Did you know that around 96% of visitors on your business website will likely come and go without doing anything? They may browse through your menus or catalogs of products and services but might not be ready yet for a purchase or to take your call to action. To help you in getting around to making those happen, you can employ an effective marketing method to give you another opportunity to call that 96% back for engagement, and even a sale. It’s called remarketing.
What Is Remarketing?
Remarketing is a tactic used by marketers to reconnect with potential customers who have previously visited their website. Although both large and small companies use it, remarketing works well with small businesses that need to be recognized. They need to stay top-of-mind among their target audiences. The intention is to remind them to do a return visit so that they can finalize a purchase. Usually, you can incentivize them to return by offering discounts. But the objective for remarketing is quite clear: acquire customers and build-up awareness for your brand. It may be your goal to bring these leads back to your website and have them become conversions, but it’s not always about sales.
When remarketing, you show your target audiences content that captures their interest, usually through digital advertising. While they may already be familiar with your brand, products, and services (which gives you a higher chance of converting them), the key is to target them on several occasions with personalized ads and to keep nudging them towards your preferred action. You have to encourage them to move along the conversion funnel, or simply to engage with your business according to your remarketing campaign.
How You Can Start Remarketing
There are several channels for which you can do remarketing:
- Offline (printed materials such as posters, banners, billboards, etc.)
- Phone Calls – you have their phone numbers? Create a flow of scripts that are designed to guide them through the buyer’s journey, eventually leading them to conversion.
- Emails – Did a visitor show interest in one of your products or services but didn’t avail? If you’ve managed to get their email address, send them an email highlighting that particular product or service and why they should next time.
- Social Media – put out ads that can draw-in engagement from its viewers. Remarketing targets an audience that is engaged with your brand, so get your visitors involved with your content.
- Retargeting – these campaigns help remind your website visitors of your brand, products, and services. Since they left without engaging or doing business with your website, they’ll be sent “reminders” (advertisements) when they visit other websites.
While the first 4 items on the list above will seem the most familiar, retargeting is more technical and relies on your website, as well as tracking web traffic.
To give you a clearer explanation of retargeting, here’s an example:
One of your potential customers recently visited your website to either look through your menu or catalog, or even to see if there are any promos. After a few seconds, they leave really clicking on anything or even to stay and read through any of your pages.
You will get a lot of visits from potential customers like these, and the best course of action is to label them and put them in a list for retargeting. As the days and weeks pass, they’ll eventually be presented with ads for your business, in any of the possible websites and social media channels that they’ll visit.
They may notice that they’ve been “targeted” by your ads or they may just ignore it as spam and move on. Or, if fortune favors you, they may just return to your website. And with that possible instance, your remarketing effort has been effective.
Retargeting and Remarketing
Remarketing works using technology and is focused mainly on web traffic. It’s more of a subset of your broader remarketing strategy. The technical component for retargeting relies on a snippet of Javascript code. This code gets inserted into your website pages and puts an anonymous cookie on your visitors, particularly on how they’re accessing your website or social media channels (through a browser, an app, etc.). After they’re tagged, they’re added to a specific list of your preference and will now be subject to see ads that are custom-made for them whenever they visit other websites.
Retargeting allows you to target visitors based on:
- What they search for using search engines such as Google, Bing, etc.
- What products, services, or pages they viewed on your website. Note what actions they made or did not make.
- How they reached your website.
And you know what? Retargeting works. In one survey, over 75% of consumers noticed that they were being retargeted. But they still responded. The average click-through rate for a Google search ad is only 0.07%, but the average rate for a retargeted ad is at 0.7%. And more importantly, visitors that click through are 70% more likely to convert and perform transactions.
The Types of Remarketing
Going back to remarketing, there are several types which differ depending on how you segregate your visitors and what ads you show them:
- Search – show your ads above search engine results. Shown to visitors who have already visited your website and are now on Google and still searching for related products and services.
- Distribution list – show your ads to a unique list containing, for example: collected email addresses of your newsletter subscribers.
- Videos – use video ads on Google partners such as Youtube on visitors who interact with videos or Youtube channels.
- Ad Displays – your ads can be seen on other Google network websites.
- Social Media – your ads can be seen by visitors using social media sites/channels (ex. LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)
- Dynamic Remarketing – similar to standard remarketing, except that the ads are now personalized, depending on what products and services were being viewed by visitors.
What About Your Hospitality Business?
Let’s get more specific. There are several ways that you can use remarketing, which are all relevant to your hospitality business.
- Google Remarketing – The most prominent remarketing tool right now is Google Ads. You should take advantage of how powerful and convenient their remarketing tools are so you don’t miss out on a possibly large revenue stream. You can use remarketing lists for Google Ads to create search ads that are specific for potential leads who have already visited your website or specific webpage. You just need to install the Google remarketing tag on to your website.
You can also use Google’s Remarketing Event Tracking feature, which enables you to do different event tracking during particular points in a user’s visit on your website. For example, you can tag them when they sign up to your lead magnet, or use other tags prior to this, too. Customizing each event on every step or on each significant stride will allow you to avoid having to promote the same lead magnet to the same visitor over and over again.
- Set An Availment Period – While you can’t wait forever for your visitors to respond to your remarket ads, push their decision-making capabilities by influencing them to do so. Attach a time-based element to your seasonal events or promos. Tell them that they have till a certain date to reply or set a booking deadline.
- Remarket with Incentives – Hospitality businesses thrive on offering customers with incentives. And this is doubly true for new visitors who you are still warming up to. There may be reasons why they’re not continuing on a purchase with your business, but a well-crafted, attractive reward or benefit can certainly boost their confidence to open up to you. Offer a discount or throw-in an extra to start the ball rolling.
- The Power of Email Marketing – Your hospitality business can never go wrong with sending out emails for remarketing. Emails can easily contain the most customized, personalized messages that can accommodate longer messages. You can also continue remarketed emails with your target’s responses and continue the correspondence leading to official business transactions.
- Never forget your existing customers – Customer loyalty may be important for all businesses, but it is integral especially for your hospitality business. Always create a list of your patrons and keep upselling any new products and services, as well as discounts and promos.
Improve and Optimize
Sending remarketing content to your target audience is already your second chance in snagging their attention, so you’ll have to give it your best effort. You should be able to get and hold their focus through creative or clever advertisements. There are several things to remember when you’re thinking about how your ads should look like:
- Visually Appealing – don’t settle for drab, lifeless photos or images. Make it fun, colorful, striking. Being in the hospitality business, have visual assets that show people enjoying your products and services.
- A clear CTA – send a clear message on what you want your recipient to do. Highlight this action with a readable, solid button that they can click.
- Be Punchy – clearly indicate what your visitors will be getting, and make your copy fun, engaging. If you’re offering new products or services, don’t just list it down or say it – say it with flair and wit.
Conclusion
Remarketing, when used correctly, can prove to be a very effective strategy that can net you more than just sales and revenue, but also establish your brand among potential, as well as loyal customers alike. With all the various options for doing digital remarketing campaigns, you can easily set-up and maintain your remarketing efforts and keep a lead, ahead of your competitors in the hospitality industry.
