Transforming your-hotels-online-presence-with-video

FIVE STEPS TO TRANSFORMING YOUR HOTEL’S ONLINE PRESENCE WITH VIDEO / 2

seeing is

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believing
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Chapter One:

Leverage Your Visual
Storytelling Strategy

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22

Distribution
Amplifying

23

Chapter Five:

Chapter Two:

Ready, Set, Go!

Five Steps To
Transforming Your
Hotel’s Online
Presence With Video

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Chapter Three:

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Professionally Produced Video
Video Produced By You In-House
Video Created By Guests

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What Types of Video Are Right For My Property?
What Is Our Message?
Which Video Platforms and Channels Best
Suits My Property’s Needs?
How Much of my Marketing Budget Should
I Dedicate to Video Production?
It’s Time For Lights, Camera, Action!

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19

Chapter Four:

28

About Leonardo

Share this eBook

20
20

Sourcing
Publishing

Table
of Contents

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Tune In To Online Video
Make Video Work For You

Learn Best Practices

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25

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Thanks for downloading!
A good video evokes emotion, it can make you laugh or cry and
feel any variety of sentiments. Which is precisely why a welltold story through video can also inspire travel shoppers to book
a stay at your property. You aren’t selling four walls and a bed,
you’re offering guests an experience, and what better way is
there to communicate that experience than through a dynamic,
engaging online video.
Here you’ll learn why video has become one of the most useful
tools for hotel marketers, and how you can begin telling your
story through this ever-popular medium. Read on to explore
how you can leverage your visual storytelling strategy, what
types of video to produce and best practices for showing
consumers a story they can’t forget.
Darlene Rondeau
Vice President Best Practices,
Online Merchandising
Leonardo

Colin Osing is the VP
of Marketing at SoMedia
Networks, where he's
responsible for product
design and development,
as well as the advertising
and branding of SoMedia's
scalable and automated
video production platforms
and solutions. When he's
not admiring the beautiful
Vancouver skyline from
SoMedia's rooftop deck,
you'll find him skiing up
at Whistler or on the golf
course.

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“No art passes our conscience in the way film does,
and goes directly to our feelings, deep down...”
- Ingmar Bergman

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Introduction
Although renowned movie director Ingmar Bergman was
discussing movies when he said that, it’s true that there’s no
better art form for effectively engaging an audience than motion
pictures. More than any other medium, film and video offer the
closest possible experience to “being there.”
It’s no surprise then that marketers have been using film and
video to engage with customers for decades. Although video has
traditionally fallen under the umbrella of pricey television ads, in
the 21st century that paradigm has shifted, thanks to the internet.
As download speeds and bandwidth have increased – and
the internet in general has shifted from text-heavy websites to
interactive visual experiences – so too has the use of video
increased. Once considered too data-heavy to download or
stream, video is now common online, and is used for a multitude
of professional and personal purposes.
In terms of cost, video has never been more affordable and
accessible. With smartphones capable of viewing – not to mention
recording, editing, and uploading – online video’s popularity
is at an all-time high. The accessibility of video recording and
production tools make it easier than ever for marketers to
take advantage of the medium; you no longer need a massive

marketing budget to produce quality video capable of entertaining,
educating and engaging viewers. Furthermore, as the internet
continues its trend towards visually-rich websites, visitors have
started to expect and demand video from their favorite sites.
As hotel marketers it’s up to us to figure out the best way to
use video to help promote our hotels, to drive engagement and
increase booking opportunities.
In “Seeing is Believing,” we’ve
broken that journey into five
steps. We’ll start by looking at
your broader marketing strategy –
specifically, visual storytelling, and
how video fits in to that strategy.

Did You Know?
Webpages containing
video are 53 times
more likely to appear
on the first page of
Google.

Then we’ll drill down into just
what makes video an effective
storytelling tool, the different types
of video available and the best
practices you can use to ensure
your videos tell your story. Finally
we’ll step back and take a look at
some key questions you should ask yourself before launching a
video strategy.
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Chapter One

Leverage your
visual storytelling
strategy
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Visual storytelling
emerged as a breakout
marketing term in 2013
While the concept itself dates back
millennia, from hieroglyphs on cave
walls, and has continued well into the
modern age with photographs and
motion pictures, visual storytelling on
the Internet is still evolving.
In the late 90s and early 00s,
bandwidth speeds and screen
resolution limited the effectiveness of
big, bold photos and high-quality videos. 200 pixel photos and grainy
15-second videos certainly weren’t effective storytelling tools!
But in the last few years, advances in technology, higher speeds,
broadband cellular networks, and high-resolution screens have
made high-powered visuals far more practical – and demand for
them has soared. Today, roughly a third of all internet “real estate” is
images: those websites with huge blocks of text and one or two tiny
images have been replaced by graphically- and visually-driven web
interfaces.
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Leverage Your Visual Storytelling Strategy

The travel industry has definitely followed the trend. Hotels,
airlines, tour companies and more are enhancing their online
presence with exciting, engaging visuals that show travelers
what it’s like to use their service or visit them in person.
When it comes to your property, visual storytelling with
engaging imagery is the perfect way to share your hotel’s
atmosphere and your guests’ experiences. Combine those rich
images with vivid descriptions enabling a potential guest to
imagine what their stay with you will be like. Supercharge the
experience by using video!
Your hotel doesn’t just have one story, you have many niche
and focused stories. Video is an ideal medium for sharing
snackable content with your audience. Just look at the success
of video sharing apps like Vine and Instagram. Audiences crave
bite-sized videos that they can quickly consume. No need to
pressure yourself to pack every detail of your property into one
3-5 minute video, instead, share several shorter pieces focusing
in on what makes you different, whether that’s the weekly
managers reception, or your mouth-watering scrambled egg
platter at breakfast.

Video By The Numbers: Five Key Statistics About Online Video

More than two-thirds of all Internet users say
they watch video online (Reuters).
Nine tweets per second contain a Vine link.
That’s equivalent to 777,600 Vine videos shared
a day (Unruly).
Instagram videos are creating two-times more
engagement than Instagram photos (Simply
Measured).
52 percent of consumers say that watching
product videos makes them more confident in
online purchase decisions (Invodo).
Two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will
be video by 2017 (Neomobile), and 55 percent
of all global internet traffic by 2016 (Cisco).
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Chapter Two

Tune in
to online video

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FIVE STEPS TO TRANSFORMING YOUR HOTEL’S ONLINE PRESENCE WITH VIDEO / 1 0


Now that we’ve established visual storytelling as a great way to
engage potential visitors, it’s time to decide what media we want to
use to drive that behavior. Photographs, panoramas, 360-degree
room tours and interactive images can and should be a part of your
strategy, but videos in particular are a great way to tell your hotel’s
stories and differentiate yourself from the competition.
When it comes to storytelling, video is simply one of the best
mediums available. Rather than just telling a prospect about your
property through text – or just showing them through photos – you
can show and tell with your video. In fact, Forrester Research
suggests one minute of video can be the equivalent of reading 1.8
million words (Reuters)!
The best way to use video is by integrating it in with your other
media online. Text descriptions, still images and virtual tours are vital
parts of your online story, and combined with video, can capture the
full essence of your story. Illustrating your story with all available
mediums allows you to reach all different types of travel shoppers
online, but a common misunderstanding is that virtual tours take the
place of video. While virtual tours are attractive and engaging, there
are some key differences, making it important to incorporate both
media in your storytelling efforts (Reel Marketer).
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Even though the effort required to create,
edit and publish videos is often greater
than text and photos – and we’ll talk

more about that in the next section –
the popularity of online video makes
the efforts worthwhile. Did you know

that more than a billion unique users
visit YouTube each month? The world’s
leading video site says more than 6
billion hours of video are
watched monthly on its
site. That’s almost an
hour for every person on
earth!
And lest you think all that
traffic is simply cute cat
videos or coverage of the
latest celebrity meltdown,
statistics show online
video is an increasingly
important part of
marketing strategies
worldwide. The global
top 100 brands published
close to 10,000 YouTube
videos per month in 2013, a number
that’s quintupled since 2009 (Pixability).
And little wonder, too: In studies authored

by DoubleClick, Google and AOL, audio/
visual content was found to drive an
engagement rate 4 to 7 times higher than
static image and text (Reuters).
Not only that, but video is a search
optimization goldmine. Webpages with
video are 53 times more likely to appear
on the first page of Google search results
(Reuters).
On the consumer side, videos are
becoming an important part of the
decision making process – particularly
when it comes to travel shopping. A
Google/Ipsos Media study reports that
almost half of leisure travelers and more
than two-thirds of business travelers
were prompted to book as a result of
watching online travel videos during
their trip planning, and that overall, a
whopping 93% of travelers watch online
video (Google).
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Make Your Video Findable with These 3 Tips

Video now appears in almost 70% of search results according to Marketing Week and
Forrester Research says that webpages containing video are 53 times more likely to appear on the
first page of Google. Here are three tips to make sure your video gets found:

Carefully choose your title,
description and tags to
match the video’s theme and
more importantly, to match
the keywords travellers will be
searching for.

Create and submit a video
sitemap to Google. Adding
an XML video sitemap to your
site helps Google direct visitors
to your website as opposed to
YouTube or other video sites. It
tells Google where the page is,
where the video is and what it’s
about.

Create compelling Thumbnails.
The video thumbnail is the first
thing people see. Make sure it
is eye-catching and compelling,
clear and worthy of a ‘click’, and
of course, accurately reflects your
video’s content!

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Chapter Three

make video
work for you

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Types of videos you can use
Now that we’ve established video as an effective storytelling tool and
we know that audiences crave this medium, it’s time to start thinking
about the best ways to produce videos to engage with your guests.
What types of production will create rich, memorable experiences for
your online visitors?
When it comes to hotel marketing, there are three types of video that
you can use:
u Professionally Created
u In-House Production
u Guest Generated
Let’s look at some of the pros
and cons of each.

Did You Know?
Video is one of the most shared
media types; 700 YouTube
links are shared on Twitter
every minute.

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Professionally produced video
When you think about video for your property, professional produced
pieces are probably the first thing that comes to mind. Video created by
professionals will give you the polished look you crave, but there are a lot
of options for additional consideration. Instead of creating one stiff overview
video, let your imagination take the lead. Video is one of the most flexible
mediums available to you, so consider the creative ways you can showcase
your property, including reviews and testimonials, hosted profiles with
employees, video tours, behind the scenes at events and more!

Ideal for:
Professional, reliable video featuring almost any element of your property.
Professional, no-risk video content for your website, campaigns, and social media
Things to Consider:
u Higher production cost
u Setup and filming can cause small disruptions

The Best Western Victoria Park has a
professionally-produced video detailing why
guests stay with them, featuring a voiceover
from a marketing manager, cameos from staff,
local attractions and more.

Benefits:
u Low risk, high quality
u Videos will look slick and polished
u Production will be completed with the latest production equipment including
lights, editing, music and voiceovers
u Experienced producers and videographers ensure your story is told, on camera,
the best way possible
u Filming and production work is outsourced, leaving you free to focus on your dayto-day activities
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Video produced by you in-house
Equipped with an iPhone and imagination, you can create an
engaging video on your own. Keeping it short and snackable,
keep your phone or recording device handy at events to catch
candid moments or guest comments.

The Delta London Armouries has a video that, while not showing the bells and whistles and high production value of the Best Western Victoria
Park, offers a very well-produced look at the property’s history, and includes still pictures and voiceover and musical accompaniment.

Ideal for:
Capturing an authentic feel; capturing “in the moment” events that can’t be
scheduled in advance; timely, short videos that can be shared via social networks
Things to Consider:
u Might not have the polished look and feel of more expensive productions

Benefits:
u Visitors will appreciate the authenticity
u Low cost to create and produce
u With practice and/or savvy marketing staff, even amateur videos can look slick
and professional
u Work is done on your schedule
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Video created by guests
Seeing your property through the eyes of your guests can give
you an entirely fresh perspective and identify new facets of your
story. Encourage guests to tag you in videos they take at your
property, or ask them to share video reviews. Tapping into what
guests are saying about your hotel will give you insight in to
the story they are experiencing, and give you the opportunity to
amplify it.

The Hilton Springfield has a page featuring
user-created Vine videos, with visitors enjoying
their stay at the property.
Ideal for:
Showing actual visitors enjoying their stay; even more authenticity
Things to Consider:
u Relinquishing control over content

Benefits:
u Creates trust among prospective visitors that what they’re seeing is real, not a
marketing-produced video
u The relevance of real people trumps production value
u Free!

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Ultimately, best-in-class hotels will use a mix of all three to
provide high-quality productions, authentic videos produced in
house and by guests. But for properties on a budget, a good
smartphone video camera – and taking the time to encourage
guests to shoot and share their own video – is a great place to
start.

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Chapter Four

learn
best practices

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Once you’ve added video creation to
your marketing strategy, we recommend
following a few best practices for the act
of creating and publishing of your videos.
Paying attention to the following will help
you maximize the return on your video
investment:

Sourcing
u As discussed in the previous section,
you’ve essentially got three options for
video: Professionally created, created
in-house, and created by guests. Now
it’s time to determine which you’ll want to
use, and how to go about acquiring them.
u For professional video, you can
turn to marketing agencies or smaller,
independent videographers for
assistance. Your budget will determine
your best course of action in this case.

u For in-house video, source the best
camera available on your budget – or
the best camera you’re already got onhand. Several smartphone cameras from
Apple and Samsung record excellent
1080p, HD video. Also consider whether
you need to invest in some software for
editing, and talk to your staff to see if you
have any amateur filmmakers on hand
willing to help out!
u For guest-created video, encourage
your guests to shoot and share. Make
your property accessible on social media,
promote hashtags, even consider offering
a contest for video submissions.

Publishing

what you have and where it is when it
comes time to publish them.
u Organizing your videos by type
(professional, in-house, user-generated)
is a good place to start
u Further organize your video by subject
(rooms, amenities, testimonials, events)
u As you develop more videos, you can
create more specific categories and/or
sort them by date.
u Organize your video based on the
story you’re telling to viewers. Is your
video focusing on meeting space?
Make sure it’s featured where business
travelers will see it.

u Once you’ve got production underway,
the next step is organize and store your
videos effectively, ensuring you know
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Distribution
u Your digital marketing strategy should cover all of the key
travel channels, including your website, social networks, and
online travel agencies – and the good news is, video works on all
of them!
u YouTube is an obvious place to start. You can create a channel
of your own for all of your videos, and your visitors can subscribe
to ensure they receive your latest content.

Best Practice Tip:
Create compelling
thumbnails for
your YouTube
videos, remember
it’s the first thing
people see! Your
thumbnail should
reflect your video’s
content, and be
worthy of a ‘click.’

u Consider how your videos will also be featured on your
website and on other travel channels like review, metasearch,
destination and corporate travel sites. And don’t forget about
creating a memorable appearance on OTAs to differential yourself
from the crowds. Now is the time to plan how you’ll publish your
video on these platforms.
u Authentic user-generated video is ideal for Facebook and other
social sites; remember the length of videos on Vine (6 seconds)
and Instagram (15 seconds) will require some creative editing!

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Amplifying
u Your video’s life isn’t over when the publishing tasks are
completed. – in fact, it’s just beginning. Video is one of the most
consistently-shared media types on social networks; 700 YouTube
links are shared on Twitter every minute (Social Media Today).
u Any video you post online should also be shared, tweeted, and
pinned.
u Videos can also be shared via e-mail newsletters, on travel
review sites and can even be re-purposed in sales material.
u Keep your content fresh – don’t just share the same video
over and over. Remember, your longer videos can be re-cut into
several Vine and Instagram videos!
u Visitor engagement is key – encourage your visitors to share
and like your videos as well as videos they’ve taken at your
property.

Some other thoughts to consider:
YouTube is the now the 2nd largest search engine with 1 billion
unique users a month – upload it on YouTube and take the time to add a
proper title, description and tags.
Add it to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – any social network you’re active in.
Once your video is ready add your social channels and encourage guests,
friends, and employees to share with their personal networks.
Add your video to a relevant landing page - The average attention span
for web-related activities is 8 seconds. This means marketers have less than
8 seconds to connect with someone. Adding video to a landing page is the
single most effective way to keep viewers engaged:
• Conveys a lot of information in a short period of time
• Increase the length of time people stay on a page giving your message
longer to sink in
Add it to an email newsletter. If you’re active in email marketing, adding
video to an email results in higher open rates and higher click-through rates.
Get Response (an email marketing firm) says that from over 800,000 emails
sent, emails with video received 5.6% high open rates and 96.3% higher clickthrough rates.

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Chapter Five

Ready, set, Go!

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Ready, Set, Go!

With your strategy in place and the best practices established,
there are just a few questions you should be asking yourself
before you launch your video publishing plan:

What types of video are right for my
property?
The beauty of video is that there is no wrong option! Whether
you’re a luxury resort or a limited service property, the different
types of video can be effective for sharing your story. Remember
to consider who your audience is and what the context of your
story is. There is no hard and fast rule about what type of video is
best, so evaluate your needs and have fun with the options.

Did You Know?
Shorter videos are more effective than one long video; viewer
retention really dwindles after 90 seconds.

What is our message?
As part of your overall marketing strategy, you’ve probably
outlined your hotel’s values, purpose, and goals, and you tailor
your marketing messaging around those statements. Your videos
should take a similar approach. Ensure your video is aligned with
your overall marketing strategy:
u Reflect on who your target customer segments are and ensure
the tone of your video suits your audience.
u For video created by you or an agency you hire, be cautious
that your branding is consistent, regardless of the platform or
channel you publish your videos on; even different styles of video
should be recognizably yours.
u Make sure the videos align with your hotel’s values, goals
and mission statement. This is especially true for user generated
content, when the creator isn’t aware of your marketing strategy.

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Ready, Set, Go!

Which video platforms
and channels best suit my
property’s needs?
Every hotel is different, and as such, will
have different needs when it comes to
the videos they produce and the way they
showcase them:

Did You Know?
Emails that included a
video had 5.6% higher
open rates and 96.3%
higher click-through
rates.

u Consider whether our audience will
engage more with a professionally shot
short film or a series of user-generated
videos.
u Think about the guests on social media
channels such as Twitter and Facebook,
who love liking and retweeting video.
u Travel shoppers are researching on
OTAs and Linkedin, include a video on
these channels to catch their eye.
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Ready, Set, Go!

– except that video is an
effective tool that every
property can benefit from.
Some things to consider:

Did You Know?
Over 6 billion hours of video
are watched monthly on
YouTube. That’s almost an
hour per person on earth!

u You don’t have to
spend a lot to get started.
Try out some in-house
produced videos and see the
response!

How much of my
marketing budget should I
dedicate to video?

u Remember that videos
can last a long time and can
be repurposed for different
needs and channels, so
money spent today is a long-term
investment

Every property is different and there’s no
clear answer for your specific property
leonardo.com


Ready, Set, Go!

It’s time for lights, camera, action!
Online video is the real deal – the demand is there, the technology
is available, and the effectiveness, in terms of storytelling and
engagement, is clear.
Already best-in-class hotels are taking advantage of online video to
drive engagement and improve customer interaction. If you haven’t
already, 2014 is definitely the time to include video in your marketing
strategy and to dedicate time and resources to producing and
publishing video content.
If you’re looking for ways to get started, Leonardo can help. Contact
our experts today to find out how our solutions can help you integrate
exciting, engaging video content into your hotel’s digital strategy to
compete on something other than price.

leonardo.com


About Leonardo
Leonardo is a technology and online media company for the global hospitality industry. We
provide e-marketers at hotel brands, management companies and hotel properties with technology,
sales conversion tools and a global travel media network that enables them to better visually
merchandise their hotels to millions of in-market travel shoppers monthly.
Our core products, the VScape® Digital Asset Management System and VBrochure™ Online
Merchandising System, leverage the VNetwork™ - the largest media syndication network in the
industry. It includes all major search engines, Global Distribution Systems, online travel agencies,
travel research and supplier websites, search portals, review, travel editorial, local directories and
major social media and video sharing sites.
Taking advantage of VBrochure’s mobile and social media platforms, hotels can ensure that their
rich visual presentations reach consumers on their mobile devices and through their social graphs.
For more information about Leonardo, visit www.leonardo.com.

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