We have already mentioned why e-mail marketing is an important and highly effective tool for the accommodation industry. It would also be helpful if one has knowledge of the factors that have a direct effect on the success of e-mail marketing. Otherwise, one could miss the potential of making the most out of this method in a simple way.
E-mail marketing, when managed properly, can boost the sales, while also helping reinforce brand loyalty and receive further reservations from the same customer.
One great advantage of this method, which enables direct contact with guests, is the high level of its psychological effect. E-mails you send to your guests and potential customers through permission-based marketing will sooner or later positively impact the occupancy rate of your hotel.
Here are some tips that every hotel runner and marketing officer needs to know for proper e-mail marketing
Permission-based marketing only
The biggest trap one could fall into during this method is marketing without permission. E-mails received by those, from whom you have not asked permission, not only destroy your image, but also might cause to be listed as a spam or your messages to be blocked by giant e-mail services such as Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail. Moreover, in most countries, users are protected by law against marketing without permission.
Create and expand your recipient list
Taking into consideration the reasons mentioned above, your recipient list must only include the e-mail addresses of those who approved to receive your posts. You may ask your guests to subscribe to your recipient list or collect e-mail subscriptions through your web site or social media accounts.
Once you start collecting approved e-mail addresses, you’ll see it is actually not an easy task to do. In order to encourage users to subscribe to your service, it might be a good idea to have a lottery in which random customers receive gifts every so often. The more people you have in your list, the higher you will achieve through e-mail marketing.
Set your plan
Determine from the very beginning when and how frequently you will send your e-mails, as well as what the content of those e-mails could be. If possible, classify your recipients under different groups. That’s how you may plan group-specific posts instead of sending the same message to groups with varying expectations and areas of interest.
Watch out the content!
Majority of recipients decide whether or not to read an e-mail message only by looking at its headline. Create a striking headline of less than 40-50 characters. And target a single topic in the e-mail content as much as possible. Targeting more than one topic might be challenging when it comes to achieving and measuring them. Ensure that the message body includes a call to your goal that you target with your content. It may be helpful, for example, to redirect recipients to a relevant page on your website.
Measure
As in almost every digital marketing tool, it is an advantage if you can measure the results of your e-mail marketing activities. Track to whom your e-mails were sent, how many people read them and how many of them took action in line with your targets. If results are below your expectations, identify the problem and improve yourself for the next round of posts.
E-mail marketing, when properly used, can make a quite effective tool. We hope these tips guide you throughout your activities. If you do not want to miss such articles on the accommodation industry follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
