How to make your emails work harder.

(Email-A-Palooza, Part Two)

There’s a lot we can say about how to make emails more effective. Here is some of it.


On beyond emails. If someone clicks your email, don’t just dump them out onto your home page or booking engine. After all, they are saying “tell me more.” So tell ‘em more.

We like the idea of taking them to a landing page that expands on your message. It’s also a gateway to get them to poke around the site itself. You know “as long as I’m here . . ."

The subject counts. People read things that interest them. Sometimes it happens to be an email. So make your subject line interesting and intriguing. It’s like the headline of your ad. Remember, you’re competing for attention with everybody from Home Depot to HBO Max to local pizza shops and every “your rich uncle died” scammer who ever lived.

Creativity counts, too. This should go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway. When you do send out that “third night free” email, make it creative. Differentiate yourself right here, right now. Again, people read what interests them. You watch Super Bowl commercials, right?

Have a reason to be. Although your emails – like everything else you say about yourself – should reflect your Brand and what is unique about you, please don’t send out emails that just sort of say “we’re a hotel in town.” That’s like mumbling. Give your readers a reason to go a little further, like to your website. A little urgency never hurt, either.

Do it and do it and do it some more. You don’t want to send anybody too many emails too often unless your goal is to see how many people you can get to opt out and how fast. But you do want to do it on a regular basis. Again, (we never get tired of saying this) your email is advertising, and advertising works best when you do it on a consistent basis.

Here comes the self-serving part. The best way to accomplish all this – and more – is to hire a professional creative firm to do your emails for you. A "digital marketing firm” that has a complex email delivery program is more of a tech firm than a creative firm. Their delivery systems are usually top-notch, but they’re also not usually in the creativity business.

And “creativity is the last unfair advantage we're legally allowed to take over our competitors.” 

Even in emails.

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Some thoughts on emails

 A few observations about emails

(Email-A-Palooza, Part One)

Whether those of us who loved doing those glossy magazine ads like it or not, advertising for hotels and resorts is a different animal than it used to be.

Those half- and full-page ads have become, for the most part, cubes and leaderboards, two to three inches to a side. Another change is that email is used more and more, as an affordable vehicle – especially for independent hotels and resorts who don’t have the deep pockets of the big chains.

But it’s important to recognize that if emails, like small digital ads, are a big part of your marketing program, it’s still advertising, just like those glossy magazine ads — the goals and obstacles are exactly the same. Only the channel is different. 

So it makes good sense to put as much strategic and creative thought into those emails as we all once did in media advertising. 

Unfortunately, while almost every hotel on the planet has some sort of means for signing up for an email list not every hotel takes advantage of it.

Some observations:

Because we specialize in hospitality, we sign up for a lot of those lists, and it’s surprising how few emails we get. Not even a “thanks for signing up.” This is a missed opportunity to engage.

It’s also surprising how many properties don’t require anything but an email address when even just a zip code can be an immense help in sending out segmented campaigns. The goal is not necessarily just to gather a lot of emails, but to gather a lot of useful emails. An email all by its lonesome isn’t as useful as one with a name and zip code attached.

Because emails linked to your booking engine can enhance direct bookings, they can be a huge revenue source. We know this from experience.

Point is, with reduced budgets, GMs and DOMs are looking for to spend less to communicate with potential guests. Email can be a good way to do it. 

But only if you use it. 

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 Advertising is like toothpaste.

How often have you seen someone befuddled on the toothpaste aisle of the drugstore?

You've been there. We've all been there. Way too many choices, like so many things that are over-complicated. The array of marketing tools and providers available to a hotel or resort is no less confusing.

And these days with tight budgets, you can’t just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. You've got to go with what's going to get you the biggest bang for your buck. Fortunately, Bob Hoffman of The Ad Contrarian is here to offer clear, straightforward advice:

"Look for the agencies that make the best ads. All the rest is trivial."

It's hard to argue with that. No matter how great your property is, if nobody notices what you say about yourself, they're not going to get very excited about clicking over to your website or booking a room. And they probably won't care much about your discounted rate offer, either.

With the myriad of tools out there – nearly every one of them fronted by a really good salesperson – the main purpose of advertising gets lost in the metrics-and-analytics-and-keywords-and-so-on shuffle.

And that main purpose is to demand attention to your message, no matter what channel you're using.

We could easily go on and on about the value of creative advertising, but we'll leave you with another quote from Bob Hoffman:

"It doesn't matter how well you sing if no one hears you."

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