Newsletter for hospitality

How to keep in touch with customers?

Most hoteliers will focus on current and future quests, but not many think about the quests that have just left. ‘ Thank you for coming’ note is a good idea, but as soon as people pass the doorway they are being forgotten by the hotels.

That is when email marketing becomes  a helpful tool. Guests  can be reminded and updated in a non-invasive way.  There is a golden rule, where quality is imperative.  There is no point in sending general informative messages twice a day to people who are not interested. Such messages may eventually end up on a ‘ spam’  list.

It is true that the more we know about our quests, the easier it becomes to fulfil their needs. In the Digital World – this is the proper strategy.  What do our quests like and expect ?  What do they dislike?  How we can attract them to read our offer?  Segmentation is the key to success as we try to reach as many customers as possible.

For example,  a  SPA weekend offer  message  could  be sent to all quests,  but surely only woman at certain ages would be more interested in it, than – let’s say a 85 year old Mr. John!  There is no harm sending such messages to John,  but it would be much better to address him with some offers more suitable to his age and tastes.

Is it worth it?

Preparation of a good newsletter is time consuming.  Is it worth it?  According to data,  66% of customers have made a purchase as a result of an email they have received. An email is almost 40 times better at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter.

Where to start?

Even an experienced marketing staff member will not know more about your favourite Hotel than you yourself.  Is it important to write down who your customers are ?  Where do they come from? What is the added value?  And so on.  Such simple answers would help to obtain important facts about this business.  The preparation of Newsletters require quite some effort and time, so it would be beneficial to appoint a separate marketing person looking after it. However,  there is plenty of agencies who willingly would take care of this. Sometimes companies that offer Reservation Systems simultaneously offer a marketing bundle including a newsletter campaign and digital marketing support.

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