Marketing hotel activations to guests and locals
As hotels look to enhance the guest experience and attract patrons to their Food and Beverage outlets, live music and DJ performances have become a popular way to activate the space and create a lively and enjoyable atmosphere. However, simply booking a performance is not enough. To ensure that hotel guests and locals alike are aware of these activations, effective marketing strategies are key for these two distinct target audiences.
Marketing to hotel guests
Often overlooked, one of the most effective ways to market music performances to hotel guests is by adding entertainment to the hotel or resort's activity calendar. This will allow guests to know about the scheduled performances while planning their day. For properties that use QR codes to link to guest portals, including any scheduled live music or DJ activations will create a seamless experience for guests. Additionally, having a schedule of entertainment in the lobby or dining outlet itself is a great way to remind guests of upcoming performances. To sweeten the deal, consider coupling food and beverage specials (such as a happy-hour drink special or themed food offering) with an associated music performance, as the entertainment will encourage guests to stay longer and spend more on drinks and food.
Marketing to locals
Locals are an incredibly valuable clientele for any restaurant or bar, as they can become repeat patrons. Restaurants within hotels can be overlooked by locals, which makes live entertainment and its effective marketing a valuable tool to capture local business. Promoting upcoming performances on social media channels with information about the music genre and musicians themselves can be very successful in attracting locals. This is especially effective when live entertainment is regularly scheduled with consistent genres on certain days (such as a Tuesday jazz night or World Music Wednesdays). Coordinating marketing with the musician or DJ can also be beneficial as they can post aligned content and hashtags on their own social media channels to further spread the word. Finally, capturing short 30-60 second videos of the performance to post to the hotel's social media story can be a great way to showcase the ambiance and energy of the outlet while attracting future patrons.
By utilizing effective marketing strategies that target both guests and locals, hotels can ensure that the impact of live music performances and DJ activations on both the guest experience and revenue of the outlet is maximized.
