Originally published in AAHOA Lodging Business, June 2008

E-MAIL MARKETING

Effective e-mail marketing will help you book rooms and build relationships.
Anil Aggarwal

E-mail marketing is one of the most effective communication and promotion vehicles in the Internet marketplace. Ninety percent of Internet users and fifty-six percent of all Americans use email on a regular basis (source: eMarketeer.com,  August 2006). Hotels benefit from e-mail marketing because it is fast, direct, cost-effective, and builds loyal relationships. It is one of the lowest cost channels available to the lodging industry to book rooms and build customer relationships. High quality e-mail campaigns can deliver effective messaging that drives action and manages customer relationships.

Building Reputation And Credibility

E-mail marketing practices establish your hotel’s image and reputation in the minds of those who receive your campaign messages. By following simple guidelines and practices, you can run more effective e-mail campaigns and ultimately enhance your reputation.

Permission E-mail Versus Spamming

Permission e-mail operates on the premise that the recipient of your message has established a relationship with you by indicating an interest in your product or offer. Spamming is sending unsolicited commercial e-mail using broadcast methods to multiple recipients without first establishing a relationship with them and without regard to their interest. Spamming is not permissible by law and is also ineffective because you are marketing to people who are not likely interested in your product and are unaware of your presence.

Valid Sender E-mail

The sender e-mail address should be a genuine e-mail address. Recipients of the e-mail should see the address and respond to the e-mail by hitting ‘reply’ on their e-mail applications.

Unsubscribe

Make sure that all the e-mails you send have a clear “Unsubscribe” link that recipients can click and choose not to get future mailings. While it may seem counter-intuitive, this technique ensures that people do not regard your campaigns as spam.

Four Steps to Effective E-mail Marketing

1.  Permission-based E-mail Database

2. Develop E-mail Marketing Plan

3. Send E-mail Campaigns

4. Track and Monitor Results

1. Building A Permission-Based E-mail Database

For effective e-mail marketing, it’s important for a hotel to develop a targeted, permission-based database. E-mail addresses can be collected either on the hotel Web site or at the front desk when hotel guests check in or out.

Create an opt-in form on your Web site so visitors to your site can sign up for specials and promotional offers. You may want to offer an incentive to sign up, such as an entry into a raffle drawing for a gift basket or a percentage off their room rate. It’s good to ask the visitor to specify their area of interest, such as weddings, group meetings, skiing, or wine-tasting so that you can segment your e-mail database by interest. This is especially
useful in sending out targeted campaigns that meet the interests of your guests. For example, you may choose to send out an e-mail special offering ski specials only to the guests who have expressed an interest in skiing. Once a guest hits “Send” on the opt-in form, they receive an e-mail confirmation stating that they have been added to your mailing list. If they are not interested in getting e-mail specials, they can simply “unsubscribe.” Guests who do not unsubscribe become part of your powerful marketing tool — the opt-in email list.

In addition to collecting addresses on your web site, you can also collect e-mail addresses at your front desk during check in or check out. Ask guests for permission on an opt-in card to send specials by e-mail. If you have treated your guests well, they will likely want to hear about your future specials. Ask the front desk staff (or night auditors) to enter the information of that guest on the Web site form. By following this process, you make sure all the addresses are being collected in the central database and they are legitimate e-mail addresses following the opt-in process.

2. Developing Your E-mail Marketing Plan

Once you have a practical sized e-mail database, you are ready to conduct e-mail campaigns. We have observed that most hotels will get a reasonable return on their investment if the e-mail database is more than 200. Of course, higher is better. In this step you decide the type and frequency of the campaigns. From our perspective, there are two kinds of campaigns that you can send:

• e-Cards

• e-Newsletters

E-Cards are campaigns that promote a specific special or item. Some campaigns that we have found to be effective for the lodging industry include: Spa Specials, Ski Packages, Park and Fly Packages, Mother’s Day Specials, Thanksgiving Specials, Holiday Specials, and Christmas Specials. E-Newsletters contain multiple specials and news items.

The frequency at which you send out your campaigns depends on your aggressiveness and amount of effort. We typically recommend sending one campaign a month or less. Sending campaigns more often could alienate some consumers on your list, although several hotels will send out campaigns every two weeks.

Design And Content Of Campaigns.

The design and content of e-campaigns are perhaps the most difficult part for hotels. Some hotels with an in-house designer and programming capabilities will develop their own campaigns. Most hotels will use their e-marketing agency for the design of the campaigns but will provide the content. Some e-marketing agencies, like Milestone, are set-up to be full-service and will provide content ideas as well as the design.

3. Sending Campaigns

A critical component of sending campaigns is determining which e-mail marketing tool to employ. There are several utilities that can be used to send campaigns depending on the cost and capabilities of the systems. Some criteria for selecting e-campaign systems are:

In-House Versus Outsourced.

Most hotels face the decision of outsourcing their campaign to an agency or doing it in-house. If the hotel has resources, reasonable knowledge of HTML programming, and design capabilities, there are several solutions available that hoteliers can use to send out campaigns. If the hotel decides to do this internally, it’s important to evaluate the usability of the systems available. There are some systems available that will enable the hotel to send out campaigns with relative ease.

Several hotels prefer an agency to set up the system for them so the hotel can send out the campaigns independently. Mixed mode systems where the agency sets up the campaigns for the hotel and the actual sending of the campaigns is done directly by the hotel are effective in lowering the costs. These solutions are fairly sophisticated, hence scarce, and can be procured from e-mail marketing agencies.

4. Tracking Your Campaigns

Most good quality email tools have sophisticated reports available that will relate the effectiveness of your campaigns. These tools give you information regarding the number of recipients who opened the e-mails, how many unsubscribed, and several other statistics related to the effectiveness of your campaigns.

More effective reports indicate which consumer clicked on which link of your email campaign. This gives you insight into the minds of your readers as well as their behavior. It also points to particular specials in your campaigns that are most effective.

Tools that are more sophisticated allow you to set up a system that allows a follow-up e-mail with specials and packages to be sent to consumers that click on a related link. This feature is particularly effective when sending multiple specials and you want to send out more targeted campaigns after gaining a better understanding of your target audience.

Using E-mail Marketing To Upsell

E-mail marketing can be used effectively to up-sell your hotel. Sending guests an e-mail before their arrival that highlights your specials and packages offers an immense opportunity to increase the revenue generated per customer. State-of-the-art technologies will enable you to automate the process where every reservation received from all sources — property direct, Internet booking engine, and central reservation systems (CRS) — can get such an e-mail. Branded properties should exercise caution since some of the brands already send such e-mails to guests and the hotel should not duplicate the effort.

E-mail Marketing Builds Relationships And Gets Feedback

Some hotels and brands send their guests a post-stay survey to obtain feedback about their stay. This helps to build customer relationships and also understand guest preferences. Online surveys offer instant feedback to your hotel.

E-mail marketing is a critical piece of the integrated online marketing puzzle. E-mail campaigns, when conducted effectively, can generate significant return on investment, build strong customer relationships, and help hotels better understand their customers. Branded properties should check brand guidelines before embarking on e-mail marketing. We recommend that hotels use this powerful distribution media extensively to book more rooms and build long-lasting customer relationships.

Anil Aggarwal is a General Partner at Milestone Internet Marketing, a provider of Internet marketing solutions for the lodging industry. Milestone’s portfolio of services includes developing online strategy, web site design, search engine marketing, pay-per-click marking, e-mail marketing and Web 2.0 services including blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts. For more information, please call (888) 350-8396 or visit www.milestoneinternet.com.