Email marketing can be incredibly helpful for a wide range of industries. While some general tips and tricks can be useful , it’s important not to adopt a ‘one-size fits all’ approach. Email marketing for hotels, specifically, is about creating campaigns to engage current and potential customers.
But, with the right campaigns, email marketing can be extremely effective in increasing loyalty and creating sales opportunities in the hotel industry.
Here are some of the ways that hotels can benefit from email marketing. And, how to achieve these benefits:
Improving the Booking Experience
In the hotel industry, the relationship with your customers begins as soon as they book a room. A confirmation email that is triggered as soon as a customer makes a booking will help them feel valued and reassured. They are also some of the most read emails. According to research by Forrester, confirmation emails are 17% more likely to be opened than newsletter or promotional emails. Customers are also 20% more likely to click through on them. Therefore, your transaction emails should offer more than a simple ‘Thank You for Booking’. They should be seen as an opportunity. Deliver interesting, personalised content to your customers. Your sales might increase!
Premier Inn include something like this in their transactional emails:
This provides an opportunity to increase revenue from that customer before they have even arrived at the hotel. The offers could even be personalised to the customer based on their previous visits or things they have looked at on your website. All of which works to strengthen the relationship between you and your customer. Premier Inn are full of useful tips and tricks, it is worth subscribing to their email marketing list.
Increasing Repeat Bookings with hotel email marketing
The adage that it’s easier (and cheaper) to keep and existing customers than it is to gain new ones is particularly true in the hotel industry. By staying in touch with your past guests with highly targeted, personalised emails, you can almost guarantee a revenue stream to your hotels. One of the best tips to do this is with a triggered email.
In the above example from Sheraton, they have sent their customers a birthday special offer. It allows existing customers to plan a stay with them and only pay rates equal to the year they were born. While birthday marketing emails are not uncommon, they can be particularly useful for the hotel industry. Not only do they show that you highly value your past guests, it also comes at a time when they are likely to be thinking about booking a break. An email like this could give your customers a push in the right direction. This particular offer also provides a twist on the traditional percentage discount offer. Customers are likely to take notice thanks to this hotel’s email marketing.
This article shows just a few of the tips and tricks that the hotel industry can benefit from email marketing. With a little creativity and forethought, email marketing can be an excellent revenue generator for all hotels, large or small.
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
