Personalization refers to creating emails that feel more like direct conversations between you and each guest – for hotels this often means offering recommendations based on past bookings or loyalty program behavior.
Effective hotel marketing requires analytical and creative abilities combined with robust software tools, but following this how-to guide provides hoteliers with best practices they should heed.
1. Know Your Audience
Establishing an understanding of who your audience is and their needs from your hotel is central to email marketing success. Beyond simply using their first name as part of an addressee list (which has been shown to increase email open rates by 26%), hotel marketers must understand customers’ preferences, booking history and more in order to deliver personalized content and offers that resonate most effectively.
Understanding your audience helps you cultivate quality lists of qualified leads and subscribers. You can do this by strategically placing opt-in forms on your hotel website, during registration/check-out procedures or social media platforms; alternatively you could import existing guests’ email addresses into your CRM using GDPR rules governing email opt-ins (check out our post about GDPR and email opt-ins for more info on doing this legally).
Divide subscribers into different segments according to factors like their location, booking history or other relevant details and create dynamic content tailored specifically for these segments in a single email campaign. This enables you to provide subscribers with content more pertinent to them while simultaneously streamlining marketing efforts.
Example of this would be sending your guests an email prior to arrival that includes local sights, restaurant recommendations and events they can enjoy during their stay. This helps increase excitement about their stay while building strong anticipation. Furthermore, you could upsell them additional services or amenities that meet their interests – for instance if someone frequents spa services you could suggest adding one as part of their reservation – such as offering spa packages as add-ons.
Engaging your guests through their follow-up email is another effective way to show appreciation and encourage repeat business. Simply ask how their stay was! It will leave them feeling valued while encouraging repeat purchases.
Email can also serve as an excellent means of highlighting the unique amenities and features of your hotel, such as its stunning location. By including stunning visuals that convince recipients to book rooms immediately, email can become an effective marketing tool that drives booking decisions forward.
2. Know Your Content
Customized email campaigns must be designed in an organic, unobtrusive way that does not feel like an intrusive sales pitch. Emails should contain relevant and timely information without being intrusive or too promotional; hotels should avoid sending too many unwanted or irrelevant emails that might lead to unsubscribes and lost revenue.
Understanding your guest base and their preferred communication channel will enable you to craft more tailored communications. For instance, if your hotel offers business travel programs, sending emails with special discounts for local restaurants and cafes would likely be appropriate; conversely for leisure travel programs it may be more successful to offer discounted rates on attractions or activities nearby.
Apart from offering discounts, another effective way of promoting your hotel is hosting events of interest to guests. Furthermore, having a live chat feature integrated into your PMS will allow for engagement between potential customers and you directly as it can increase direct bookings by 40 percent! According to Hotel Tech Solutions.
Once you understand who your target audience is, the next step in creating personalized emails should be creating content to draw their interest and attract them to sign up for your list – this could take the form of blog posts, infographics, social media updates or even free ebooks.
Personalization should be seen as an ongoing process and taking time to build your database and gain trust is essential, yet continuous refinement of campaign strategies along with testing and optimizing for data will help to deliver more relevant content and reach better performance results.
Personalizing email communications will allow you to stand out from the competition, establish relationships with clients and increase ROI. Now is the time to implement these tactics into your hotel’s current marketing strategy – we hope this guide was able to assist!
3. Know Your Call-To-Action
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective tools available to hoteliers looking to drive guest loyalty and build brand recognition. Not only can email reach a wide audience with personalized messages, it is also ideal for hospitality organizations seeking to drive customer retention while building brand recognition.
Effective email personalization helps create deeper relationships with guests and promote repeat bookings and referrals. But how can you best use email personalization for communication with guests? Thanks to modern PMS/CRM systems for independent properties, using guest data is now simpler than ever to craft pre-arrival emails tailored specifically for each guest.
Email personalization is the cornerstone of building trust and loyalty with your hotel guests, whether that means greeting them by name in the subject line, informing them of their room type or offering additional services tailored specifically to them. By taking time to understand their interests and needs, email personalization enables hotels to deliver targeted messages that resonate more strongly and increase engagement rates and conversions.
Imagine sending Sarah an email that offers to book her spa appointment, recommends the romantic vineyard tour she was interested in seeing, or encourages an early checkout upgrade — this kind of personalized message sets you apart in a world full of generic blasts. Not only will this improve their guest experience but it shows you care for their business by understanding their needs and preferences.
Email can also be used to gather guest feedback and offer post-stay follow up. In addition to conducting an online survey, send your guests an email asking them for referrals of friends and family that should stay at your hotel.
As part of your guest communication strategy, it is advisable to reach out to past guests every 8-9 months in order to remind them about the amazing time they had with you and encourage their return. Automated guest communication platforms such as WhatsApp can make this easy by creating and sending out email newsletters directly into each guest group within WhatsApp.
4. Know Your Email Platform
Email can be an excellent tool to reach out and communicate with your audience on their time and in their preferred format, unlike social media platforms that change algorithms instantly and limit reach. Furthermore, with your own database you own, targeted campaigns can help your target group meet their goals faster.
Your email newsletter software needs to include automation features like campaign scheduling, landing page builders and email personalization tools for maximum efficiency. Identify a platform that fits both your budget and goals as you expand.
To choose an effective email service provider (ESP), start by discovering which email apps your competitors are utilizing. Sign up for their mailing lists and wait until they send a message; when it arrives, open it and inspect its source code.
Source code will show the name and IP address of an email app used by your competitors, along with details regarding its capabilities. This should provide enough information to determine which ESP your opponent uses.
If you don’t know which email service provider (ESP) your competitors use, email tracking pixel tools may also help identify audience preferences and behaviors such as whether people prefer reading emails on mobile phones vs desktop computers. With this data at hand, creating content relevant to the audience helps increase engagement rates as well as click-through rates.
Get to know your target audience, their preferences and buying habits so that you can develop and execute successful email marketing strategies for your hotel. With the appropriate email service provider (ESP) or newsletter software you can produce engaging, relevant content to engage your target market that drives traffic and sales. If you haven’t launched your newsletter yet use this guide as a starting point to start growing your audience right now – no worries though, as your needs may change at any time!