Retention
In this section we show how to engage with your customer through newsletters and how to make reviews work for you
Engage with your clientele through newsletters
Sending a newsletter can be a great tool to increase revenue, especially when you want guests to return to your business. However, the content of your newsletter has to be relevant to the receiver. When you mostly have one time visitors, for instance because they are internationally travellers on a holiday, it is not likely that an email about local events will generate any revenue. In that case it might work better to send them a friends and family coupon that they can give to somebody else.
There are several email types you can send. For instance: 10 ways to increase bookings and sales with email marketing.
How to grow subscribers
To gain subscribers there are a easy tips you can do:
Make clear that there are some great benefits suchs as a discount on their first stay or a free upgrade
Add a ‘subscribe’ feature to your website
Ask guests at check in to optin to the newsletter (and check whether you have a valid email address)
Offer a free printable guide or an other incentive when they subscribe
Legal limitations
Keep in mind that there are rules in who you can send a newsletter that vary per country. In general, once you have a paid relationship you are allowed to send commercial messages as long as people can easily unsubscribe with a link in the email. To be on the safe side, it's best to have a clear consent from the guest that he wants to receive your email (also known as an opt-in).
For guests that book via an OTA you receive an encrypted email address from the OTA that allows you to communicate with the guest up to three weeks after checkout. Afterwards the email address becomes invalid. To continue to communicate with them, you have to ask their email address, for instance during check in.
To gain loyal subscribers that read
Create content that your guests love
Send it at the right time
Want to learn more?
How to kickstart your hotel email newsletter.
What tools can you use?
There are several tools that make it easy to send out newsletters. Some common ones are Mailchimp and Sendinblue. It is best to use a newsletter tool instead of your Outlook or Gmail, for a couple of reasons:
You can store and manage your email opt-ins
You can create email templates with the look and feel of your business
You can easily create beautiful newsletters including images and book buttons
Newsletter receivers can unsubscribe or change preferences with a link on the bottom of the email
You can create segments when sending out newsletters, for instance only to guests that stayed this year, only to people that opened the previous email or only guests that have their language set to English.
Most newsletter tools offer website widgets that you can place on your own site to generate email subscribers.
This is an overview of newsletter tools including a comparison.
Questions to ask
Will a newsletter be worthwhile for your business?
What would be the main goal for your email campaigns?
Do you have a database where you keep track of guest data and newsletter opt-ins?
How could you generate more email opt-ins?
How frequently would you want to send a newsletter?
What email tool would you use?
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