At this point, email marketing may seem like second nature, even to an industry that deals primarily with decidedly low-tech, person-to-person interactions like the hotel industry.
Familiar though it may be, email marketing is still vitally important, if only for its ability to extend the guest relationship beyond the duration of a hotel stay, or beyond the one-time dining experience.
Incremental and ancillary earnings may occur at the point of sale, but core revenues- at least for hotels- are reflected in reservations, and reservations are made away from the property itself.
Email marketing enables hotels to reach consumers where those reservations are made- on their desktops (or, more often, on their smartphones, but that’s a different article). Here are a few tips for successful email marketing.
Keep it short
NO one likes to read too much text, or wade through too much information. Make sure your emails are graphic and not too wordy. Get to the point right away.
Be relevant
Make sure that point matters to your guests, be it a special offer or an announcement of particular interest. Don’t send an email for the sake of sending an email.
Clean your lists
Constantly update and monitor your contact databases for repeat contacts. No one likes to receive duplicate emails; besides, it reflects on your level or preparedness.
Be actionable
Always include a link to your booking platform. Include something in the email body that serves as a call to action. The idea behind email marketing is to create engagement- so give your contact something to engage with.
Collect as much data as possible
The more information you have about a guest, the more targeted your email marketing can be. Collect more than a name and email address whenever possible, without being intrusive.
Personalise
Use the data you’ve collected to personalise correspondence as much as possible. If an entry in your database represents a guest that has used your spa before, send them spa-related offers.
Include multiple points of contact
In an email marketing message, direct the recipient to your Facebook page, your Twitter account, and your hotel website. Make all of the communications channels available to them.
Leverage the medium
In an age of 140 character Tweets, an entire email can seem like a luxury of space. Use it. Go in-depth, explain benefits, etc. Just don’t drone on too long (see rule #1).
These probably seem like common sense tips, and for those marketers that routinely engage in email marketing (and that probably includes most of this blog’s readership), these are familiar. But for those who receive email marketing (and we can say that’s EVERYBODY), you know how often these rules are broken. Stick to these common sense tips, and your email marketing will be well received.
As always, if you have any questions or need more information about how to make your property’s e-marketing campaigns more effective, please don’t hesitate to contact me at any time – jlr@travelinkd.com.
Jennifer Rodrigues, Visibility Development Manager with ThinkInk and TravelInk’d, is a seasoned public relations professional with a passion for the hospitality industry, which is expressed in her role at ThinkInk’s travel division, TravelInk’d. At TravelInk’d, she is responsible for developing cost-effective and creative public relations and marketing strategies for clients in the travel and tourism, airline, lodging, cruise and meeting/event sectors. For more information on TravelInk’d, please visit www.travelinkd.com or contact Jennifer at jlr@travelinkd.com.