Many hotels send newsletters or at least already thought about starting doing it. I’d like to review with you today your hotel emailings strategy. Why and to whom sending newsletters? Which tool using for sending it efficiently? Let’s have a closer at it together.
Objectives of your Hotel Newsletter
It’s important to set a clear strategy for your new newsletter, and it starts with a clear goal.
- What is the purpose of your newsletter?
- Whom is it targeting (guests/referents) ?
- Maybe should you consider sending different newsletters for different kind of people? (cf Article: What is your Hotel Customer Segmentation?)
The ultimate purpose is quite clear: to get more bookings by making people having the natural reflex to recommend or book your hotel when they need it. But what is the benefit that your readers get from your newsletter?
- Keeping Tour Operators inform about news of the hotel and the destination?
- Sharing with regular guests good tips and invitations to local events?
- Sending promotions for periods of needs to events agencies?
- Sharing good tips about organizing events & business trips to Corporate Executive Assistants?
- …
How getting more subscribers?
First, as I was saying above, maybe should you consider to send different newsletters to different kind of people. It will be very important then to manage well your lists of contacts. For example, add a column in your excel spreadsheet to differentiate regular corporate guests, to their executive assistants who are doing the booking, to tour operators or travel agencies contacts, etc…
They are many ways to get new subscribers, and you can be creative concerning this point. The most popular one is the “newsletter subscription” button on your website or even Facebook Page, or even through the Hotel WIFI connection for in-house guests. But I don’t really what is the point of each of them. The first people to subscribe through your website are going to be rather your competitors doing benchmark than any other kind of interesting contacts… And why would all your in-house guests want to get a newsletter for you? They might just being in your hotel for the first and last time of their life as they were traveling punctually by your city!
The most interesting and efficient way are during face to face contacts. E-mails can come from the Reception, the Restaurant, the Sales Department. But here again, you should be clear again when briefing your team. Which kind of contacts are you going to collect for which kind of newsletters?
Keep in mind, that you should not subscribe people without their willing. You don’t want to become this company who spams its customers. Is there anything more annoying?! It’s better to have less subscribers, but keeping a clean list of quality contacts. And thanks to Mailchimp tool (cf below), people can easily unsubscribe from the mailing list without feeling harassed.
Mailchimp, the Magical Tool
Are you still sending e-mailings using the carbon copy of your mailbox? Let me introduce you to “MailChimp”, your new monkey bestfriend! MailChimp is the best solution on the market (according to me!) to create, send and track email newsletters. The interface is very user-friendly. No need to download any software, it’s all online. And you can manage a listing up to 2,000 contacts and send up to 12,000 emails monthly for free.
I do manage my personal newsletter through MailChimp, and it works super well. Have you subscribed to the weekly newsletter of my Hospitality Tour through Latin America yet? It’s not too late, follow this link!