Navigating Budget Season: Tips & Tools for Hotel Marketers

Welcome to the first edition of The Hotel Marketing Briefing – your go-to source for insights, strategies, industry knowledge and tools to elevate your hotel marketing game! ✨

As a hotel marketer myself, I'm fully aware that we always have to juggle creativity and data while keeping up with the ever-changing hospitality landscape.

So, my goal with this newsletter is simple: to share industry knowledge, resources, and support to think more strategically to drive better results for your hotel, while inspiring the next generation of hotel marketers.

I’m sharing lessons learned from my 15 years in hotel marketing—so you can skip the guesswork and fast-track your success!

So, in today’s edition, here’s what I’ll be covering: 

💸 3 things to consider for budgeting season

We all know how time-consuming and overwhelming creating a marketing budget for your hotel can be, especially if you're working with global brands (like me), where the process can take up to 4 months from initial submission to final approval.  

Don’t worry, you’re not alone! That’s exactly why this community exists—to support each other. 

Here are some things I wish I had known many years ago when I had to do my first marketing budget:

1. Prioritize ROI-Driven Channels

Analyze your current channels and allocate more budget to those that consistently deliver the highest return. This could mean upping your investment in paid search or retargeting campaigns that convert.

2. Align with Property Goals

Don’t just think in terms of marketing metrics—your budget should reflect the wider goals of the property, such as increasing direct bookings, improving brand reputation, or launching new experiences.

3. Content is Still the King - and will continue to be

Ensure you dedicate funds to high-quality, evergreen content that will contribute to drive awareness about your hotel brand and consideration. This could include video marketing, social media storytelling and of course working with content creators. I'd suggest having a quarterly budget for social media content creation purposes + another budget for media buying.

⚙️ 1 tool to stay organized

Once you’ve submitted your marketing budget, it’s essential to have a clear roadmap for how you’ll achieve your goals and revenue targets.

A free tool I’ve been using for years, and which keeps getting better, is ClickUp, a project management platform. It allows you to create tasks for yourself and your team, assign due dates, add comments, and include links or files—all to keep you organized and minimize unnecessary back-and-forth emails. 

There are plenty of project management tools out there—I've also used Monday.com, Trello, Asana, Notion, and others. Ultimately, the tool you choose should align with your team’s specific needs and budget.

I’m so grateful to have you here on this journey to make hotel marketing simpler and more strategic.

If you found this useful, feel free to share it with a colleague or friend in the industry and let me know if you found this useful in the comments below.

Till next week!