Email marketing provides hotels with one of the few channels that they have full control of and can leverage for brand awareness, reputation management, direct bookings and loyalty. Through smart segmentation email campaigns can promote exclusive offers or provide pre-arrival tips or local event recommendations while building engagement and increasing conversions.
Utilize captivating imagery and copy to drive click-through rates and bookings. Since people tend to scan emails quickly, ensure content is concise and easily consumable.
1. Keep it simple
Many hoteliers see sending newsletters as an ineffective marketing tactic and waste of their marketing budget, yet if executed successfully it can become one of your most powerful tools in reaching customers during the critical dreaming and planning phases, as well as potentially leading to revenue-boosting bookings.
The key to creating an excellent hotel newsletter lies in keeping it straightforward and relevant. Make sure your emails are personalized as much as possible and deliver valuable content for subscribers, rather than bombarding them with sales or discounts. Instead, focus on engaging the imaginations of readers – for instance if your hotel is located near beaches in warm climate destinations try emailing people during the week with images of sandy shores to encourage booking their vacation – or offer exclusive specials that drive clicks and bookings.
As with sending too many emails, excessive frequency could quickly irritate and disengage your audience. Determine the optimal frequency that works best for your hotel and customers to ensure optimal engagement levels.
Customer segmentation can also help boost engagement by giving you greater control of messaging delivery and tracking metrics more accurately. Emails can be segmented on various criteria including demographics, booking history and more.
An effective strategy for developing brand loyalty is using a hotel newsletter to engage your guests prior, during, and post stay. By sharing relevant updates, exclusive offers, and other exciting activities your hotel is engaged with, you can strengthen relationships with your audience while encouraging them to know, like, and trust your brand more – ultimately leading to long-term brand affinity and repeat business.
2. Keep it relevant
Email newsletters can be an efficient and cost-effective way to promote hotel specials, packages, and discounts to past guests and drive repeat bookings. But if your newsletter doesn’t resonate with its intended target audience, they could opt out or even block you altogether!
To avoid this scenario, it’s essential that your hotel segments its list and sends tailored hotel offers and newsletter content directly. By doing this, open rates can increase while encouraging guests to book directly through you instead of third-party platforms; additionally, this provides upselling opportunities like spa and dining packages not offered directly on its website.
Include a call-to-action (CTA) that leads readers directly to your hotel website for maximum bookings and increase in revenue. Oaky provides hotels with a guest messaging solution designed specifically to create personalized newsletters tailored specifically to each subscriber’s interests and needs.
Subject lines are one of the most critical parts of an email campaign, as they will determine whether or not it gets opened. A great subject line should be catchy, concise and eye-catching while including key terms relevant to your hotel and specials. Avoiding use of exclamation marks or all caps to avoid being marked as spam as these will likely get deleted and damage your email deliverability and brand reputation.
Staying relevant in hotel newsletters requires using beautiful images and videos that showcase your property, amenities, and delectable cuisine. When combined with inspirational copy, readers will easily imagine themselves enjoying their stay at your hotel. Also incorporating real-time visuals from social channels into newsletters can increase engagement while encouraging subscribers to visit.
3. Keep it consistent
Emails are increasingly sent and received at lightning speed, so it’s essential that the design of your hotel newsletter be both eye-catching and consistent across emails sent and received. A consistent visual theme throughout will increase engagement from subscribers who may then make reservations through your content. Furthermore, emails with clear CTAs can drive results.
Subject lines are the first thing a reader sees when opening an email and can have an immense influence over them. Selecting an attractive subject line can dramatically increase open rates; consider including questions, an urgent call-to-action, or powerful imagery to grab their attention and keep them reading your message.
Hotel email newsletters can provide an effective means of connecting with potential guests at key moments in their travel plans and dreams, creating meaningful interactions and potentially driving up revenues at your hotel. When utilized effectively, these can become one of the most powerful revenue-enhancing tools at your disposal.
Consistency is key, but to truly engage your readers it’s also essential that the type of content in each issue of your hotel email newsletter varies from issue to issue. A variety of features ranging from property updates and unique amenities to behind-the-scenes look at chef preparing signature dishes can all help to engage the recipient and encourage them to book their trip with your hotel. Teaser paragraphs can help capture reader attention and inspire them to book a stay!
Post-check email marketing can be an excellent way to market your hotel to new customers and encourage repeat stays. Marketing to existing customers often proves more successful than trying to acquire entirely new ones; sending an enticing follow-up email after each stay can give your hotel an edge over its competition.
Add personalization to your hotel newsletters for maximum impact and deliverability. With the appropriate advanced email marketing platform, this personalization is made easy: just include a subscriber’s name in either the subject line or copy to make sure it lands in subscribers’ inboxes instead of spam filters. This ensures more people read it!
4. Keep it clean
Content created for hotel email newsletters should provide an in-depth glimpse of your hospitality business; however, be careful not to oversell by using too much salesy and pushy language that alienates your audience and causes them to unsubscribe quickly from receiving further emails from you.
One way to avoid creating salesy emails is by keeping them clean and professional. Make sure to include white space in your layout to make it easier for readers to consume the information provided to them. Furthermore, utilize power words in subject lines and CTAs that increase click-through rates such as “free,” “save,” and “instant.”
Keep your email campaigns relevant to current and potential customers/travelers by sharing content that highlights your hotel amenities, local attractions and any events taking place near by.
Your subscribers are more likely to book again or refer your hotel if they’re regularly updated about what great offers are available from you. An EMS that allows for segmenting by location, demographics and booking history will enable you to send out targeted email campaigns that maximize ROI for maximum return.
Existing guests are much easier to market to than finding new ones, so you should focus on building an email subscription list of guests who want to opt in – you can do this by offering an opt-in form on your website tied specifically to a subscriber group; then they’ll receive emails tailored specifically to their individual needs or interests.
Business travelers might not appreciate an email inviting them back to a festival or other event in the near future; on the other hand, leisure travelers might welcome an invite back for another adventure. By developing and managing an effective email marketing campaign for hotels, you can expand your business sustainably.