Your hotel email list is one of your most prized marketing assets. Engaging with guests proactively before or post stay can only strengthen that asset further.
Your brand voice must remain consistent across all email communications, including digital guest welcome books and alert messaging tools. Here are a few tips to help ensure this.
1. Keep it simple
Utilizing consistent language, tone, and values in your hotel marketing can not only set it apart from competitors but will also strengthen brand identity, increase recognition among guests, and foster trust between your hotel and guests.
Hoteliers often face difficulty in maintaining consistent messaging, branding, colours and imagery across all channels simultaneously, yet this is of critical importance for success. Repeated exposure of customers to similar messages strengthens them subconsciously – increasing the chance they’ll recall those messages when the time comes for purchase or use of product/service.
Audience segmentation can help your hotel emails achieve a consistent brand voice by customising content and communications to each group in your email list based on interests or other factors, and sending tailored emails directly to these specific segments.
No matter if your establishment is a hotel, hostel, resort, boutique, bed & breakfast or bed and breakfast; creating and implementing audience segments are many different things you can do to generate and expand it. One way is to analyze any form of communication or information exchange with guests and assign characteristics like friendly, professional, warm or funny to each – for instance a number might indicate their characteristics are assigned at that moment in time.
This approach allows you to easily use this process for reviewing any type of communication with customers and identify which characteristics match up with your brand voice versus which don’t.
Hotel marketing relies heavily on emails. Most hotels will regularly send three types of emails: booking confirmation, pre-stay reminder and post-stay receipt. These communications provide a great opportunity to express their brand voice while connecting with guests in an informal and approachable way.
Your hotel email marketing offers you a tremendous opportunity to go even further – by engaging guests throughout their entire stay and communicating effectively through our digital guest welcome book software, Touch Stay believes it can be even more impactful.
2. Use the same fonts
One effective way of maintaining consistency in your hotel email marketing campaign is using uniform fonts for each email sent, making them easier for your customers to read.
Pret’s email utilizes an eye-catching combination of standard Verdana font with an intriguing typographer’s variation that adds personality and consistency with their summery message. This approach perfectly captures their brand voice and tone of this email campaign.
Consistency between hotel brand colors, imagery choices and other aspects of their online branding builds familiarity in customers’ minds and ensures they remember your hotel when booking stays; providing consistent messaging across channels – like your website, hotel reseller site and one-to-one email communications – also builds trust between customer relationships on an emotional level.
3. Keep it relevant
Hotels can send their customers numerous types of emails, such as newsletters, promotional messages and loyalty alerts, but for maximum efficiency these messages must be relevant and sent at an opportune moment – for instance, when guests have booked stays and are ready to depart, send them an email reminding them about any preferences (for instance requesting specific types of pillows or in-room amenities).
If someone subscribed to your email list because they’re interested in staying at your hotel but haven’t booked just yet, one way you can nurture those leads is through sending out newsletters with destination guides and tips specific to their city of destination – this gives them an understanding of what awaits them when visiting and may eventually lead to bookings down the line.
Similarly, if your hotel is known for its luxurious amenities, promotional emails can help showcase these features and encourage booking. This can include exclusive offers, celebrity endorsements or any other marketing tactics that establish that it’s a premier location.
Your promotional emails should focus on one major offer from your hotel – be it discounted room rates, special events or upgrades – and direct recipients directly to your professional website where they can learn more and book their stay.
Maintaining relevance in email marketing campaigns is the best way to generate high engagement, build customer trust and ultimately increase conversions. In order to do that successfully, ensure a unified brand voice across platforms and channels – including your website – so when people interact with your hotel they recognize it instantly as part of its brand. Likewise, make sure the online messaging aligns with its identity so people recognize your hotel instantly when interacting with it.
Email marketing is one of the most efficient ways to promote your hotel, but only as good as its content. Be sure that it fits seamlessly with the rest of your marketing strategy, adding appealing images tailored specifically for each campaign on free sites such as Pexels, Unsplash or Pixabay.
4. Focus on the offer
If you want to communicate effectively with hotel guests, your content needs to focus on offering rather than generalising about the property. This is especially relevant when sending pre-stay, during stay and post-stay emails; keeping these focused around customer experience will increase trust and engagement while making it simpler for them to book again with you in future.
Email can be an effective tool for increasing room revenue, provided that you know your target audience well enough to personalize their experience to their needs. In order to achieve this, you’ll need a clear understanding of guest demographics and divide them into segments which can be targeted individually – for instance a local market segment could respond more readily than non-locals to certain offers (food and beverage offers are likely popular with both groups); non-locals may prefer special events or tour experiences over this form of communication.
As you focus on your offer, it’s also crucial that your messaging remains authentic. This means ensuring all communications reflect the brand voice of your property as well as being clearly connected to its philosophy, purpose and values. While striking this balance may seem tricky at times, remember it can often be too easy to become too salesy and pushy!
Implementing consistent brand voice in your hotel email campaigns is one of the best ways to build trust with guests and set them up for success when traveling. For any additional tips or assistance on this front, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
As digital guest welcome book providers, we understand that creating an excellent guest experience for visitors to a hotel lies in providing them with comprehensive yet accessible information before their arrival. With Touch Stay digital guest welcome book, hotels have never made creating and sending authentic brand communications simpler!