Email Marketing for Hotels | Mailsoftly

It is important to incorporate email marketing into the hotels communication with guests or possible guests to simply ensure the best experience they can offer. This being said, email marketing in a simplistic term is to promote what you are selling in this case hotels are selling their services. When you are in email marketing within the hospitality industry you are trying to book leads, and confirm with previous and future guests. 

How Come Hotels need Email Marketing

Within any industry emails are a large portion of communication and promotion. Approximately 94% of internet users use email. Below are a list of benefits that hotels can benefit from using email marketing:

• Spread Brand Awareness :  The primary goal of hotel email marketing is to do with branding, oftentimes when you reach out it is to people who are visiting your hotel so they are basing decisions on photos and marketing. Reaching out to your email list and engaging with the customer to encourage them to book with your hotels is all about spreading awareness. Oftentimes an email will not result in a confirmed booking but instead it will keep the hotel in the recipient’s mind for future travels. A great way is to share neat things to do in the city such as blogs, history, tours, updates in the city or activities. The brand’s goal is to provide something that is valued by guests, this will eventually get your readers to want to book with you. 
• Keep communication with future and previous guests : There are a couple great ways to engage with guests and keep a form of communication flowing through the steps of their arrival and departure. 
  1. Booking – Sending a booking confirmation email is an awesome way to start the guests journey with your hotel. By sending a confirmation email it gives the guest partial peace of mind, then possibly offering specials, upgrades they can partake in etc. So you are making sure to offer them the best experience possible. Things that should be included in the confirmation email is :
     1. Hotel check – in and check – out times ( Also include early check in if that’s an option)
     2. The date of arrival
     3. Number of nights that were booked
     4. Room Type that has been reserved
     5. Price of the stay including any other additional fees
     6. Hotel address
  2. Pre – arrival – Guests may be visiting for any reason under the sun, if possible see if there is a chance to have them fill out the reason for their visit. With this information you are then able to segment the email for those visiting for leisure or those who are visiting for work. If you are going to offer any additional services such as pick up or drop off then go ahead and use this email to mention and confirm. 
  3. Arrival and While the guests are staying –  Make sure you are only emailing them a few times, the less amount the better. Do not intrude on their stay unless it is to confirm something that they have booked through the hotel or offering updates about events taking place on the property. 
  4. When Departing – This email can be similar to when you are sending out the arrival email. Including their complete bill, the payment at hand and the gratitude of choosing your hotel to stay at! These are all things that wrap up the visit in a great way. 
  5. Post Departure – Emails that are post departure are a great way to re-engage with the customer and remind them of why they loved the property in the first place. Sending updates for birthdays, anniversaries, any activities that are taking place in the nearby area or just a great promotion that is being run!
  6. Request Feedback – Reviews are essential to success in a hotel business, meaning that the previous guests feedback is greatly appreciated. Approximately 88% of people stay at hotels whose reviews are higher than 3 stars. Include a link directly to the Trip Adviosr profile, google reviews, facebook etc whichever platform you are  choosing to use. 
  7. Loyalty Email –  Sending a loyalty email is practically inviting the guests to stay with you again, showing appreciation for their loyalty and enticing them to book once again. This would be a great time to incorporate some type of CRM to help with the timing of these emails. 
  8. Abandoning Booking emails
  9. Hotel Event Emails
• Have high conversion rates : Anybody who has expressed some type of interest in the hotel and what is offered has the chance of increasing conversion rate. This means that any lead is a good lead if the marketing is done correctly. Making sure to keep in touch with probable guests over time and have a higher chance to convert these people into guests.  Use segmentation to make sure to divide the email list based upon previous engagements with booking emails. This is a great way to push a promotional email for these types of recipients. 
• ROI : Email marketing has a very high rate of ROI, it is because it does not need as much effort once the emails have been sent out. And if the Email marketing campaign is made wisely then the results will filter in quickly.  
• Look for Patterns: Oftentimes guest books for occasions or for work. Either way it is great to evaluate the reason and make note of any patterns a guest may have. Make note by asking questions such as :
  1. Do they come to your location for business?  If so, how often?
  2. Do they come to your hotel every year? If so, what is the occasion? Birthday or anniversary?
  3. Do they book more at the last minute? If so, what is the season? Is it for the weekend?

Best Practices for Hotel Email Marketing

When looking at email marketing there are a couple best practices that should be kept in mind. Using these practices will aid in maximizing the effectiveness of the campaigns and boost the ROI. A couple best practices for hotel email marketing are segmenting your list, engaging visuals and A/B testing to make sure the campaign is being maximized. 

Utilizing Segmentation

One of the highest utilized aspects of email marketing is customer segmentation, this was mentioned briefly above but indulging in it now will deepen the understanding. Dividing the customer base into small groups will help in the effectiveness of the marketing messages and maximizes the results. Database segmentation allows marketers to email the right audience to increase sales. 

Segmentation is done by multiple methods, such as using location, booking history, time of booking, activities in the area etc. These are ways to better target your message, this also helps track metrics and see which segments are more valuable than others. 

Maximizing Visuals

In the hotel business, email design is a critical factor in the marketing campaign. The right visuals can make a huge difference due to hotel bookings being solely based on the images that are shown. Creating the idea of the possible guest seeing themselves in that room, imagining themselves staying and enjoying the amenities offered. Meaning that the amenities need updated images and need to look clean and crisp. Hoping that the exploration of the site and the images offered will entice the reader to click through and book their stay with you. 

Some examples of effective visuals or characteristics that can help to improve the design of the hotel email marketing campaigns. 

• Images that are relevant to the hotel or target audience
• Images are high quality and clear
• Images that are eye catching and attractive
• Images that are going to pull on heartstrings, and entice positive emotions
• Images that contain alternative text so that they are properly displayed no matter the device

Start A/B testing

A/B testing is a great way to optimize your email campaigns and ensure that the correct target audience has been reached. Using different testing methods in subject lines, call to actions, images etc to all see what is the most enticing for the campaign to have success.  

Ideally A/B test your subject lines, this will increase your ROI. To learn more about the importance of subject lines go ahead and read more. 

Email Marketing In Hotel Examples

1. 1. Request For Feedback Emails : Email communication is more than a one-way Street, promoting feedback from guests ensures a conversation should be started if the review was negative. But if it was positive that is a great way to entice other customers to book at the hotel based upon the positive feedback. Oftentimes hotels are booked based upon feedback due to never visiting there before and wanting people’s real life opinion. This can give insight to how your hotel can improve as well as the opportunity to Market towards your business based upon people’s preferences.   

 

 

 

 

2. Appreciation Emails :  Always make sure that when a check out has been completed in its entirety that an appreciation email is sent out. Approximately 42% of appreciation emails get opened , therefore they are an email marketing strategy and a power tool. Showing previous guest love and making sure that they were satisfied with the stay increases the chance of them wanting to return to your hotel. Making sure to make the thank you emails personable and include a call to action that leads them to give a review or book for other occasions. Customer-appreciated emails are a great way to increase the likelihood of guests returning to the hotel, making sure to include an enticing offer, promo voucher and sweeten the deal to possible next stay. 

 

 

 

 

3. Hotel Loyalty Program: Hotel loyalty program is a large marketing strategy that makes guests feel special and encourages the guests to return. Guests who sign up for a loyalty program typically receive rewards for discounts. Email subscribers are also able to receive rewards and exclusive offers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Hotel Awarding Emails: Leaving customer reviews and hotel awards can be an essential marketing tool for hotel brands. Posting positive reviews can help improve the hotel’s authenticity. This can aid in a hotel’s attractiveness and build trust with potential guests down the line. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Events in the Local Area : A creative and enticing way to market your hotel is to use the events in the area and attract guests and clients by offering promos and a place to stay. Marketing to the event or even partnering with the event so that they can recommend your hotel as a place to stay. Using events to your advantage, you can increase your chances of foot traffic to your hotel. 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Abandoned Booking Emails: These emails are a great way to recapture the audience’s attention and bring them back to the idea of the trip they were going to book. This being said using great images to bring back the attention and create the dream of what they are missing out on by not continuing through with the booking of the trip. Cart Abandonment is only becoming more prominent as people become more comfortable shopping on the internet. 

 

Conclusion

When working through email marketing in the hotel industry. There is a lot of reaching out when it comes to that industry and they need to maintain healthy communication with customers so that they have a great experience. This being said, it is important to make sure that the emails are on point and beneficial to the success of the hotel industry. When there is a consistent reach out then the trust is built which can help the success of converting guests to stay with the hotel. As mentioned above there are a couple different email approaches that can be taken on accounts of reaching out. Noting that there needs to be a parallel of emails sent out that matches the email campaign. Making sure to note the mailsoftly can aid in the creation of an email marketing campaign and help with the segmentation journey on reach out. There are many benefits to working through Mailsoftly such as having customer service out of this world.