2019 has officially begun! Have you wished your beloved customers a Happy New Year? Or maybe given them some suggestions for their ‘travel bucket list’ this year? By the way, making some resolutions about your email marketing campaigns could also be a great way to start off your New Year. In fact, here are some ideas that might help you keep your marketing resolutions throughout the entire year. Let’s get started!
1. Personalize the way you write
The rule of thumb is to make your communication sound as much like 1-on-1 as possible. So, pretend that you walking up to one of your guests and then ask yourself, what and how would you speak to them if you were really standing face to face?
Let’s push personalization beyond just a name. Change the writing style, avoid business jargon, make it more casual (but not too much), ask some questions to trigger answers, put some Call To Action (CTA) buttons to trigger reactions, etc.
Using a personal approach rather than a brand approach would be a cool idea to optimize communication effectiveness. The most recommended points to put such a personal touch are email address, subject line, preheader text and greetings. You might just skip an email when you see it coming from “Marriott Awards”, but to give it the maximum chance to be read, try something like “Hi Todd, this is Claire from…”. You see that personalization will change a lot.
To wrap up, there are varying ways to make the tone of your conversation more friendly and less “branded”, as long as you keep it consistent with your hotel’s personality.
2. Personalized visuals
As they say: “A picture is worth a thousand words”. And the fact that people tend to be more sensitive to visuals than to texts, it is even more important to add a layer of personalization.
An easy but effective example of utilizing this insight is when you use a pictures of your guest, which can be obtained from guest profiles that are stored in your CRM database. Make sure that the picture looks good on the whole design, and don’t forget to give its presence a relevant reason. For example, an e-postcard with your guest’s picture on it for his / her birthday, why not? Plus, if you use a cool design, the guest very well might post it on Facebook or Instagram. And you will be the one who wins the most.
More ideas for personalized imaginary? A picture of their location, or a photo of some events that occured around the time they visited your hotel, and much more are waiting for your own creativity.
3. Personalized contents
No matter what you include in your mailings, a discount offer, a travel recommendation, a pre-stay message, or just a welcome greeting; it could and should be personalized. The simple reason is that email content needs to be meaningful to that specific guest, otherwise it’s just a waste, or even worse, a spam mail. Your guests do not care about how generous your offer is, they care about how it fits their needs.
You might want investigate some behavioral tracking softwares to get insights through indicators like open and click rates, time on site, etc. Plus, make sure your CRM database is rich and totally segmentable (down to the individual guest). With those tools in place, you will be able to customize messaging to your individual customers.
4. Remember their languages
What is the point of sending an email if it is not understandable to the recipient? English might be the default language and the easy way out. But it would obviously be better and more appreciated by your guests, if you spend a bit more time to send them emails in their mother languages. By doing this, it not only shows your guests that you genuinely remember them, but it also makes it easy for them to grasp the information and messages. That will always work to your advantage.
5. Personalized scheduling
Sometimes the line between a successful email and forgotten one is all about timing. When is the best time to send an email resulting in the highest opening rates? When will your guest most likely be thinking about travel? Could it be around the traditional holiday season in his / her country or some other time? Just like the case for personalizing content, behavior tracking tools and a rich CRM database are what you need to analyse, anticipate insights, in addition to utilizing email scheduling to optimize conversion rates.
And it all starts with (big) data!
A quality CRM guest data hub (database) is an essential ingredient to get the ball rolling.
By using HotelAppz’s as part of your hotel’s technology stack (ecosystem), every customer profile will be complete, organized, and segmentable. HotelAppz collects data from multiple sources (PMS, Channel Managers, e-reputation / social media, chatbots, and much more). Then the guest profiles are deduplicated and standardized in a single user-friendly dashboard. In addition, the database can be enriched by integrating with other third-party data sources (Remember: Always Demand Freedom of Integration).
In addition, HotelAppz gives Marketing Managers a powerful filtering system to create flexible, very targeted, customers lists and that are used for different email marketing ideas. Therefore, you’re able to personalize a message to address an individual guest.
Ultimately this is the kind of CRM solutions that your email marketing campaigns should be looking for and make sure that your New Year’s resolutions come true. Right? Visit our website or get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help you personalize your marketing campaigns.
