The digital age is a boon for marketing in the travel and hotel industry. It makes promotion and communication easier than ever before. Through the personalized medium of email, it is even more easier and safer to communicate for hotel bookings. However, as with any other innovation, hotel email marketing can also be misused for illegal and suspicious activities. Therefore, it is important to learn how to go about hotel email marketing in the right way.
First and foremost, in the process of any medium of marketing it is important to gain the trust of the consumer, which in turn raises the respect that customers will have for the company. Even if the marketing for a hotel is done through the personalized form of email, the company should exude a high degree of professionalism. This professionalism includes a detailed and friendly(but not over-friendly) approach to advertising the product, in this case the hotel. One of the foremost rules in business is that one has to remember that the customer is smarter than the seller. Therefore, there is no use trying to rope in customers through tall claims, especially through the form of email marketing, where the potential customer is free to ignore the marketing email just by reading its title.
Which brings us to the subject of naming the promotional email. The whole business of copywriting is to come up with catchy and persuasive lines and phrases that interest the customer and persuade him to buy the product. The same goes for email marketing for hotels. If the hotel already has a sophisticated theme and promotional package, the marketing email can work along those lines. The idea is to be very direct and yet persuade the email recipient to read more and even consider the offer that the hotel informs them about through the email. The subject of the email should not be boring or cliched. It should not be shocking or provocative, which might draw the recipient’s attention, but won’t necessarily win his or her trust and respect for the hotel one is marketing for.
Next, the body of the promotional email should be simple and lucid, as the online reader has a very low attention span. The theme of the email could match with the marketing theme of the hotel. It should definitely contain the contact details of the hotel- its address, phone number, email address. It should, most obviously, contain the link to the hotel’s website. No excess information is required. Other pop-up ads are again things that the email recipient will be annoyed by and will avoid, and so to maintain a safe and classy marketing campaign for one’s hotel, avoid other promotional ads.
Lastly, do not try to tempt the potential customer with unrealistic offers. There are many tourism companies who try to fool customers through tempting offers which hide their sinister ulterior motives. Efficient websites like Google have means to classify such marketing emails as spam, but poor marketing can also spoil the image of genuine hotel campaigns and might result in being classified as spam.
Travel Spike is the leader in interactive online travel and tourism. Travel Spike works with hospitality companies and travel clients and offers custom marketing and technology solutions for CVBs, tourism boards, and DMOs. We are interactive travel experts with experience in Web 2.0 media, social media marketing, hotel email marketing, search engine optimization, marketing, advertising, and public relations. We work with travel, tourism, hospitality companies and travel suppliers all in the digital realm.
By Tanuj M