We’re great fans of email marketing as a platform for getting leads for hotels. It’s cost-effective, offers great ROI, and can be used to promote your hotel’s website – improving its visibility. It’s also a great way to stay in touch with the past, present and future guests. But we also see some hoteliers making a lot of mistakes in their strategy, thus greatly limiting their number of potential guests. We’ve listed some of these errors below in detail. Let’s take a closer look.
 

Mistake #1 - Sending common emails to everyone

A cookie-cutter approach just doesn’t work in online marketing – whether it’s Social Media, Google Ads, or Mailers. Just producing good content is not enough. Your mailers need to be customized and relevant to the unique wants, interests, and desires of different groups of people.

Email marketing services like MailChimp have the option of inbuilt segments, which let you target different segments of readers based on such variables. You can use specific perks and offers according to each type of guests like business travelers, young couples, etc. to attract them to your hotel. This highly targeted content has more chances of getting you guests.
 

Mistake #2 - Using dull subject lines

Around half of email recipients open mails on the basis of just the subject lines. Here are some tips to nail the perfect subject line –

1. Don’t use click baits
   If your audience thinks that your subject is misleading once they read the whole mail, they will most likely ignore future emails.

2. Create urgency
   While teasing the readers with misleading messages is wrong, you can certainly promote limited period offers in your subject line. It’s a tried and proven technique!

3. Avoid spam keywords
   Using certain words like free, click and guaranteed might land your mails in the spam folder. It’s best to stay clear of them. Also, avoid using CAPS.

4. Personalize the subject line
   It’s even better if you can personalize the subject by using the recipient’s name. What’s more, you can even use a sender name to create a stronger connection with the reader.

Mistake #3 - Your emails are not mobile friendly

Here’s a fact – more than half of emails are now opened on mobile phones. This means that along with your brand website, your emails also need to be mobile optimized and responsive.

A mobile optimized email will offer a greater user experience. The reader won’t have to pinch the text and images to read and view properly.

According to MailChimp, making the email more responsive can improve click through rates by about 15%.

Mistake #4 - Not analyzing emails’ effectiveness

To improve your email marketing strategy, nuanced analysis of previous emails is needed. Some important metrics in our experience include click through rates, booking numbers, open rates and bounce rates. For instance, a high open rate but low click-through rate suggests that your subject line and/or segmentation was on point, but the call-to-action or content was not compelling enough.

Eventually, you’ll have to analyze the numbers to improve your marketing strategy.

If done correctly, email marketing can help in getting more visitors to your website, and ultimately increasing your direct revenue. Don’t let any of these mistakes hold you back!