Hotel Advertising

Advertising in Hotels

Advertising in Hotels

Advertising in hotels leverages high-visibility placements such as door hangers, key cards, and in-room materials to deliver targeted messages to guests.

Hotel Advertising

HOW IT WORKS

Advertising in hotels leverages high-visibility placements such as door hangers, key cards, and in-room materials to deliver targeted messages to guests. These methods ensure repeated exposure as travelers interact with these items throughout their stay, creating a powerful connection between the brand and a premium audience.

Impacts of Advertising in Hotels

Advertising in hotels targets a premium audience, such as business travelers and affluent tourists. This approach creates strong brand associations with luxury and reliability, boosting recall and conversion rates. Hotels offer a unique environment for immersive brand experiences, enhancing the impact of advertising efforts.

Options of Advertising

Hotels offer diverse advertising opportunities that maximize brand visibility. From door hangers to key cards, each option provides unique ways to engage guests through repeated exposure and targeted messaging. These tools ensure your brand stays top-of-mind in a premium environment.

Door Hangers Advertising

Door hanger advertising is a direct form of in-hand marketing where printed materials, usually shaped to hang on doorknobs, are distributed to specific households or locations. Unlike other advertising mediums, door hangers physically cannot be ignored—they require interaction, ensuring your message gets seen. Here’s how the process typically works:

  1. Targeting: You select neighborhoods or regions based on your target demographics, using data on income, family size, homeownership, etc.
  2. Distribution: Door hangers are hand-delivered, ensuring they are placed directly on door handles.
  3. Tracking: Modern campaigns often use GPS to monitor where hangers were distributed, providing transparency and accountability.

Event Shuttle Advertising

At Adzze, we pioneered the use of branded shuttle passes as an innovative advertising solution for large-scale conferences, trade shows, and corporate events. This approach begins at check-in, where hotel staff hand attendees branded passes that grant access to event shuttles. These passes serve a dual purpose—providing a practical function while delivering your brand message in a tangible way.

For an enhanced experience, shuttles can also be fully branded, transforming them into mobile billboards that amplify your message during the journey. However, shuttle branding is optional, making this a flexible solution that adapts to your campaign’s goals and budget. Whether focusing on the pass alone or including the shuttle, this strategy ensures repeated exposure and impactful connections with your audience.

Key Cards Advertising

Hotel key cards act as mini-billboards, providing repetitive exposure to high-value audiences. Their portability ensures visibility both within and outside hotel premises, making them powerful for brand reinforcement.

This concept falls under the broader category of In-Hand Advertising, a strategy that targets consumers with tangible, physical media they literally hold, carry, or interact with throughout their day. With hotel key cards, brands have a golden opportunity to reach an affluent audience in a setting where their message receives repeated exposure. Think of a traveler who uses the key card 4-5 times a day, glancing at your ad with each use. Over the span of a few days at the hotel, your brand creates a lasting impression.

Benefits of Advertising in Hotels

Hotel advertising combines targeted reach, cost-effectiveness, and prolonged exposure. Guests repeatedly interact with branded materials like key cards or door hangers, creating memorable impressions. The captive audience ensures your message reaches an engaged demographic, delivering impactful results.

This medium offers a unique set of advantages that most digital advertising methods can’t match:

  • Hyper-targeted campaigns: Door hangers let you target specific neighborhoods, ensuring your message reaches the right audience.
  • Undeniable visibility: Unlike digital ads that can be skipped, scrolled past, or blocked, door hangers are physically present and require interaction.
  • Cost-effective: With a low cost per unit, door hanger advertising is accessible for small and large businesses alike.
  • Local focus: Perfect for local businesses looking to increase foot traffic, door hangers allow you to focus your marketing efforts where they matter most.
  • Target Hotel Locations: Choose high-end, strategic hotels frequented by your ideal demographic.
  • Affluent Audience: Business travelers and tourists with higher disposable incomes, ideal for luxury goods, services, and experiences.
  • Prolonged Exposure: On average, hotel guests stay for 2-3 days, seeing your brand every time they access their room. The key card stays with them even when they’re out, ensuring your brand remains top-of-mind.

How to Measure ROI

Measuring the ROI of hotel advertising involves tracking key metrics to evaluate campaign effectiveness and ensure your investment delivers results. Here’s how:

Tracking

  1. QR Codes 
    Include QR codes on key cards, A-frame signs, or shuttle passes to direct users to specific landing pages or promotions. These codes can be customized with tracking parameters using platforms like Campaign Manager or AppsFlyer, enabling precise measurement of engagement and conversions. Virtually any URL can be transformed into a QR code, making this an adaptable and effective tracking method.

2. Promo Codes
Use unique promotional codes on advertising materials to track direct conversions, such as purchases or sign-ups. This allows for straightforward attribution of results to the campaign.

3. Booth Visits (Events)
For event-related campaigns, track the number of attendees visiting your booth or engaging with event-specific activations tied to hotel advertising placements. This provides a clear measure of physical engagement resulting from the campaign.

Key Metrics

  1. Reach and Impressions
  • Hotel Key Card Advertising: Estimate reach based on hotel occupancy rates, the number of rooms, and the average number of guests per room. Multiply this by the frequency of key card use—typically 4-5 times a day over a 2-3 day stay—to calculate total impressions.
  • Shuttle Passes: For event-targeted campaigns, reach can be calculated by combining the number of distributed passes with event attendance data.

2. Cost-Per-Thousand (CPM)
Hotel advertising offers competitive CPMs compared to traditional Out-of-Home (OOH) media formats. For key card advertising, CPM typically ranges from $2 to $4, depending on hotel location and audience profile. While not a direct measure of ROI, CPM helps assess cost efficiency in delivering impressions.

3. Response Rates
Measure direct responses such as website visits, app downloads, or coupon redemptions resulting from the campaign. High response rates indicate strong audience engagement and relevance.

Use Cases

  1. Event Marketing
    Hotel advertising offers a unique way to engage attendees at nearby hotels through placements like branded key cards, charging stations, and shuttle passes. These strategic touchpoints seamlessly connect your brand to the event, delivering repeated exposure and lasting impressions.

  2. Healthcare and Wellness Campaigns
    Healthcare organizations or premium wellness brands can use hotel advertising to reach business travelers and professionals. Placements like key cards or charging stations in hotels near conferences or medical facilities can promote services, such as executive health checkups or wellness retreats, to a targeted, high-income audience.

  3. Home Services 
    Landscapers, cleaning services, and HVAC companies can benefit from hyper-local advertising, ensuring their message reaches homeowners in need of their services.

  4. Technology Solutions and SaaS Enterprises
    Tech companies targeting decision-makers for enterprise software or hardware solutions can leverage hotel advertising near major business hubs. Key cards or in-room materials can direct guests to request demos or learn more about the latest innovations, using tracking tools to measure engagement.

  5. Financial Services
    Wealth management firms, investment advisors, or fintech companies can use hotel advertising to connect with high-net-worth individuals. Premium placements, such as branded shuttle passes or key cards in hotels catering to affluent travelers, offer a discreet and direct way to introduce tailored financial products or services.

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Metrics

Offices by DMA or Zip Code

5-30 Minutes

120.000-310.000
Impressions per month

25.000-30.000
Visits per month

FAQ Section

Advertising in hotels typically costs between $2 and $4 per thousand impressions (CPM), making it a highly cost-effective option compared to other out-of-home (OOH) advertising formats like billboards or digital screens. The exact cost depends on the hotel’s location and audience profile.

Distribution can be tracked through partnerships with hotels, which often provide reports on occupancy rates and estimated reach. Additionally, including QR codes or promotional codes in the advertising allows for measurable engagement directly linked to the campaign.

Response rates vary depending on factors like the campaign’s design, message, and target audience. However, the repeated exposure from key cards or other in-hotel materials increases the likelihood of strong ad recall and engagement.

Yes, hotel advertising options, such as key cards and door hangers, can be fully customized to include your branding, promotional offers, and interactive features like QR codes, ensuring the campaign aligns with your objectives and resonates with the audience.

Absolutely. Hotel advertising can include digital call-to-actions like QR codes, URLs, or promo codes, driving traffic to websites or apps. This makes it a powerful tool for digital businesses looking to convert offline exposure into online engagement.

Advertising in Hotels offers a unique blend of hyper-local targeting, high visibility, and cost-effectiveness, making it an underrated tool for advertisers looking to reach specific audiences. Ready to explore how this method can drive results for your brand? Request our Media Kit today to explore the possibilities further.

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