The Importance Of Cadence & Relevance In Hotel Email Marketing

The power of email marketing can be abused
Whoever first made the statement, "You can never have too much of a good thing," clearly didn't live in the time of email. Few people would dispute the value and importance of email – it consistently delivers the best ROI across marketing channels. In fact,‌ ‌hotels‌ ‌can‌ ‌earn‌ ‌as‌ ‌much‌ ‌as‌ ‌$44‌ ‌for‌ ‌each‌ ‌dollar‌ ‌they‌ ‌spend‌ ‌on‌ ‌email‌ ‌marketing - with conversion rates 3 times higher than social media. With these kinds of numbers, it is not surprising that hotels – or any business for that matter, are keen to use email communications to capture additional revenue opportunities as much as possible. But it’s not that simple.

A frequent mistake that hoteliers make is not understanding the frequency in which their guests wish to hear from them. The average consumer receives a lot of email messages every day. So much so that many consumers feel overwhelmed. According to a study from 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 what marketers send on average. The Campaigner researchers found that about three in 10 consumers (29 percent) would like to hear from a brand once per month or less.

Hotel email marketing cadence should reflect the guest journey
Effective email strategies are not only timely but are highly personal, targeted, and crafted with the customers’ objectives in mind. Personalization increases email open rates by 26% - whereas emails that are too general and/or include too many offers, links and multiple calls-to-actions (CTAs) lead to confusion and dilutes their potential for success. By aligning your email send cadence according to your customer’s needs and with personalized content, you increase the likelihood that your customers will engage with your hotel.

The guest journey goes from travel inspiration and research, to booking, pre-arrival, check-in, the stay experience itself and even post-stay. These journey milestones represent opportunities for when you may be able to reach out via email but remember that the “what” and “why” of sending emails is intrinsically linked to the success of both individual messages and the overall campaign. While multiple email communications may be justified in the initial inspiration stage of acquiring a customer, once a guest makes a reservation, email content becomes more important than frequency. Between booking and checkout email efforts such as prearrival and on property communications should shift to focus on providing the customer with additional value add services that compliments their stay.

But that doesn’t mean blitzing the guest with a million offers of all types. To create emails that yield results hoteliers need to be narrow and precise in their offers. For example, after guests have reserved their stay and received their booking confirmation, closer to arrival, hoteliers can heighten the guest experience with a personalized pre-arrival upsell email. The purpose of a pre-arrival email is not only to prepare guests for their stay, but also to get them excited about it. Pre-arrival emails provide a great opportunity to offer room upgrades and early check-in. Once a guest has arrived and is on property, messages should focus on promoting relevant on-site services and events, such as dinner and golf reservation – and should be communicated within a time period that reflects the typical booking window for those venues. Similarly, additional communications such as "sign up for loyalty" should be sent from mid-stay onward and if promoting other locations, these should only be communicated after checkout.

Ultimately, the goal of email marketing should be to reach the point where communications don’t feel like marketing anymore but instead where each interaction provides value to the recipient. And while many different communication possibilities might seem overwhelming and near impossible to achieve, leveraging marketing automation removes the stress and provides a simple yet effective way to enhance the customer journey each step of the way.

Successful email marketing mutually beneficial for both the hotel and the guest
There is no question that email marketing is a cost-effective and powerful method of direct marketing. However, it can also be hugely challenging to get it right. Email marketing is not about filling inboxes with marketing fluff. Email marketing is all about serving your audience. Smart hotels who deliver timely, relevant content with targeted offers and information, not only stand to gain from increase guest satisfaction but also increase revenues.