How to Upgrade Your Hospitality Branding Strategy
Enhance Your Business by Assessing Your Hospitality Branding Strategy
In today’s competitive hospitality industry, branding is more important than ever. A well-defined and compelling brand strategy can differentiate your business from the competition, create emotional connections with customers, and drive loyalty and revenue. However, as markets evolve and customer preferences change, it’s crucial to revisit and upgrade your hospitality branding strategy to stay relevant and successful.
Whether you own a restaurant, hotel, or another hospitality organization, you must stay on top of your brand image. From your online presence to your physical location, everything needs to be perfect to encourage positive customer experiences. Here, we’ll explore the key steps to elevate your hospitality brand and make it stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Revisit Your Brand Identity and Messaging
Your brand identity is the essence of your hospitality business, encompassing your brand’s personality, values, and visual elements. Start by revisiting your brand’s mission, vision, and values, ensuring they align with current market trends and customer expectations.
Consider conducting market research to understand your target audience and their preferences. Use this information to refine your brand’s personality and tone of voice, and ensure it resonates with your target audience. Also, assess your visual elements, such as your logo, colors, fonts, and imagery, making sure they effectively convey your brand’s identity.
Enhance Your Online Presence
In today’s digital age, your online presence is crucial for your hospitality brand’s success. Review your website, social media profiles, online review, and other online assets to ensure they are aligned with your brand identity and provide a positive user experience.
Your website should be visually appealing, mobile-friendly, and easy to navigate. Additionally, you should be using social media platforms that are relevant to your target audience. Regular use of these platforms can help you build a loyal following of customers. Lastly, responding promptly and professionally to online reviews showcases your brand values and commitment to guest satisfaction.
Upgrade Your Physical Space
When was the last time you updated your physical location? Despite the initial cost, renovating your location can offer massive returns. Upgrading your space can have a positive impact on the guest experience, resulting in increased customer loyalty, positive review, and word-of-mouth referrals. Review your guest touchpoints, including pre-arrival, arrival, in-stay, and post-departure, and look for opportunities to enhance each interaction.
Not sure if your facility needs an upgrade? Most hotels refresh their interiors at least every three to five years, and restaurants get a facelift every five years to continue attracting customers. Upgrades can include minor refreshes like painting, signage updates, and light rebranding. Larger remodels may include ADA compliance updates, energy upgrades, new furniture, and more.
It can be difficult to discern what you should update and what’s going to provide the biggest ROI for your business. That’s why it’s important to work with an experienced brand implementation company. A great partner will be able to offer advice on the best upgrades to make and will complete them cost-effectively.
Embrace Sustainability
As consumers become more eco-conscious, it’s important for your brand to embrace sustainability practices. Recent research by Expedia shows that 90 percent of consumers look for sustainable options when traveling, but 70 percent don’t know where to begin. What’s more, a majority of those consumers said they would pay more for transportation, activities, and lodging if the option was more sustainable. This offers a huge opportunity for your hospitality business to capitalize on sustainability trends and cater to these customers.
But, what are the best ways to increase your sustainability? Let’s walk through a few easy and cost-effective options.
Implement Renewable Energy
Renewable energy — like solar panels — are a long-term, consistent, and environmentally friendly energy solution. Not only will you be helping the environment, but you can also benefit from numerous incentives and rebates.
The right partner will conduct a solar evaluation, helping you understand how the panels will affect the energy usage within your facility. From there, they will conduct simulations to plan for your renewable energy project and assess its viability. If you decide to move forward, your chosen partner can install the solar panels and help you achieve a more sustainable version of your business.
Add Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations
According to The New York Times, battery-powered cars make up the fastest-growing segment of the automotive market. Sales jumped by 70 percent in the first nine months of 2022, compared to the same period in 2021. At the same time, sales of conventional cars and trucks fell 15 percent. Is your hospitality business taking advantage of this fact?
Installing EV charging stations is a great way to offer value to your customers while they use your facility. It’s also an easy way to showcase your commitment to sustainability and draw in eco-conscious consumers.
Upgrade Your Lighting
Are you using the most efficient lighting for your space? Switching to LED lighting can help you save money and attract sustainably minded customers. LED bulbs are more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs, and they emit less heat. This can help keep rooms cool and reduce air conditioning costs. LED lights also have a longer lifespan than incandescent bulbs, which means you’ll save money on upkeep.
Work with Stratus to Upgrade Your Hospitality Branding Strategy
As a brand implementation company built on 150 years of success, Stratus is uniquely positioned to help you reassess your hospitality branding strategy. We are a leading provider of signage, repair, maintenance, and energy management solutions, serving some of the biggest brands in the U.S. and beyond. We’re here for you at every stage of your brand implementation — whether you’re looking to update existing signage, retrofit an outdated lighting system, or need support with a refresh or remodel.
Thanks to our tried-and-true processes, we’re ready to deliver quality, quick, and cost-efficient solutions for your business. We employ a range of technology to keep you up-to-date on where your project is in the process. Our variety of apps, reporting solutions, proprietary software, dashboards, and benchmarking tools ensure transparency throughout the entire project. Additionally, our field partner network ensures we can reach your job site quickly, and begin offering quality services right away. Each of our partner businesses has been fully verified and graded by Stratus, ensuring that the companies to whom we entrust our work are experts, have the capabilities to do the job, and are ready to deliver on time and on budget.
Let’s Enhance Your Hospitality Branding Strategy
Ready to reassess your hospitality branding strategy? Contact us today to get started.