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Ready to start an Email Marketing Campaign? Before you get started actually creating your email campaign and designing the layout of your email, you first need to think about the purpose of the campaign and what you are trying to achieve.
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The types of things you need to think about include:
What Am I Trying To Achieve?
This is where you think about the purpose and goals of your email marketing campaign. You may have a long-term goal, whereby you want to communicate with your customers on a regular basis to keep them informed of the latest offers, new services you have added to the hotel, and so on. Alternatively, you may have a short-term goal where your occupancy level is low in the last 2 weeks in October and you want to increase bookings by offering a last-minute deal.
Who Do I Want To Target in my Email Marketing Campaign?
Identify who you want to send the email. Your existing customers, such as, families or couples who have stayed with you before. You may even want to split up all your e-mail subscribers to groups and tailor communication based on the group.
How Will I Get People To Subscribe To My Mailing List?
By law, you have to get specific permission from people to send them a marketing email. This is sometimes referred to as an “opt-in” and there are many ways you can get people to subscribe (or opt-in) to your mailing list. For example, you could have a sign-up form on your home page so that people can subscribe to your newsletter.
Alternatively, you can build it in as part of the purchase process where you suggest to your customer to give their consent to receive further communication from you while they are making a booking on your website.
How Frequently Will I Send These Emails?
How frequently you send out your emails will depend on their type and purpose. For example, you may send out special offer and promotional emails as and when they are available, whereas you may send out a newsletter once a month. But try and keep the number of promotional communications to a minimum (1-2 a month) as too many emails could potentially annoy and alienate your subscribers causing them to unsubscribe.
Calls To Action
This is what you want to get the reader to do once they have read your email. When designing your email you need to lay out exactly what you want the recipients of your email to do. Design it to make that path clear and easy to follow. For example, don’t distract with too many links or offers. Make not only the call to action clear but also what recipients can expect when they click through. This can be as simple as “Click here for a 20% discount on your next weekend trip”.
Landing Pages Once you have gotten your readers to click on your call to action or one of the other links in your email, you want to make sure that the page you direct them to on your website provides the reader with information relating to the link. This will help increase your chances of converting the click into a purchase.
Email Marketing Tips And Tricks
- Address Recipients with Their Name in Email Campaigns — personalize your marketing emails to greet and address recipients individually with their name. Often, you will use the first name only, but for some campaigns, the last name will be more appropriate.
- Pick the right time of year to send your emails — avoid marketing during the holidays. People tend to be away from their computers and not check their email regularly. This means that they will probably get your message when they return together with a ton of other emails that has piled up during the holidays. Chances are all but the most important messages will be deleted in a rush, without a second look.
- Keep your newsletter relevant, short, and interesting. Always include at least one image to brighten up the newsletter. Use an interesting subject, a question that can increase open rates e.g. “Would you like a weekend treat with a 50% discount?”
- If you start off sending it monthly, stick to this. Make sure you keep the rhythm going.
While there are plenty of good email services to chose from, the one I like is AWeber. They have an easy to use platform, with a large variety of templates to choose from, while allowing you to automate sending emails. They’re a great option for affiliate marketers. Once you know how to plan your Email Marketing Campaign, you can decide which service best meets your need.