As more entrepreneurs enter the hospitality sector, travelers and diners have an endless selection of hotels and restaurants to choose from. While it’s no doubt a good thing for them, it exposes you to one of the greatest hospitality industry challenges: maintaining guest loyalty.
Facing stiff competition from other hoteliers or restaurateurs, you need to do more than offer a great hospitality experience to keep guests coming through your doors.
That’s where loyalty programs come in. But not just any run-of-the-mill loyalty program will work. Guests expect personalized rewards, timely messaging, and memorable touchpoints.
Here, we look at how to meet these expectations and how to leverage Bitly’s data and tools for engagement insights that help you continually improve your program.
Note: The brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article
Why hospitality brands should focus on loyalty program engagement frequency
Modern travelers are flooded by hotel and restaurant options, many of which have their own rewards programs. In fact, according to McKinsey, the average traveler is a member of about three to four loyalty programs.
So simply offering one-time offers and sending occasional emails may not be enough to secure guests’ loyalty. To truly capture their interest, you need to engage them frequently without overwhelming them.
Loyalty programs must balance visibility and guest fatigue
Too little engagement can lead to customer drop-offs. After all, with the many options available today, it’s hard for guests to keep your brand top-of-mind if you don’t interact regularly with them.
But too much engagement isn’t any better. It can lead to guest fatigue, causing some of your customers to unsubscribe. This makes it important to find the right cadence.
The catch? It’s different for every audience and brand. For a business-district lunch spot, it could be 2–3 times a week, while a pricier dinner restaurant might reach out just once a week.
Ideally, your engagement should be frequent enough to keep your brand on guests’ minds without overwhelming or annoying them. Keep a close eye on audiences’ interactions with your loyalty program messages to find the perfect balance for your hospitality brand.
Frequency is directly tied to retention and revenue
A recent study found that restaurant loyalty program members visit twice as often nonmembers, meaning loyalty programs have a direct impact on customer retention, spending, and, consequently, revenue growth and profitability. A whopping 47% of restaurant loyalty program members also use their rewards program memberships several times a month.
However, spending isn’t just driven by points or rewards. It’s also driven by consistent, well-timed outreach that keeps your brand fresh in guests’ minds. The fresher and more relevant it is, the likelier their odds of choosing your establishment.
Factors that influence the ideal engagement frequency
Truth is, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the “ideal engagement frequency” question for hospitality brands. Consider the following factors to determine the optimal rhythm for your brand and unique program participants.
Guest segmentation and tier levels
Guests are not created equal and shouldn’t be treated as such in your loyalty program engagement strategy. Segment your target audience by tiers and determine your engagement frequency based on their respective levels.
Higher-tier members—those who have achieved elite-level status in your restaurant or hotel loyalty program—may appreciate more frequent, personalized updates, given their level of interaction with your brand.
On the other hand, lower-tier members, such as casual or new customers, may feel overwhelmed if you send too many updates. For these guests, a less frequent, onboarding-style engagement plan that gradually takes them through your loyalty program’s structure and benefits may be a better fit.
Channel-specific behavior (SMS vs. email vs. signage)
Guests have varying expectations for engagement across different channels. They may not mind seeing your rewards program signage daily, since it doesn’t feel like a direct message to them. But daily text messages and emails can get old fast. Ideally, you should use direct communication channels sparingly to avoid guest fatigue.
To determine the best engagement frequency, incorporate Bitly Links and Bitly Codes into your messages and monitor the click and scan data. You could send messages accompanied by Bitly Links once a week via email and SMS and compare their click data to see how customers engage.
If you find that guests engage with email links once every two weeks, on average, and with SMS links around once a week, you could adopt a biweekly engagement strategy for your email campaign and a weekly strategy for your SMS campaign.
Trip frequency and guest lifecycle stage
As with tier levels, guests have varying messaging expectations based on their visit cadence. Frequent travelers may appreciate regular communications that help them maximize the benefits of your loyalty program, while seasonal guests may prefer less frequent updates.
It’s worth noting, however, that this isn’t set in stone. Assess your guests’ specific preferences by leveraging engagement data and adjust your frequency accordingly.
How to test and optimize engagement timing using Bitly
Bitly can be a valuable tool in determining the most suitable engagement frequency for your brand. With trackable hospitality technology solutions like short links and Dynamic QR Codes, along with real-time engagement data from Bitly Analytics, you can gain insights into guests’ interactions with your communications for informed adjustments.
Track link and QR Code activity by campaign or region
Start by using Bitly Links and QR Codes for hospitality and tracking how guests interact with you via Bitly Analytics. The analytics dashboard provides daily click and scan data and trends over time, which can help you determine how often to engage customers and when to do so.
For more granular insights, track engagements by channel, property, and offer type. For example, you could share unique links and codes via email, signage, and SMS, then monitor how guests engage with each channel.
Similarly, if you have multiple locations, you can track engagements at each one by creating separate links and codes, helping you identify what resonates with your guests across different areas.
Use tags and campaigns to compare outreach cadences
Bitly also provides convenient tags and campaigns to keep your engagement links and codes organized and streamline tracking. For example, you could tag new guests’ engagement links as “welcome,” repeat guests’ as “rewards,” and inactive customers’ as “reactivation” to make it easy for your team to manage assets and data.
After tagging, closely monitor your click and scan data to uncover new insights and continuously optimize your campaigns. You might learn that your most loyal customers prefer 2–3 times a week, while your new members appreciate just one message on Fridays. By tracking how different guests engage, you can determine the ideal cadences for each demographic.
Identify drop-off points and adjust messaging windows
Bitly’s engagement data doesn’t just show you the highs. It also reveals low-engagement days, helping you flag content fatigue. Use your engagement over time data to identify when your engagements start to go down and adjust your campaign accordingly.
In other words, if engagement starts off strong when new guests sign up, but it starts to wane after a month or so, that may indicate you’re messaging too frequently. So keep an eye on historical patterns and tweak your outreach cadence accordingly to minimize the risk of guest fatigue and resource waste.
Loyalty engagement ideas supported by Bitly Links and Bitly Codes
Bitly Links and Codes can streamline guest experiences with your brand and bridge the gap between physical and digital touchpoints, driving customer engagement. So let’s look at some creative ways you can use them in loyalty programs to enhance their effectiveness.
Weekly perks or surprise offers linked via QR Codes
First, make it easy for guests to access hospitality loyalty perks with QR Codes. Add them to customer-facing mediums like table tents, in-room signage, check-in kiosks, or key card inserts, so all guests need to do is scan the designated codes with their mobile devices.
But don’t just have them lead to the same old offers—switch it up with dynamic weekly perks or personalized bonus offers. With Bitly Codes (and a paid plan), you can update your codes to point to new destinations any time, without reprinting.
Rising operational costs are a big challenge for hospitality brands, and this is a smart, cost-effective way to keep guests updated on your latest perks.
Monthly email or SMS check-ins with short branded links
Put your brand front and center in your monthly check-ins with hotel or restaurant guests by using branded links in your communications. With a paid plan, Bitly lets you replace the “bit.ly” domain with your own custom domain, helping reinforce your brand identity.
And since Bitly Links are trackable via Bitly Analytics, they can provide valuable insights into what resonates with your guests. So rotate your offers and adjust your strategy, keeping a close eye on how specific changes impact your engagement numbers.
But don’t make too many changes at once. Start with a single element, like your messaging, and after learning what elements encourage more interactions, move to another aspect.
Seasonal campaigns or bonus point windows
Seasonal campaigns and bonus points are excellent ways to recapture guests’ interest in your loyalty program. To implement them, add branded QR Codes to signage at the front desk or on receipts and include clear calls-to-action (CTAs), letting guests know to scan them for exciting seasonal loyalty events.
If you have multiple events or offers in mind, create a unique code for each one and track their engagement using Bitly Analytics. Total scan data will show you which promos drive the most guest response, helping you narrow down your offerings for future campaigns.
Scan-to-join loyalty programs via in-room or lobby signage
Customer loyalty programs can be excellent tools for promoting guest retention and encouraging spending—but only if guests sign up. Place custom QR Codes in hotel rooms or common areas, with clear CTAs encouraging guests to enroll in your program for exciting rewards.
Bitly Codes remove friction in the sign-up process by eliminating the need to manually look up your loyalty enrollment page. Scan data can also provide valuable insights into what kind of messaging, CTAs, or engagement channels encourage guest engagement.
Personalized follow-up links after guest stays
Show guests that you value their loyalty and care about their experiences by sending customized post-checkout emails or SMS messages. Include branded Bitly Links that direct them to personalized offers (based on what they showed interest in during their hotel stays), feedback collection surveys, or rewards summaries to streamline access to relevant destinations.
Using branded Bitly Links for personalized experiences can promote recognition and trust, resulting in higher engagement. It can also show you which follow-up channels, messaging, and CTAs get the most traction to support continual campaign optimization.
Targeted win-back campaigns using QR-enabled direct mail
Want to re-engage guests who haven’t booked a stay or visited your restaurant in a while? Create branded QR Codes linked to loyalty renewal offers or member-exclusive benefits and add them to printed postcards or mailers.
Send them out to inactive customers, then monitor scan numbers to see how well they perform. Bitly Analytics can show you which offers and re-engagement formats drive responses, as well as spotlight where the most active guests are located (city/country-level depending on your plan) to help improve your targeting strategy.
Measuring and refining your engagement strategy over time
The key to continually improving your brand loyalty strategy is to monitor how guests engage with you and make decisions based on what drives the most responses. Bitly can help you by providing real-time engagement data on all your links and QR Codes. Here’s how to take advantage of the platform to improve your strategy.
Monitor engagement metrics in Bitly Analytics
Bitly Analytics offers a comprehensive range of valuable data (available with paid plans) to help you optimize your engagement strategy. Via the centralized, user-friendly dashboard, you can see the following data depending on your plan:
- Total clicks and scans: Identify the type of content, loyalty rewards, and engagement channels that generate the most engagement.
- Clicks and scans over time: Compare guest engagement over a specific period to identify days with the most or least customer interactions.
- Engagement by location: See where your clicks and scans are coming from (city/country) for more targeted outreach.
- Engagement by device type: Learn what kind of devices guests typically use, Apple or Android, to optimize future content and assets for better accessibility.
- Top-performing clicks and scans: Review which links and codes generate the most responses to learn what resonates with your target audience.
Together, these insights can help you identify the cadence, messaging, offers, and channels each audience segment prefers. So be sure to review your performance data after each major campaign, analyze what worked and what didn’t, and apply what you learned in future initiatives.
Compare campaign results across locations or properties
If you manage multiple hotel or restaurant properties, use Bitly Campaigns and tags to streamline QR Code and link management.
Bitly Campaigns is a premium plan feature that lets you group related assets for easier management and comparison. In addition to making campaigns more organized, it can also help you quickly identify locations with the lowest and highest engagement.
Say you find that your downtown location sees consistently high engagement numbers, but your property near the suburbs typically lags behind. If they’re using the same strategy but not getting similar results, it might indicate that these locations have very different guests with unique preferences. Or it could simply be that the signage at the suburb location isn’t as visible and needs to be adjusted.
Use these insights to replicate the engagement frequency, channel usage, and signage placements of high-performing teams to improve performance across all your locations or franchise groups.
Use insights to personalize and adjust future engagement
Guests’ historical click and scan behavior can also help you tailor your message timing and engagement tactics. If the data shows that business travelers respond best to emails sent midweek, schedule your messages to go out on Wednesdays. Similarly, prioritize SMS communications if this channel outperforms mediums like social media and email.
To gain these insights, you’ll need to create unique codes and links for whichever element you want to test and regularly monitor their engagement.
To determine the optimal engagement timing for business travelers, for example, start by segmenting them from the rest of your target audience (using customer data from your CRM). Then create identical messages with unique links or codes to share on different days, such as Wednesday and Sunday.
Send out one version to each half of your segmented list and monitor the data to see which message gets the most clicks, then use the results to inform your timing for this segment going forward.
You can also use this split testing strategy to evaluate different loyalty member tiers, marketing material placements, and more. As with any A/B test, change a single element at a time for reliable insights.
Strengthen loyalty engagement with smarter timing and stronger signals
There’s more to successful loyalty program engagement than just reminding guests about your hospitality brand’s perks. You also need to find the best frequency, timing, and offers to keep your restaurant or hotel top-of-mind without overwhelming guests.
Fortunately, with Bitly, you don’t have to guess. Bitly Analytics provides performance data for every Bitly Link and QR Code, helping you optimize your strategy for maximum engagement.
Whether you’re ramping up an SMS campaign, adding QR Codes to guestrooms for easy rewards access, or launching a seasonal sign-up offer, Bitly delivers the tools you need to create a scalable, consistent experience. It’s a flexible, cost-effective solution that helps hospitality teams enhance loyal campaigns across every location and guest journey.
Sign up for Bitly today and build a loyalty program that keeps guests coming back!
