For hoteliers, email marketing is a powerful medium for communicating with customers, caring for future guests and getting them interested in their property. In addition to being inexpensive, email marketing is one of the best ways to generate revenue by offering customers offers like upgrades, cross-selling, and experiences. But more emails don’t necessarily mean more sales. The correct cadence of your email has a big impact on your overall conversion performance.
The power of email marketing can be abused
Whoever said “You can never have enough of the good” first was obviously not living in the time of the e-mail. Few people would dispute the value and importance of email – it consistently delivers the best ROI across all marketing channels. In fact, hotels can can ’ earn as much as $ 44 for every dollar “They” spend “on” e-mail “marketing – with conversion rates 3 times higher than on social media. With these kinds of numbers, it’s no surprise that hotels – or any other business – would want to use email communications to try and unlock additional revenue opportunities as much as possible. But it’s not that easy.
The importance of cadence and relevance in hotel email marketing –
Photo: ROOMDEX, Inc
A common mistake hoteliers make is not understanding how often their guests want to hear from them. The average consumer receives Lots of emails every day. So much so that many consumers feel overwhelmed. According to a study by Campaigner, nearly half (49 percent) of consumers say they receive too many emails from business owners and marketers. In fact, according to the survey results, many consumers would like to receive far fewer emails than marketers on average send. The Campaigner researchers found that about three in ten consumers (29 percent) would like to hear from a brand once a month or less.
Effective email strategies are not only contemporary, but also very personal, targeted, and geared towards customer goals. Personalization increases email open rates by 26% – while emails that are too general and / or too many offers, links and multiple calls-to-actions (CTAs) lead to confusion and dilute their potential for success. By tailoring your email sending frequency to your customers’ needs and with personalized content, you increase the likelihood that your customers will get in touch with your hotel.
The guest’s journey ranges from travel inspiration and research to booking, arrival before arrival, check-in, the experience of the stay itself and even after the stay. These travel milestones represent ways when you might be able to contact us by email, but remember that the “what” and “why” of sending an email are inseparable from the success of both individual messages and the whole Campaign is connected. While multiple email communications may be warranted in the initial inspiration phase of customer acquisition, Once a guest makes a reservation, email content becomes more important than frequency. Between booking and checkout, email efforts such as advance arrival and property communication should shift to offering the customer additional value-added services that complement their stay.
But that does not mean flash the guest with a million offers all kinds. To create emails that produce results, hoteliers need to closely and precisely in their offers. For example, after guests have reserved their stay and received their booking confirmation, shortly before arrival hoteliers can enhance the guest experience with a personalized up-selling email prior to arrival. The purpose of emailing a pre-arrival email is not only to prepare guests for their stay, but to get them excited about it. Pre-arrival emails are a great opportunity to offer room upgrades and early check-in. Once a guest has arrived and is at the hotel, news should focus on promoting relevant on-site services and events such as dinner and golf reservations – and should be communicated within a time frame that reflects the typical booking window for those venues . Similarly, additional notices such as “Register for Loyalty” should be sent mid-stay and if other locations are advertised, they should not be communicated until after check-out.
Ultimately, the goal of email marketing should be to get to the point where communication no longer feels like marketing, but instead every interaction adds value to the recipient. And while many different ways to communicate may seem overwhelming and nearly impossible, using marketing automation removes the stress and offers a simple but effective way to improve the customer journey every step of the way.
There is no question that email marketing is an inexpensive and powerful method of direct marketing. However, it can also be very difficult to get right. Email marketing isn’t about filling inboxes with marketing fluff. Email marketing is all about serving your audience. Smart hotels that provide relevant content with targeted offers and information in a timely manner can not only benefit from increased guest satisfaction, but also increase sales.
About ROOMDEX, INC
ROOMDEX “s Hotel upsell software, “Upgrade Optimizer”, automates, monetizes and ultimately simplifies the process of upgrading hotel rooms by giving the hotel guest freedom of choice. Automation is the cornerstone of our groundbreaking hotel optimization platform. ROOMDEX uses hotel reservations, guest data and its proprietary persona and price algorithms to deliver personalized digital offers that dramatically improve the guest experience. The hotel upselling tool relieves hoteliers of the work time required for other upselling solutions while delivering high profit margins and a significant ROI
The company was founded by Jos Schaap, Pierre Boettner and Denis Bajet, three industry veterans (Ex. MICROS-OPERA (now Oracle Hospitality), StayNTouch, Shiji and Nor1) who together have over 90 years of experience in hotel software innovation in the PMS sector and bring integrations, revenue management, BI, mobile, self-service and upgrade optimization software. Since its inception in spring 2020, ROOMDEX has signed more than 65 hotels with 6,500 rooms in the US, UK, Europe and APAC. website https://www.roomdex.io
Twitter: @ROOMDEX
Facebook: facebook.com/roomdexinc
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