5 tips to create a successful Black Friday campaign for your hotel

Black Friday is now one of the most significant events in the hotel industry’s promotional calendar. And even though it initially started as an in-store shopping day, in recent years it has evolved into weeks of enticing online promotions. Needless to say, hotels have joined the shopping craze, putting forward their own offers—and the effort pays off. Hotelchamp customers with Black Friday or Cyber Monday promotions have seen over a 91% average increase in direct revenue in past years.

Download our inspiration booklet for revenue-driving Black Friday campaigns ›

In this blog, you’ll learn how to easily create a successful Black Friday campaign based on the knowledge our team has gained over the years. Plus, you’ll learn how we can help you get the most out of Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year. Here are our five tips for creating a revenue-driving Black Friday campaign:

1. Keep it simple

The clearer your offer is, the easier it will be for guests to understand what they receive. This can increase their confidence in booking as there aren’t too many strings attached. Having clear terms and conditions is still important, but don’t add so many that you restrict who can purchase your special offers. In past years, we’ve seen hoteliers adapting their offers to meet the changing needs of their guests. After the pandemic, this used to mean messaging focused on reassurance, flexibility and hotel vouchers. Guests continue to value personalisation and will always choose hotels that can cater best to their own needs. We recommend looking into your target audience—their wants, needs and what they responded to well in the past.

2. Be generous with your offer

Around Black Friday, the deal hunters are out there searching for the best deals they can find. In previous years, hotels have offered discounts as high as 55%, with around 20-30% being the standard discount seen by Hotelchamp. We’re seeing a trend of moving away from high discounting, with more focus on added value and experiential offers. Bundled packages with additional value add-ons like complimentary breakfast or free room upgrades create a generous offer without damaging your rates. If you are offering heavily discounted rates, you can remember to add terms to these offers that can restrict high-demand dates so that you aren’t losing revenue by selling out.

3. Use scarcity and urgency tactics

Put the pressure on by highlighting limited stock numbers or utilising flash sale offers. Flash sales are a great way to create urgency over Black Friday and Cyber Monday while highlighting your offer. Using a Hotelchamp flash sale template, you can countdown to the end of your offer. This creates a sense of urgency for your website visitors to act. We recommend extending your campaign beyond just the Black Friday weekend to increase the exposure and the chance of making more sales.

4. Target mobile shoppers

Holiday season deal hunters do a lot of research before they purchase, and they rely heavily on mobile while doing this research. Needless to say, make sure you highlight your Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers on mobile. What is important for mobile shoppers is a seamless booking experience. Think about what you can do to simplify the journey to purchase on mobile, not just desktop. Can you create a link that applies the discount in the booking engine, rather than having to enter a promo code? Reducing the steps to purchase can help with mobile conversion.

5. Create a full campaign on your website

Every year, our team creates fresh, specialised Black Friday and Cyber Monday templates that you can use to easily and quickly set up your own campaign. These are set up with our recommended message settings. You can click and create your personalised campaign in just a few steps. Before setting up your campaign, decide on your campaign set-up:

Simple campaign

• Desktop: Floating or Inline Message

Recommended campaign

• Desktop: Floating or Inline Message
• Mobile: Mobile Floating Message

To see these tips in action, in this video, learn how you can create a successful Black Friday campaign:

If you’re interested in setting up a Black Friday campaign for your hotel this year, book a demo here. If you’re a Hotelchamp Convert customer already, please contact our team if you have any questions on how to create your campaigns.

Editors note: This post was originally published in October 2020 and has been refreshed and updated for accuracy and new best practices.