Email Marketing for Hotels: Everything You Need to Know and How to Start

Contents

• The Power of Email Marketing for Hotels

• Understanding the Benefits of Email Marketing

• Getting Started with Email Marketing

• Essential Email Campaigns for Hotels

• Crafting Engaging Hotel Emails

• Timing and Frequency of Email Campaigns

• Tracking the Success of Email Campaigns

• Instituting Email Marketing Procedures

• The NURTURE Approach to Email Marketing

This guide presents a comprehensive overview of the importance and strategic implementation of email marketing for hotels. It showcases how, contrary to some beliefs, email marketing is a robust tool not only for enhancing brand awareness but also for increasing sales and generating repeat business for hotels. The guide explains how to get started with email marketing, essential email campaigns to run, tips for crafting engaging hotel emails, and methods for monitoring campaign success. It also introduces the 'NURTURE' approach, offering a roadmap for hoteliers to foster an engaging community through email communications.

The Power of Email Marketing for Hotels

Despite the allure of social media, email marketing remains a powerful and profitable strategy for promoting your hotel, upselling services, and maintaining connections with previous guests. Notwithstanding rumours of email's demise, it continues to yield a staggering €34 ROI for each €1 spent.

Independent hotel owners and managers can especially leverage email marketing to attract local and national travellers, as 73% of millennials prefer business communications via email, and marketing emails influence 59% of respondents' purchase decisions.

Understanding the Benefits of Email Marketing

Implementing an email marketing strategy offers numerous benefits, such as:

1. Building brand awareness and engagement

2. Increasing sales through upselling

3. Creating repeat business

4. Building trust with customers

5. Winning over OTA bookings

6. Attracting local and national tourists

Getting Started with Email Marketing

To kick-start your hotel's email marketing journey, connect your Hotel Property Management System (PMS) to an email marketing provider like Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign. This allows you to store email addresses from reservations and automate critical email workflows such as booking confirmations and pre-arrival emails.

Email Marketing, when done well, can be a very effective way to entice guest loyalty

Essential Email Campaigns for Hotels

Five key emails form the cornerstone of a hotel's email marketing campaign:

1. Inspiration emails: Share travel inspirations, limited offers, and stay packages with your existing and potential guest list. For further creative inspiration, check out these marketing ideas for a hotel newsletter.

2. Booking confirmation emails: Send immediately after a reservation is made, including reservation details, contact information, and online check-in links.

3. Welcome emails: Send a welcome email on the same day as the booking confirmation email, inviting guests to connect with your hotel on social media.

4. Pre-arrival emails: Use them to upsell services like room upgrades, breakfast add-ons, and spa packages, while providing practical details about check-in and local activities.

5. Post-stay emails: After the guest's stay, ask for feedback and a review, and share a special perk, such as a voucher for a complimentary service.

Crafting Engaging Hotel Emails

To maximise your email engagement rates, adhere to these best practices:

• Use a specific personal sender name for higher open rates.

• Create catchy subject lines that spark curiosity or urgency.

• Keep the email content short and easy to scan.

• Include an explicit call to action.

• Personalise and keep the tone conversational.

• Ensure mobile optimisation

• Balance text with images

Timing and Frequency of Email Campaigns

The timing and frequency of your email campaigns depend on the type of campaign. You need to measure results and adjust your strategy based on audience response.

It’s important that your email communication remains visual

Tracking the Success of Email Campaigns

Monitoring your campaign success is vital to improving future email marketing efforts. Key email marketing metrics to track include:

• Open rate

• Clickthrough rate

• Conversion rate

• Bounce rate

• Overall ROI

You should also consider conducting A/B testing for your email campaigns to enhance the effectiveness of your strategies.

Instituting Email Marketing Procedures

Implementing a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for your email marketing ensures that your entire team is aligned with your strategies. This SOP should include a checklist for emails, a list of automated email campaigns, a monthly content guide, and a pre-send checklist.

The NURTURE Approach to Email Marketing

The ultimate approach to successful email marketing is NURTURE: Nail your customer journey, Understand your audience, ensure Readability and mobile Responsiveness, Test your emails, Use analytics, set the Right expectations, and Educate your audience. By following this approach, you can effectively build a community that engages with your hotel and eagerly awaits your emails.