When it comes to your hotel email marketing efforts, there are a few things you need to remember to keep a steady flow of guests coming through your lobby doors.  It’s the most direct form of marketing communication and allows you to establish a more personal connection with your guests than social media or tv ads.  Regardless of whether you handle your email marketing in-house or hire an agency for their hotel marketing services, here are a few things you need to remember to run a successful campaign that your guests love.

Segmentation Station

If you’re still doing mass email blasts that have the same message for each contact in your database, you need to get with the times.  Apart from maybe an addition to your hotel or a new attraction nearby, there is no reason to send everyone the same message.  It’s time to start sending relevant emails so your audience can actually connect with your message.

Segmentation allows you to create marketing that people love.  This is because it has context.  Contextual marketing works because it recognizes your audience as individuals and tailors the message to what they’ve shown interest in. 

So how do you segment your contacts as a hotel?  Well, I’m glad you asked. 

One simple way is to categorize your database into past guests and prospect guests.  Doing this will allow you to talk to each group with different language.  For instance, someone who has already stayed at your hotel will already know about the general experience, and would be better suited to get a message that is more specific in nature.  In contrast, a prospective guest might not be sold on your unique selling proposition so you might need to outline some key amenities they won’t be able to enjoy if they stay somewhere else.

Behavior Based Segmentation

Although this is a more advanced tactic for segmentation, it will pay off tremendously for your hotel.  When you have a proactive hotel email marketing strategy, you can focus on sending relevant messages in a timely fashion, you’ll truly establish a connection with your recipients.

What does this look like?  Let’s stick with our two main segments of past guests and prospective guests.

It’s a little easier for guests who have already stayed with you as you already have a general idea of what they were interested in based on their bill at checkout.  Send them an email asking for a rating or a review of their stay.  Ask them for feedback.  What did they enjoy?  What could you have done better?  Giving them the opportunity to provide feedback will show them that you value their opinion and want to make their next stay even better.

Sending emails based on what they did during their stay is a great way to try and get them back through your doors.  Send them updates about the restaurant they frequently ate at.  Send them news about new attractions and experiences you offer that align with what they showed interest in.  This is a great way to get them thinking about the great time they had and they can start visualizing their next stay at your hotel.

For prospective guests, behavior based segmentation is a bit different.  For this, you need to look at the interactions and engagements they’ve taken on your website.  Email automation is a great way to ensure you send relevant and timely emails to prospective guests.

For instance, if someone downloads a brochure about the local attractions, send them an email that thanks them for downloading.  Not only will this show you’re active in their decision process, it provides you with the opportunity to deliver them more value.  Now that you know they’re interested in what to do, you can incentivize a booking even more by offering a discount to local attractions.

The great thing about hotel digital marketing is that there are a lot of things that go into a guest booking a room.  There’s the check-in date, the type of room, any amenities you provide over your competitors, and other travel arrangements such as flights and ground transportation.  All of these are great topics to include in your hotel email marketing efforts to further entice guests to book.  It’s all about providing them with a valuable experience they can’t turn down.

The days of sending generalized email blasts are fading away and people are now expecting a personalized experience, especially in their inbox.  As an email marketing agency, we can provide your hotel with dynamic email marketing delivered with a responsive design to ensure your message is delivered loud and clear.  Segmentation is of the utmost importance when it comes to email marketing because it allows you to establish that personal connection with your audience that people strive to find with businesses. 

It’s all about reaching people.  It’s not about broadcasting your message to the masses and hoping 2 or 3% of the population take the bait.  It’s about providing the right people with the right value at the right time.  This is how your hotel marketing will drive direct bookings for your hotel and allow you to deliver a getaway they won’t soon forget.