Nowadays there are many tools and channels for online marketing in the travel and tourism industry – from the compulsory social networks and platforms for online reviews to paid advertising websites, etc. Amid all of them the email marketing can remain in the background but it shouldn’t be.
Email marketing for hotels, restaurants and travel agencies is one of the most effective mechanisms for attracting new and retaining regular customers, for brand promotion and increasing direct sales.
That’s why we are going to show you the following 5 tips for effective email marketing in the travel industry:
1. Increase your email subscribers organically
For a successful online marketing in the travel industry it is important to target our message to the right customers. With email marketing this can be achieved by increasing our subscribers only organically, i.e. with real, interested in travelling people.
The voluntary obtained email address ensures that we are communicating with the right person. In order to stimulate our guests to leave their emails we can add the necessary plugin on our website, to put a place for emails on our surveys in the hotel rooms or to ask for them during check out. That way every guest interested in our offers can be added to the list.
2. Create and follow an email marketing schedule
The effective email marketing in the travel or related industry is the consistent one. Our strategy should follow a certain time frames and regularity. All that can be done with the help of an email marketing schedule.
That is necessary for every hotelier because if we send emails too often we will be annoying. If we do it too rarely, our clients will forget about us. That’s why we should examine how often and when we should send email newsletters. All that depends on our online marketing plan and the content and goals of the emails.
3. Use email automation
The good thing about online marketing tools is that many of them can be automated. We have this option with email marketing, too. There are compulsory emails which every subscriber should receive but we can’t send manually every time. Here comes the role of the automated emails – for new subscription, a week before check-in, after check-out, weekly newsletters, periodic special offers, etc.
4. Use personalized massage
In order to create a real bond with the email subscribers and to win their trust we should personalize our messages as much as possible. We can also divide our contacts in different groups – loyal customers, potential customers, business travellers and others. That way we can target our emails more successfully.
5. Optimize for mobile phones
Many people nowadays check their emails on the go with their smartphones. That’s why it is essential to optimize our content for mobile devices. Many platforms for email newsletters offer optimized email templates we can use. It is also good to avoid large images and long paragraphs, to use simple and short sentences and appropriate font.