3 different types of email marketing your hotel has to be sending

We work with great hotels and we provide them with the email marketing they need to deliver a top-quality experience to their guests and ensure they see a significant return on investment. As someone who travels frequently, enjoys spending time in luxury hotels and has been working at the leading edge of email marketing for the last fifteen years, I know what works, what doesn't and what will get you the best results.

And despite many predictions to the contrary, email marketing is alive, well and more successful than ever thanks to sophisticated automation and dynamic content. The latest figures from research carried out in the US shows email delivers a $38 return for every dollar spent. If you don't have an comprehensive email marketing strategy in place for your hotel then you're missing out on the low hanging fruit.

"We absolutely see a return on investment with the emails Jarrang send out for us. We've seen month on month growth both in terms of interaction with our emails and traffic they send to our website which obviously then converts to bookings." - Sarah Moon, Marketing Manager, The Royal Crescent Hotel

So what does your email marketing for your hotel need to do? First and foremost, it needs to bring in bookings, it needs to be personalised and relevant to your guests and it needs to be delivered in the most effective way. If it does this it will bring with it the added bonus of ensuring guests book straight with you rather than through an OTA or a third-party.

In order to do this you need to have good data. Data is key to delivering automated and personalised messages. How well you know your guests and how effectively you use their data is a huge factor in determining how successful your hotel is.With the right data you can ensure you send the right message to the right guests and the right time. Once your data is good to go, you need to then start sending the following emails:

Pre-stay

There are a number of pre-stay emails you should be sending. To start with make sure your guest receives a confirmation email with the details of their booking, any relevant information they need to know and a thank you from you.

From here you can then begin to build the excitement and the anticipation of their visit with a series of emails which do everything from upselling your other services (like spa treatments or dinner) to simply providing them with information on everything they can see and do when they stay with you.

Post-stay

The aftercare you give your guests is just as important as the attention you give them before they arrive. A simple 'Thank you for your stay' email sent the day after they leave you is a great way of keeping your guests engaged. It's also the perfect opportunity to ask for feedback, ask them to leave a review or even offer them a discount on their next stay.

The great thing about pre and post stay emails is they can easily be automated and personalised so will require minimum input from you or your team.

Great offers

You'll likely run an offer at some point during the year and email is the best way of putting this in front of your guests. Time and again we see strong, offer-led emails consistently performing well. And it's here you can do clever things with data, from targeting guests local to you to those who know would be interested in a spa break, as an example.

And of course all of these different emails can be personalised using dynamic content based on data that's readily available in your property management system. For example, promote dinner reservations to those people who have only booked B&B.

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A great hotel should have great email marketing. We've worked with some of the finest hotels and hotel groups in the country for over a decade and we know we can deliver the goods.