“Focus on technology that connects you directly to your target audience.”

It’s an exciting time to be a marketer. Almost every day, technology creates a new way for consumers to shop for hotels and plan their trips. 

But even with new technology, new marketing tools, and new social platforms, we have to be diligent in investing in strategies that align with our target audience.

For us, our four all-inclusive resorts in Jamaica cater exclusively to couples, which makes our target audience crystal clear. Our story intersects with the stories of every couple, from engagement to honeymoon to anniversary. 

So, obviously, we lean heavily on the tools that allow us to connect directly with couples. To that end, Instagram is one of our go-to platforms. The ads platform allows us to target couples at all stages of their relationship journey: from “new relationship” to “recently engaged” to “upcoming anniversary.” Plus,  Instagram is a highly visual medium, which allows us to inspire through photo and video and to connect on an emotional level with our demographic almost every single day. 

That’s a pretty powerful combination for marketing at the top of the funnel, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. 

The content required to make effective use of Instagram and other content platforms can be completely overwhelming because the content needs to be unique and compelling. But because we have four properties and plenty of stories to be told, we’ve opted to invest in building and maintaining a robust influencer marketing strategy. 

We carefully select influencer couples specializing in travel with credible engagement and content that aligns with our brand,  focusing on content creators who produce authentic, organic content. We lean on them to provide what I call, “semi-real experiences.”  In other words, content that feels less staged compared to say a traditional photoshoot with models. 

We’ve found that influencer marketing has been one of the best ways for us to keep up with the content demands that Instagram and other social platforms require to stay relevant. And we’ve found Instagram to be the tool that allows us to deliver that content with the best experience, at the broadest reach, and for the best cost. 

But I say that with a big caveat. You’ve got to remember that it’s not just about creating content for the sake of creating content. Couples Resorts has a larger story that we’re paying off. We’re also tying our content directly into our paid advertising strategy so that we get maximum relevancy and maximum exposure for our content; because as much as we love Meta’s Instagram, we also know we need to be present and active on other leading paid channels, like Google.  The last thing we want to do is invest in content that nobody sees. 

As current platforms continue to advance and new tools continue to arrive—who knows what dynamic AI tools we’ll be talking about next year!— we’ve got to keep our audience central to that strategy.