Ultimately there are really two primary ways that you can leverage the HTR platform to drive visibility and leads which are:
HTR App Store (inbound)...This is the self-service aspect of HTR where hotel tech companies list their products and then collect reviews and post content through the vendor dashboard to generate visibility and leads.
HTR Agency (outbound)...This is the full-service aspect of HTR where companies leverage HTR as an outsourced marketing agency to produce turnkey advertising, sponsored content, and demand gen campaigns to drive you more visibility and leads year round on the platform.
How to Choose the Best Fit Category in the App Store
When it comes to listing your product via the App Store to generate inbound visibility and leads, you want to pick the category/ies that are most relevant where you want hoteliers to discover your product. Think of this similar to how you'd think about optimizing your visibility in Google SERP in the sense that you want to ask yourself, "What is the question a hotelier is going to ask that I want to appear as the answer for?" This should be your guiding thought process for selecting the best fit categories to list your products in in the HTR App Store/directory website.
Related article: How to List Your Products to Maximize Visibility
What if Your Product Doesn't Fit Perfectly into a Category in the App Store?
In order for HTR to create a category in the App Store it must meet certain criteria, most importantly, it must be a category that hoteliers know what it is and actively seek out. Typically a good indicator is search volume for the category. If there is no search volume, we likely won't be able to build a case to create the category. The reason for this is if hoteliers aren't seeking out your solution, then we likely wouldn't be able to generate material enough traffic/demand to that category to justify creating it.
That said, just because hoteliers aren't actively seeking out and searching for your product/category doesn't mean that it won't be compelling to hotels it just means that they aren't actively seeking out. If hotels aren't seeking it out on their own, then it requires a more proactive approach (and typically a larger investment) in order to product content and campaigns and push them out to hoteliers to educate them and create interest/demand (vs waiting for them to seek you out). The way to do this is via outbound campaigns through HTR Agency.
Here are some examples of outbound campaigns for clients that fall into this segment:
Google Direct Booking Links: 🔎 Help your next guest find you on Google
Apple Pay for Hotels: Apple Pay is Finally Here for Hotels and It’s Glorious
Bevi Smart Water Dispenser: 🌱How one of America’s greenest hotels put an end to single use bottles and cans
PriceWaterhouseCoopers IoT Division: Putting IoT To Work: Finding a secure, streamlined, scalable geolocation solution
Tidemark Venture Capital: 💸 Share your hotel tech opinions to win a $100 gift card
Life House Tech Enabled Hotel Management: The Next Major Trend in Hotel Management Explained
Matterport Virtual Tours: How to Increase Revenue with Digital Twins & 3D Walkthroughs
Cartstack Booking Abandonment Recovery: 💸 Recover 16% of lost hotel bookings in your sleep...
Juicer Pricing: 🍔 Dynamic pricing for your F&B outlet is here
VendorPM: 👷🏻♀️ Put your hotel's vendor management in auto-pilot
HotelFurniture.com: HotelFurniture.com: Next Gen Hotel Design, Renovations and Procurement
What you'll notice that what all of these clients have in common is that none have a perfect fit category in the App Store but they are all relevant products for HTR's audience of 250k+ monthly hoteliers looking for the best digital products to run and grow their hotel businesses. Instead, they focus on running outbound promotional campaigns (links above are sample campaigns we've run for each of them) to drive clicks and traffic to their own website which then converts directly into their own marketing funnel.