74 Content Ideas for a Popular Hotel Blog
I’m gonna level with you. Hotels have it easy. Not in an overall “the hotel industry is a cinch” kind of way. Just in a “there are a million great topics for hotel blog posts” kind of way. Events or attractions that makes your city sound cool and desirable? Fair game. Any kind of neighborhood or food guide that a potential guest might find useful? Awesome. Updates on what you’re changing around the hotel? Bring it. As a hotel, you have a whole city’s worth of content, waiting to be explored. To get started, it can help to organize your blog into categories that you think would be valuable to…
A Restaurant’s Top Marketing Tool: The Menu
Take just a moment to think about the pillars of your restaurant’s marketing strategy. Your first thought was probably social media. Maybe your website. Perhaps you do some paid ads, either online or in old-fashioned print. But I’d be willing to bet that your menu was not at the top of that list. It may not be on the list at all. Your menu is a tool to help your current guests navigate your food options. But that’s only half of it. It also has to sell people on your restaurant before they even come in the door. According to OpenTable, 93% of people look at menus online before deciding…
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How to Write Your Restaurant’s “About Us” Page
Staring at a blank page with the cursor blinking at you can be intimidating. I understand. I write for a living. And for some reason, it gets even harder when you try to write about yourself. That’s probably why there are so many bad About Us pages out there. They’re soulless and don’t say much. If you were to swap out the name of the company, they could easily apply to just about any business. Why write something if you don’t want to say anything? A prospective customer only clicks on your About page because they want to learn more about the company or the founders. So let’s give the people…
The Breakfasts That Fueled Some of History’s Most Interesting People
Why are we so obsessed with morning routines, productivity rituals, and the daily to-dos of famous and successful people? There seems to be this pervading myth that if we set up our days like Steve Jobs, we can be as successful as Steve Jobs. This is clearly cuckoo. If I were to adopt a Jobsian routine of waking up at 6:00am and donning jeans and a black turtleneck, I’d be about as close to founding the next Apple as I am now. That is to say, really, really far away. There is no “right way” to start your day, just like there’s no “right way” to run a business. And…
Get Inspired: Hospitality Copywriting Examples to Feed Your Muse
Good copy does a lot of things. It establishes a brand voice. It connects with the brand’s ideal customer. It clearly explains the product, service, or offer to that customer. And it does all that in a way that makes the prospect want to buy it. One of the best ways to get a feel for good copy is to immerse yourself in it! So I’ve chosen a few examples of hotel, event venue, and restaurant copywriting to serve as inspiration. Each of these independent companies is based in the Austin area, since that’s where I live. My guess is that one may have an internal marketing team that wrote…
The Hospitality Industry By the Numbers (October 2021)
Blah blah blah, COVID-19 pandemic, blah blah blah. I won’t insult your intelligence with some boilerplate paragraph about how the past 18 months have been tough on the hospitality industry. You know it. You’ve lived it. Instead, let’s listen to the numbers and see what they’re telling us. Fortunately, it’s not all bummer numbers (although there are a few…sorry). The hospitality industry continues to see big shifts as a result of the pandemic. Some of these effects won’t be felt right away, which is why we need to see the way the wind is blowing now. Get out ahead of these changes and put yourself in a better position as…
Passive and Active Voice: When to Use Each for Stronger Writing
“DON’T USE PASSIVE VOICE,” writers shout from atop their mountains of self-superiority. “YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO,” I shout back, with my fingers in my ears and my tongue sticking out in an extremely mature fashion. The thing is, snooty writers aren’t entirely wrong when they decry the use of the passive. Active is often a stronger, more concise way to write. But there are times where the passive is the right choice. So get a slice of pie and let’s go to grammar school. What Are Passive Voice and Active Voice? In active voice, the subject of the sentence is taking the action. In passive voice, the…
11 Tools That Can Make You a Better Writer
My father has been building things since before I was born. In his 20s, he was a furniture maker, first independently, and later for the famous Kittinger Furniture Company in Buffalo, NY (where my sisters and I were born.) His career has taken him from craftsman to plant manager to company president to owner of his own furniture company. But he is, at heart, a builder. And that means that every home he’s had since I was a kid included a workshop chock full of tools. Wood-handled chisels. Drills and nail guns. Jars full of screws, nuts, bolts, and other methods of joinery that I couldn’t identify. Gallons of wood…
Features & Benefits: The BFFs of Great Sales Copy
There was a time in my life where I spent 0% of my days researching skincare. Alas, I am not as young as I used to be. So now, I spend a significantly larger amount of my free time looking up serums and toners, moisturizers and creams, in an effort to stave off the irrevocable vestiges of time marching across my face. The other day, during one of my research seshes, I came across this product description: Are your eyes glazing over yet? Do you have any idea what this product is supposed to do for you other than the vague “target multiple signs of aging at once?” Because I sure don’t. …
Blog with Purpose (Because Otherwise, You’re Just Journaling)
Pouring yourself a cup of tea (or bourbon) and quietly writing your thoughts in a journal is a great way to clear your mind. I write a few longhand pages most mornings for this very purpose, sans bourbon of course. But if that’s how you approach your business blog, you’re probably not having the kind of success you’d like. Blogging is part of a larger marketing strategy, which means we have to be strategic about how we approach it. You can have fun with it! But it needs to have a clear purpose if it’s going to help you achieve your goals. Whether your blog is for an event venue, a…
