Myrtle Beach Hotels,  on average,  spend up to and beyond $300,000.00 each on advertising annually.  For a 240 unit condo hotel,  this comes to about 4% to 6% of annual gross income.

As our firm is now helping Myrtle Beach Real Estate agents advertise their products,  we are finding that some hotel marketing truths are transferable and some are not. 

I am putting this information forward in the hopes that I can get some good feedback from high performing Realtors to determine if the media shift is universal.   Here is what the Hotel industry has learned about where to invest their monies in this changing media age.

1. A uniquely designed, easy to navigate website:  No matter how high your site ranks on search terms,  it is critical that the site have good content and is easy to navigate.  It should create Attention,  build Interest,  draw out desire, and have a call to action.  These four navigational functions should be very easy for the visitor to follow.  A good call to action for hotels is a strong online booking engine.  What is a good call to action for a Real Estate website in your opinion?
2. Key Search Term Optimization:  Google controls 54% of the market,  Yahoo is 25%. The rest follow.  Knowing the key search terms for your product is essential and ranking for them on page one or two (preferabbly one) is just as critical.
3. Social Networking sites:  Not only will sites including:  Active Rain, Pownce, Twitter, My Space, You Tube, Face Book, Delicious, among others get your site much needed optimization,  but can result in direct customers when you post correctly.  These sites have millions of visitors combined and are a good way to get your name out.
4. Strong recommendations on Peer Reviewed sites:  For hotels,  sites like Trip Advisor,  Google Reviews, and Yahoo reviews can be life or death.  Look carefully at the mistakes some hotels have made as customer reviews are coming your way via Google and Yahoo soon.
5. Referral Sites: Being on a good referral site,  like Myrtle-Beach.com or Myrtlebeachhotelssc.com sends up to 25% of traffic to Myrtle Beach Hotels.  Referral sites like expedia, Trip Advisor, Chamber of commerce sites, Hotels.com, travelocity and more are also important.  It is best for a hotel to use a site that does not require it to discount its prices.
6. Direct Mail to a hotel's own internal customer list.  This was once a number one source of business.  A good internal customer list is still very important,  but the fact that this now ranks #6 says a lot about where the internet has taken us.
7. Billboards:  This can help hotels get much needed last minute traffic on busy interstates or major highways near the hotel.  It is not as valuable as above,  because it leads to last minute reservations and shorter stays.  HOW DO BILLBOARDS WORK IN REAL ESTATE?
8. Trade Association materials:  Myrtle Beach Hospitality does its own site, emailer and mailer as does Golf Holiday.  These out perform any external associations, magazines, and newspapers. DO TRADE ASSOCIAIONS WORK IN REAL ESTATE?
9. Magazine ads;  Publications like Southern Homes and Gardens, Golf Magazine, Golf Digest, Trip South, Conde Nast, and such were once a required expenditure.  Most hotels are bypassing these all together.   Only chain hotels are largely using these now and explicitly for branding,  not for immediate sales.
10. Newspaper Ads:  Hotels aren't even going here at all anymore.  Is this still a strong product for REAL ESTATE LISTINGS.  I know it once was.

Please respond below.  I would appreciate any comments.

If you are in the Myrtle Beach area,  and list Myrtle Beach Condos,  let us know if we can help you promote your listings or service.