In 2020&2021 with Covid, the main challenge of the Hotels is lower demand. Libertel, a group of 5 luxury Hotels in Paris, targeted the business clients that struggled a lot during 2020 and 2021. Their goal was to stay close to their usuals guests.
Libertel closed most of their Hôtels during Covid-19, but they didn’t give up. Their resilience comes from a simple yet effective marketing tool: e-mails campaigns. How can you connect deeply with your guests using email campaigns?
Hotel campaigns do work...even during covid times.
Hotel campaigns do work, and you do not need an expert to do it. This isn’t another story of how to employ the best staff to get the best work. Libertel didn’t employ a marketing guru to succeed in connecting deeper with their guests. In fact, it was their revenue manager who did most of the job. But what kind of content did they send ?
Your best content is you, and Libertel knows it. The group is deeply attached to France’s history. The staff welcomes you “à la française” and when entering the hall, you can feel the romantic warmth of Paris. Naturally, they take pride in providing the best service possible for their guests, and that comes with a great marketing communication plan.
The second best content is your client. The first step to connect with your guest is to know them. Unlike most Hôtels, Libertel didn’t let their data sit around. They used the data from their traditional PMS (Jazotel) and the best in class CRM tool that connects with Jazotel: HotelAppz. Doing this allows them to tag & organize their guests, to develop targeted emails, which increases the probability of the guest opening & reading their emails.
Pierre Burignat, the director of Libertel:” To send the best campaigns, we had to prepare great quality news. We decided to send 13 campaigns, which may not seem a lot, but was very efficient”. They have an open rate of 30%. For a successful campaign, your average email open rate should be between 15-25%. This also allowed libertel to increase their direct bookings.
The secrets to a (very) good hotel campaign
The revenue manager uses her guest data to create targeted & impactful e-campaigns, how can you do the same?
Firstly, you have to define your target audience because a good campaign is a hyper-targeted one with a message addressed to a certain group of guests. Libertel is focused on business travellers. Separating their guests according to how often they booked was a key point in their success. Regular guests need to know about Covid-19 restrictions and rules, while less regular guests need that extra-boost to book. Make sure to take that in consideration when building your campaigns timeline.
Last but not least, look out for the small details. Use the right language and the right currency. And as Pierre Burignat said, take special care in your message. A little goes a long way in Hospitality, a simple touch of personalization can get you a brand new loyal guest to welcome every year in your Hotel.
Having an automated platform that can segment & personalize your campaigns on multiple levels, increases your chances of a winning hotel campaign. With this kind of platform, the marketing team will only have to focus on the contents and their translations. They will gain time and ultimately, you will gain an organized & usable database to connect deeper with your guests.
