There are over 54,000 hotels in the United States: if you run a hotel, you need to know how to stand out from the crowd and build long-standing relationships with your guests. Email marketing is a very powerful tool that can help you do just that.

When someone books into your hotel, the chances are, you’ll have their email address, and you need to use this customer contact to its fullest extent. Yet what does effective email advertising look like as a component of your online marketing strategy? What are some great email marketing ideas that can help you make the most of your email marketing?

In this guide, we’re going to take a look at some cornerstones of any great email marketing strategy that you can put into action and how to do them faster and with less effort. Put our ideas into practice, and you’ll be able to get more marketing done, with less effort, and get more results.

Are you ready to learn more? Then read on and find out how email marketing can help your hotel.

Why Email Marketing Matters for Hotels

Why should a hotel bother with email marketing? What do they actually get out of it? 

Firstly, email marketing is a very strong way to nurture a better relationship with previous guests or those who have a stay booked. This journey starts as soon as someone books a room at your hotel: your booking confirmation should include information about your services, any specials that you offer, and discuss the possibility of upgrading to a better room or suite.

You should also set up an email series that will send out emails to the guests prior to their arrival with more information on the hotel and local area, during their stage to check-in with them and make sure they’re enjoying their stay, and after they leave, to entice them back.

Email marketing is also a terrific way to spread brand awareness. Perhaps someone made an enquiry about booking a room. You can send information about the area and upcoming events to them, offering them a place to stay and discussing room availability.

Finally, email marketing matters because it offers a great return on investment. Email marketing is very cost-effective and once you’ve got your campaign set up, it’s easy to automate, making it an incredibly easy way to market your hotel.

How to Cultivate an Audience

Before you can send out your marketing emails, you need to get an audience for them. So, how can you find recipients and curate a mailing list? 

Create a Subscriber Box

You should always have a subscriber box on your website. Here, you can ask people to enter their email addresses, in exchange for exclusive information and offers. When you’ve got their email address, you should, of course, send them what you promised, but you can also use these email addresses as targets for your other marketing emails.

Contacting Previous Guests

If you send a guest too many emails before they’ve even checked into your hotel, it can come across as a little spammy. However, if they are a previous guest, feel free to add them to your mailing list, and contact them to discuss having them back at your hotel.

Segment Your Mailing List

You shouldn’t keep all of your emails in one massive list. This won’t help conversion and open rates. Instead, you should segment your list into several key categories. For instance, you should ensure that business travelers, a substantial market, are on a different list to tourists, as their needs will be very different.

Segmenting your list will allow you to create emails with a better success rate. Some segments that you may want to consider include:

1. Tourists
2. Business travelers
3. Luxury travelers
4. Activities requested
5. Long-stay and short-stay guests

Using the Right Tools for the Job

Now that you have a segmented mailing list, you need to use the right email marketing tools to reach them effectively. VerticalResponse can help you here: our software allows for easy integration with a range of other tools, features fantastic automation features, and features a range of effective and interesting templates.

Using our software, you can also publish the email to the web, which allows you to get the most bang for your buck out of each and every email. We also have an industry-leading delivery rate, which means your emails will get to your subscribers.

Email Marketing Ideas

So, we’ve shown you why email marketing is important and how you can do it. Now let’s take a look at some email marketing ideas that can help convert prospective guests.

Packages Based Around Their Interests

If your hotel offers trips and activities, you should keep track of the trips that previous guests have gone on. This will let you email them with tailored packages that may entice them back to your hotel. For instance, if your hotel has a golf course, and a certain guest played golf a few times during their stay, you can offer them low-cost access to your golf course.

News on Local Events

If your area plays host to a famous event, you can take advantage of this by emailing previous guests to talk about the event. You should also discuss why your hotel would be an ideal place to stay, should they want to attend it.

Email-Only Offers

Exclusive offers are always a great way to turn heads and reward people for signing up for your emails. You should offer this as an incentive on the subscriber box, as it’s a good way to get more subscribers, too.

Email Marketing Is Essential for Hotels

As a hotel business, you already have access to many different email addresses, and with a strong subscriber box, you can get access to many more. You need to be taking advantage of email marketing, and with our software, it’s never been easier to automate your marketing emails and attract more guests.

For more information about our software, take a look around our site or start a free trial today!

© 2021, Chris Duncan. All rights reserved.