Did you know that PR is 90% more effective in influencing purchase decisions than advertising?*
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re looking to boost your hotel tech company’s visibility and reputation.
As public relations experts specializing in proptech and hospitality technology, at Abode Worldwide, we understand how overwhelming it can be to navigate the PR world.
How do you know if your company is ready to invest in PR, and how should you go about building an effective campaign?
At its core, B2B PR is about building trust, and you can’t put a price on trust and reputation. In this guide, we’ll break down the essentials of PR for hotel tech brands and share our top tips for creating a strategy that works.
Are you a hospitality tech startup looking to build your brand’s reputation through strategic PR? Drop us a line.
What is B2B PR?
B2B PR, or business-to-business public relations, is the management, improvement, and promotion of your business’s reputation and success in the eyes of other business owners and decision-makers. Notably, your customers, prospective customers, strategic partners, investors, and even talent pool.
Good B2B tech PR can bring more customers and success—more accolades, clients, and revenue—to your business. Bad PR (or none) can do the opposite, dramatically tanking your reputation and revenue.
Successful B2B media relations or PR builds a good perception of your business and ensures that your customers have a good opinion about your products and services. They’ll see your team (or your CEO, for example) as an influential thought leader, and trust your services and opinions.
This brings in more leads and clients, enables you to charge more, and distinguishes you positively from your competitors.
How is B2B PR different from B2C PR?
B2C or business-to-consumer PR appeals to individual consumers rather than people representing a business.
For example, in the hospitality or hotel tech industries:
- B2B PR: PR by hotel tech companies designed to appeal to other businesses, such as hotels. For example, a property management system (PMS) company targeting decision-makers and stakeholders at large chain hotels. The purchasing cycle is typically much longer than for individual consumers, with a higher level of consideration, and higher budgets.
- B2C PR: PR by hotel tech companies aimed at individuals and consumers. For example, an online travel agency (OTA) looking to attract travelers to book hotels through their platform or join their guest loyalty scheme.
What’s the difference between PR, marketing, and advertising?
You may have heard these terms used interchangeably, but there are some important differences.
Marketing
Marketing is about understanding your target market and deciding on advertising strategies or campaign targets.
Your marketing strategy might include ways to generate positive PR, but it’s more about making decisions to increase brand awareness, set a budget, decide on your social media or website blog roadmap, and generate interest in your product or service.
Your marketing is how you will get leads, so you need to be where your customers are. This might include going to events and conferences and focusing on your pay-per-click advertising spend.
Marketing can be best understood as the planning, budgeting, and strategy that goes into an advert or PR effort.
Advertising
Advertising is a direct form of marketing. It typically refers to a specific advert or campaign that’s designed to evoke a specific response, emotion, or action as a direct result of the advert.
It’s less about reputation (although it can contribute to it), and more about informing, persuading, and convincing people to buy a particular product or service. It might include a digital banner or a short social media advert. It’s only ‘on’ when it’s turned on, which typically means when you are paying for it. When you stop paying for it, it turns off.
PR
PR is less overt than advertising. It’s sometimes seen as happening under the radar or passively, although it’s an extremely powerful element of marketing.
PR sits across all the marketing and advertising you might do, but no amount of advertising will build the trust and credibility that PR will.
Examples of good B2B tech public relations include:
- Insightful content (e.g. data storytelling and thought leadership articles) demonstrating your expertise.
- A partnership with another software company in your industry.
- Regular LinkedIn updates showcasing your unique point of view, opinions, and takes on industry trends.
- A monthly advice column authored by your CEO in a trade magazine.
- Conference panel or podcast discussions by a senior team member to show industry knowledge.
B2B public relations strategy is about leading a conversation in the industry. It’s about providing insight or opinion that nobody else is, to help people see things in a different way. It’s also about being brave and leading from the front.
You might say things that are more controversial or disruptive. PR is about really making people stand up and take notice.
What is the value of B2B PR for proptech and hotel tech companies?
Strategic public relations can help you shape how your company is perceived and elevate your corporate reputation—which translates into more sales and higher conversion rates.
The trust and credibility you can build through strategic B2B PR distinguishes you from your competitors and directly influences your business results.
Depending on your goals, PR can help you:
- Generate awareness about your brand and showcase why your tech product is the best in its field.
- Increase your conversion and retention rates, leading to increased revenue.
- Help you to raise more investment capital for innovation and expansion.
- Attract top talent and improve recruitment to drive success.
The real value is in brand recognition. It’s about creating awareness and credibility, and hitting the large percentage of your target audience who are not ready to buy, but will be in the future.
One example of a brand with a successful proptech PR strategy is PMS platform Hostaway. Our team at Abode Worldwide worked with Hostaway’s CEO Marcus Rader on the company’s PR strategy and helped establish him as an industry thought leader.
Marcus has a strong personality and is authentic in the way he speaks—whether on stage or in podcasts. His activity as a thought leader contributed to Hostaway successfully raising a $175 million funding round in 2023. (If you’re curious to know more, read our Hostaway case study.)
How do you know if your hotel tech company needs a PR strategy?
Knowing when your company is ready to build a PR strategy is an important, easily overlooked part of the process, but most companies can truly benefit.
In fact, every company should have PR as part of its toolkit. If you want to be known, credible, and visible in a very crowded marketplace, then you really should invest in PR.
PR raises where you sit within the industry ecosystem. Plus, it puts rocket fuel under your other marketing initiatives. PR brings a halo of trust, credibility, and visibility that hovers everything else you’re doing.
No matter what kind of company you are, having that sort of leverage is vital.
You might be especially ready for PR if:
- You’re spending thousands on conferences and events without much return.
- You’re struggling to grow your lead generation.
- Your sales funnel works well, and you’re converting leads when they come in, but you need more.
- You’d like to get more “eyeballs” on your product, beyond people at conferences.
- You have a strong CEO or senior team member who has interesting ideas about the industry.
Are there any companies that aren’t ready for PR?
PR isn’t a magic bullet to solve all of your company’s issues. If you’re hoping that PR will get you leads, but don’t know what to do with those leads when you get them, then you may not be ready for PR just yet.
For example, if you don’t have a functioning sales funnel, then when you capture leads, you’re probably not able to successfully or consistently convert them. You need to have these basic foundations in place, and be sure your product and sales funnel converts in the first place before you work on PR to bring in more leads.
Otherwise, you’ll be unable to capture the benefits of even the best B2B PR campaign.
What are the benefits of outsourcing your PR to strategic experts?
The main benefit of outsourcing your PR to a dedicated B2B PR company (like ours at Abode Worldwide) is that they bring bigger-picture knowledge and strategic thinking.
We’re in the hospitality technology space day in and day out. We see what’s going on across the board. Sometimes, companies can be very siloed, and only see what’s happening with them, without understanding where they sit in the broader competitor landscape.
In contrast, an agency offers that broader perspective, and can advise you strategically. We also have industry contacts, skills, and tools you may not have access to otherwise, including journalist contacts or CRM databases that take years to build.
With Abode Worldwide, you get a dedicated account manager and a team of PR experts working with you. A good PR company should be a strategic partner (in fact, research shows that 82% of businesses regard their communications function as a strategic partner).
What are the elements of an effective B2B PR strategy?
An effective B2B PR strategy should include the following:
1. Clearly defined goals
The first step is identifying the problem you’re trying to solve.
- Maybe you’re not very well-known?
- Do you want to expand into a new market?
- Do you want to elevate yourself next to competitors?
- Perhaps your priority is to recruit better people?
- Are you seeking new investment?
2. Flexibility and adaptability
Press releases are only around 10% of what we do for our clients at Abode Worldwide. It’s much more effective to stay open and alert to opportunities for B2B thought leadership and storytelling as they arise, such as adapting to new trends or today’s fast-paced news cycle.
Ask yourself questions like:
- Who is it that we need to influence?
- Which types of buyers are we looking to reach?
Research the market and the competitor landscape, and stay aware of current trends.
3. Tailored messaging
Tailoring your messaging means deciding your stance on industry questions, developing your unique messages and stories, and identifying opportunities to place them in the media.
Ask yourself:
- Where do we fit within our target ecosystem?
- What are our core messages?
- What is unique about us that we want to say and get out there?
- How does our messaging apply to our audience?
4. Multi-channel approach
A PR strategy is also about creating a strategic narrative and producing content for it, whether on your own website or in publications.
You might not have big news, such as a huge merger. In that case, your job is to create the news.
- What interesting stories or takes do you have about the industry that people are missing?
- What insightful and relevant stories can you tell or contribute to?
- Do you have any proprietary data you can analyze and turn into valuable insights via data storytelling?
5. Measurable results
It’s important to know what’s working and what isn’t. This might include subtle changes.
For example, success isn’t always just ‘I want X amount of leads. It might also be about wanting a better quality of leads.
If you want real results, you will want to track metrics such as:
- The number of stories placed vs the number pitched
- The quality of leads entering your pipeline
- Your ‘share of voice’ compared to your competitors
- Growth in a new market
- Sentiment of coverage that relates to your brand
- Opportunities for your C-suite to contribute to industry conversations
- Social media shares
- Website traffic
- Sales revenue
- Audience reach
B2B PR for Your Hotel Tech Brand: How to Do It Well
Revenue is one thing when it comes to your hotel tech business, but a good reputation is everything. And for that, you need B2B PR.
It builds credibility, influence, and trust, which, in turn, boosts leads, clients, and revenue. The vast majority of hotel tech and proptech companies stand to benefit from B2B PR, and working with an agency is one of the best ways to maximize results in minimum time.
But be warned: If it’s not done well or strategically, it’s just noise. But done well? It brings trust, reputation, and a halo effect that lasts.
Are you a hospitality tech startup looking to build your brand’s reputation through strategic PR? Drop us a line.
B2B PR for hotel tech companies: Frequently Asked Questions
Does my hotel tech business need PR?
Your hotel tech company needs a PR strategy if you’re seeking greater visibility, credibility, and lead generation, especially if current marketing efforts are yielding limited returns. However, PR won’t be effective if you lack a functioning sales funnel or can’t convert leads; you must have those foundational processes in place first.
What’s the difference between PR and marketing for hotel tech companies?
Marketing focuses on understanding the target market, setting strategies, and increasing brand awareness through budgeting, advertising, and campaigns. Advertising directly aims to inform and persuade, while PR builds long-term trust and credibility, enhancing reputation through subtle strategies like thought leadership, partnerships, and insightful content.
Should I outsource my business PR?
Outsourcing brings numerous benefits, especially if you don’t have the scope or budget for an experienced in-house team. Working with a PR agency provides brands with industry contacts, broader expertise, and more strategic insight. Agencies offer access to specialized tools and media databases and help companies see where they sit in the bigger industry picture.
*Nielsen study, commissioned by inPowered.
