospitality-related businesses, Google AI Overview presents a unique situation. Where a user might be satisfied with a quick-hit answer for simple questions, a short description about a resort property, for example, will only entice them to click through and learn more.

What this means for marketers is an increased emphasis on keeping content fresh and relevant so that it appears in that AI Overview paragraph. Here’s an example: If visitors to an area are interested in attending local activities, their search might include the words “this weekend” or “next week.” If they’re traveling a bit off traditional schedules, they might search for “late check-out.”

This is the perfect opportunity to include all of those things on your website and make them easily accessible to the search bots. Develop a section for current events, and make sure that your FAQ section is up-to-date, clear, and easy to access.

You’re also likely to see long-tail keywords added to your content strategy. These are phrases, and sometimes even full sentences, that users type into the query bar. For example, if a keyword phrase is “hotel near me,” the long-tail version of that might be something like “luxury hotel in {city} that’s under $300 a night and has free breakfast.” Optimizing your content around those more specific searches could increase your chances of showing up in AI Overview.

Finally, it will be essential to engage with your audience online and ask for engagement. User reviews, user-generated content, and social-media interactions will increase your visibility to not only your audience, but Google’s crawlers as well. This part of your strategy will come into play as the AI gets better at interpreting context and intent. It’s even possible that your online reviews may hold more weight than your SEO optimization, although that’s not yet certain.

In the meantime, use this opportunity to dig into your marketing toolkit and consider branching out into other channels, especially if your strategy is Google-heavy. Some underused tactics, like short-form video, are great ways to increase engagement and reach new audiences.

And finally, remember that Google AI Overview is in its infancy. It will be buggy, it will evolve, and it will probably make us scratch our heads once in a while. We understand that changes can be daunting, especially when it comes to understanding complex technology. But if you ask us, that’s the perfect opportunity to reevaluate your marketing strategy, find room for innovation, and even set standards for search moving forward.

Our SEO experts can help you craft a strategy that includes Google AI Overview and more. If you’d like to get started, let’s talk.

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Getting Inclusivity Right in Your Wedding Venue Marketing

in Brand Strategy, Event Venues by Jennifer Munro

Simply put, marketing solves a problem for consumers by connecting them with products and services. It sure sounds easy, but effective marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all undertaking. Chances are, most people within your target audience have something unique about them that makes them different, whether it be related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, or physical ability. Inclusive marketing today isn’t “outside the box;” rather, it reflects the world around us.

For wedding venues, focusing on a narrow demographic not only limits your messaging, but can also drive potential clients to competitors who are getting inclusivity right in their wedding venue marketing. In this blog post, we explore what inclusivity is, why it’s important, and the steps you can take to ensure your marketing message resonates with people from all backgrounds.

Respect: Don’t Assume Couples Want Traditional

Inclusivity is more than diversity. Inclusive marketing expands messaging in a way that enables underrepresented groups to fully experience and connect with your brand. As a wedding venue, you’re already adept at finding ways to make each wedding unique by personalizing it to the individual couple, so it’s really just a matter of expanding on that.

In 2015, the US Supreme Court struck down the ban on same-sex marriage, legalizing it in all 50 states. Because there wasn’t an established playbook, it gave gay and lesbian couples the opportunity to write their own rules and develop meaningful expressions of the wedding ritual rather than simply falling in line with expectations and traditions.

If you approach every wedding (and every couple) with an open mind, without assumptions based on previous experience, you will open the door to inclusivity, regardless of whether the couple fits neatly into an existing box.

Reimagine: Learn about the Couple & Let That Shape the Event

Think back to the first time you hosted a wedding for a blended family — that is, a couple who had children from a prior marriage, or stepparents (some of whom may not have been on the best of terms with one another). It probably required some creative problem-solving to make things work logistically for the couple, without alienating anyone in the process. No one knows the ins and outs of weddings like you do, and couples of all stripes are relying on you to anticipate any issues that might arise.

Many couples, for example, have eschewed the long-standing ceremony tradition of seating their families and friends on opposite sides of the aisle, opting instead for open seating. Similarly, the tradition of the couple seeing each other for the first time at the altar has largely been supplanted by a “first look” — an intimate moment shared between partners in a private setting that can help mitigate wedding jitters, allowing the couple to be more present at the ceremony.

Instead of trying to fit the couple into a set of predetermined roles and rules, take the time to find out more about them as people and let the event shape itself. It’s okay to ask questions! Find out what’s important to them, how they see their celebration unfolding, and what makes them different from other couples you may have served.

Represent: Walk the Talk in Your Offerings & Marketing

A New Perspective

Wedding preparation can take many forms. Challenge the assumption that brides want a space equipped with lighted mirrors and stylist’s chairs to spend the morning primping and preening while grooms smoke cigars, play video games, and drink beer. Gender-neutral accommodations for wedding preparation with similar amenities allow couples to choose the environment that makes sense for them.

Gender-Neutral Pronouns

As more and more consumers are abstaining from labels, it’s important to seek out gender-neutral pronouns to avoid alienating the very consumers you’re trying to attract to your venue. Don’t underestimate the importance of pronouns as tools for affirming gender identity. Using the plural (they) in place of the singular (he/her) across your marketing materials can clearly signal to potential couples that your venue is a welcoming and inclusive environment.

Inclusive Language

So much of “traditional” wedding terminology is highly gendered, from “Best Man” and “Maid of Honor” to using titles like “Mr. and Mrs” on all wedding stationery. Here’s a short list of terms and some acceptable alternatives you might consider incorporating into your media efforts. (Don’t forget to check the verbiage on your website contact form and any contracts that use exclusive language.)

Instead of bridal party…try wedding party

Instead of bridal suite…try dressing room, hospitality suite/lounge

Instead of bride and groom (singular)…try brides and grooms (plural)

Instead of husband/wife…try partner, spouse, beloved

Instead of bridesmaid/groomsman…try attendant

Instead of Best Man/Maid of Honor…try Person of Honor

Instead of Mr. and Mrs….use full names instead

Highlight Real Stories

One of the best ways to help potential couples envision their nuptials at your venue is through the visuals on your website, blog, and social media channels — so it’s crucial that these photos represent real people of varied backgrounds. When selecting the imagery you use in your marketing materials, ask yourself: Do these visuals represent couples of different ages, ethnicities, and body types? Are we regularly showcasing same-sex weddings and LGBTQIA+ ceremonies?

With 70% of Millennials and Gen Z more likely to support a brand dedicated to diversity and inclusion, the importance of highlighting your venue’s inclusive values cannot be overlooked. Don’t be overwhelmed by the idea that you need to include everyone in your marketing initiatives — instead, be mindful of excluding a particular group.

You may also consider the option of “holding space” in your marketing photography by highlighting your venue and its unique celebration spaces without an overt focus on people. This leaves room for interpretation among potential clients, making it easier for them to visualize what their own wedding might look like.

Use Commonalities to Unite

Fortunately, you needn’t look far to find a common thread among your existing and potential customers: They’re visiting your website or scrolling through your social media accounts because they’re getting married, and they’re considering your venue to host their celebration. Focus on the things that unite your clientele rather than what separates them: They’re simply two people committing their lives to one another before their community of family and friends.

Review: Step Back, Survey, and Assess Your Sincerity

In order to resonate with existing and prospective clients, an inclusivity initiative needs to emanate from the very core of your brand — it can’t be a gimmick or appear to be rooted in financial gain. Couples seeking inclusivity in their venue selection will be able to see right through any halfhearted attempts to elevate your social sensitivity score, so it has to be woven into your corporate DNA.

Start by taking a hard look at your wedding venue branding. You might even consider performing an inclusion audit to assess the messages your venue sends, surveying employees from different departments for fresh perspectives. You’ll not only reap the benefits of appealing to a wider audience, but you’ll attract and retain the best and brightest talent and experience higher employee engagement — all of which position your venue for continued success.

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Launched a New Site? Here’s How To Keep It Up and Running

in Search Marketing, Websites by Hawthorn Editorial

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fter months of planning and hard work, your slick, modern website is finally live for all the world to see. (Congratulations!) You may be thinking your work is done, and it’s time to sit back and watch the leads come in. However, launching a new site doesn’t mean your job is totally finished — it’s just reshaped itself a bit.

Once a website launches, the focus shifts from designing and building to monitoring, maintaining, and optimizing. You’ll need to assess how your SEO strategy is performing, whether your conversion rate is increasing, and where your site visitors are coming from. Here’s our list of the top things we watch out for when maintaining a client’s website, and why they’re important:

Website Traffic

Site traffic is one of the most common KPIs. Why? For starters, it serves as a barometer of your overall site performance (as well as your inbound marketing tactics.) Using Google Analytics for this tracking gives you access to a treasure trove of information, including not only the number of visitors, but also their demographics, general location, and online behavior. Having a solid understanding of this data can serve you well across the board, from identifying the most popular content to creating recommendation engines and marketing strategies that align with what your site visitors are drawn to most.

Conversions

These metrics are really what it all boils down to — enticing your site visitors to take action. To buy, to subscribe, to visit, to make an appointment. Your conversion metrics and goals are uniquely yours, and something that you should set when you first begin your website redesign process. Measuring those outcomes is a clear indicator of whether your efforts are positively impacting your business goals. If you aren’t seeing numbers you like, it’s an opportunity to try and figure out where the bottlenecks are, do some A/B testing, or work with an experienced marketing agency to further optimize your site.

Page Load Time

Think about your reaction when a web page takes “forever” to load (even if it’s really just a few seconds.) We expect our digital experience to be instantaneous, and a slow-to-load website can cause a ripple effect of issues, from higher bounce rates to lower search rankings. While our agency will optimize page load time as part of the initial website build, it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the overall speed of your site after launch to ensure everything is running efficiently. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool can help identify pages that need optimization, as well as differences between browser and mobile vs. desktop, in order to ensure a seamless user experience.

Site Uptime

Even worse than slow-loading pages? Pages that won’t load at all. A site that’s down can be detrimental to your online presence, especially if you’re in the middle of running a marketing campaign that’s sending people to your landing page. Even if you’re working with a strong website agency, it’s essential to keep eyes on your site every day to make sure that it’s generally loading and working the way you want. You can also use a monitoring service, like Pingdom or Uptime, that will do that work for you and send you alerts if your site goes down.

Security

Cybersecurity threats are constantly present. And, if you’re gathering customer information like addresses and payment information, it’s imperative to keep it safe. To ensure a safe website — especially if you’re using a complicated site that’s built on WordPress — we recommend adding a security plugin (if you haven’t already) like Wordfence. These services can protect your new website from malware and monitor for any outdated software or weak spots in your infrastructure.

SEO Performance

This is probably the most hands-on element of post-launch maintenance, especially since the rules around SEO change regularly. Keeping a close eye on your SEO metrics will give you a good picture of what phrases your visitors are using to search and whether your strategy is effective. As your brand continues to grow and evolve, you’ll likely be adding additional content to your site — so ensuring that new copy is optimized for search engines is crucial. It’s also important to track, maintain and grow your site’s performance every month, which is why we recommend clients choose an ongoing SEO package.

User Feedback

It’s always important to remember that your website is designed for your ideal audience. People who have interacted with your site from a completely objective point of view can have valuable insights, so it’s a good idea to find out what they have to say. You can use surveys, feedback forms, or social media channels to gather the information, but the key is to look for repeated comments or trends (There will always be outliers.) Engaging with your audience in this manner also helps build trust and loyalty.

Our team of experts is dedicated to making sure that our clients’ sites remain well-oiled and focused on meeting business objectives. If you’d like help optimizing your website, let’s talk.

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Why You Should Steer Clear of These Black Hat SEO Tactics (and What to Do Instead)

in Content Marketing, Search Marketing, Websites by Hawthorn Editorial

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hat’s “black hat” SEO? Like the black hat signals in old Western movies, black hat SEO is the bad guy. These taboo tactics could take the form of stuffing your metadata with your competitor’s name, cloaking URLs to increase rankings, or buying links. In short: Black hat SEO refers to any underhanded or manipulative way of increasing a website’s search rankings.

Black hat SEO isn’t illegal, but it is unethical and widely frowned upon. Black hat tactics violate search engine guidelines and can result in penalties or even getting banned from search engine results altogether. In a world where organic and local search account for 69% of digital traffic, that outcome could wreck your business.

So, what are some of the most common black hat tactics out there? We’ll take a look at a few examples, along with our (good guy) tactics for raising your search engine rankings in a way that won’t get you canceled. Think of this blog as our version of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Black Hat SEO Tactics

Keyword Stuffing
This is an SEO technique that’s aptly named. It involves overloading a webpage with keywords or phrases to try to manipulate its ranking in search engine results. Keyword stuffing includes stuffing page titles or adding way too many target keywords or internal links into the content in an unnatural way. (If you’ve ever stumbled upon a stuffed webpage, you’ll know exactly how this looks and reads.) Keywords and phrases can also be stuffed into a site’s meta tags and alt tags, or even hidden in text throughout the site by coloring the font to match the background, making it invisible to the reader.

As the web crawler algorithms have advanced, they can easily spot and penalize this behavior. And that’s a good thing, because a keyword-stuffed webpage is awkward at best, and unreadable at worst.

Improper Backlink Acquisition
Your website gets a backlink when another site links over (back) to you. They’re an essential part of a strong SEO strategy because Google sees them as evidence of your website’s authority and trustworthiness within your industry. Think of backlinks like word-of-mouth recommendations.

Because they’re so important, some websites resort to improper methods of acquiring them. Some of these black hat tactics include buying backlinks, trading backlinks with other sites solely for the purpose of search engine rankings, submitting your site to low-quality directories, or comment spamming. Like keyword stuffing, these practices violate search engine guidelines.

Cloaking
This is a deceptive technique in which websites serve up different content based on the user. For crawlers, the site may present content beautifully optimized with keywords and links that increase search engine rankings. When regular users click on the site, however, they may see entirely different content that has nothing to do with the topic of their search.

This practice also violates search engine guidelines and is considered highly deceptive, but search engines constantly update their algorithms to detect and penalize websites that do this. Sites found to be cloaking can face severe consequences, including being taken off search engine results pages completely.

Hidden Text
A variation on keyword stuffing, hidden text occurs when a long list of keywords is written on the page but is rendered invisible to the reader. Hidden text can be a font color that matches the background, positioned off-screen or behind an image, or use a zero-point font size.

Some sites also use CSS or Java programming languages to hide text on the front end. Much like the back-end techniques, web crawlers are usually a step ahead and will ultimately block those pages.

What To Do Instead

The answer is simple: Do the work. Create an amazing website that you have no reason to hide. Research and get to know your target audience, be creative and smart with your strategy, and build a reputable online presence that people want to interact with.

Instead of trying to game the system, focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that incorporates keywords using natural language and in a way that provides value to users. Instead of tricking your visitors with cloaked websites, make sure your content and metadata are search engine-optimized.

Thinking about buying backlinks? Skip that unethical practice and instead, cultivate relationships with peers in your industry that will make them want to link to your site. It all comes back to taking the high road — and the rewards are worth your investment of time and effort.

The Hawthorn Creative Approach to SEO

We work with clients to create powerful strategies that combine SEO and SEM (search engine marketing) while keeping a constant eye on the ever-evolving criteria that guide the world of online search. Our SEO experts continually assess and adjust our clients’ strategies and build websites that are search engine-optimized from the start to ensure that they launch from a strong position.

If you’d like us to help you create a “white hat” SEO strategy that works, let’s talk.

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