Email marketing is an amazing tool for growing your business. Not only can you increase direct bookings, you can also drive upselling and learn more about attitudes towards your business through effective mailouts. From newsletters to booking confirmations – there are a number of ways to influence potential and existing customers.
With the New Year creeping ever closer, this is a great opportunity to upgrade your email marketing efforts to allow your business to grow. Here are some of the best ways to boost the value of your emails.
Segment your email marketing audience
In their podcast, Fuel Hotel Marketing emphasise the importance of segmenting your audience. Segmentation allows you to target the right campaigns to the right people.
There are a number of ways you can segment your audience. The most popular options are by demographics (such as age, nationality and gender), geographic location and booking behaviours. By sorting these audiences you can more effectively target the right people. Twenty year olds that live in the same country will likely have distinctive booking habits. You can better tailor your offers and key newsletter points to these audiences.
According to Fuel, targeted email campaigns based on segmented audiences have a 20% higher open rate. To manage this you should also make sure your titles are eye-catching for the segments you are targeting. Couples from nearby will be more enticed by weekend break deals. Business owners may prefer more information about what your accommodation offers the corporate traveller. Make sure you put some effort into conveying the important contents of the email in your segmented campaigns.
Establish automated email marketing campaigns
Automating your email campaigns not only makes marketing an easier job for you – it can also boost the effectiveness. According to PhocusWire, automated emails have higher rates of engagement than one off emails.
The reason for this is simple – you can ensure these emails are always sent out at the right times. It makes sense to streamline the booking process with automated confirmations, but you can also ensure customers receive the right information at the right time throughout the guest journey and beyond.
You can set up automatic upsell emails that arrive with customers a few days before they book. This effortlessly encourages guests to book room upgrades and other add ons you may offer. You can also set up campaigns that email previous guests with offers if they have a birthday coming up. Contrary to what many think, automated email systems allow you to add more personalisation.
Avoid some of the common email marketing mistakes
We all make mistakes, and whilst you are updating your email marketing in 2019 you can work on fixing some of the common errors marketers make. Schofield’s have mentioned some of these common mistakes in their blog, and most of them are easy to fix.
You should also make sure your mailing list customers want to keep reading your newsletters. Try not to focus on selling – you should be giving the reader value. A great way to do this is having a blog on your website, and featuring the first paragraph or so on the newsletter. You can then include links which will drive readers to your website, and the blog posts themselves can have links to other areas of the site.
You should also make sure your newsletter is viewable on multiple devices. The trend towards mobile continued in 2018, and it is only going to grow further as the main device for connecting to emails and websites in the coming years. If you use MailChimp then you will be able to check your newsletter functions across multiple devices before you send it. Many other major platforms also offer this service.
Whether you are looking to boost direct bookings, or encourage upselling with current bookings, email marketing is a great way to help you achieve your business goals in the New Year. With these tips, you will begin to notice massive changes in engagement with your email campaigns.
Want some more advice on using email marketing effectively? Check out our courses on the Boostly Academy.
