Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a relationship with your subscribers? If you’re sending an email newsletter, turns out you already do. In a previous article we’ve covered the first steps to take to kickstart your newsletter, now let’s get into more details.
Keeping in touch with your clients is an advantage of your relationship with the market. Newsletters feel personal because they arrive in users’ inboxes, and users have an ongoing relationship with them.
Because the travel and tourism space remains extremely competitive, it’s important for individual hotels to establish and maintain a competitive advantage in their marketing efforts.
Put content marketing to work for your hotel
One increasingly important way of doing this is to recognize what content marketing is and how to integrate it into your overall marketing efforts. Content marketing is the active process of creating relevant content with the end goal of attracting your target market’s eye, mind and pocketbook.
In order to have successful content you need to follow some instructions:
- Research the reader – Client Profile
This may seem like a given, but many times hoteliers, especially as launch time nears, find themselves pressed for time and attending to a million other details. The basic step of figuring out whom your web content addresses gets lost in the shuffle.
Before considering content for a website or social media channel, you need to go back to the basics and identify who exactly you need to and will be talking to — business guests, leisure travelers, retirees, families with kids, your clients may be males or females and even the age can make a difference
You then need to take that knowledge and actively generate content that appeals to the identified groups of people or individuals.
- Set content marketing goals
Once you’ve determined who your target is, it’s important to know why you are developing content for them.
Keith Wiegold, with the Content Marketing Institute, sums up points one and two when he says:
“A key to engaging content is put the customer first, to solve her problems and answer his questions. This requires understanding their beliefs, feelings, wants and needs.”
- Start with a professional blog on your website
You wouldn’t skimp on carpeting and furnishings for your hotel’s lobby, so why let an amateur craft the online image of your hotel?
Poorly written, unorganized copy will have site visitors bouncing from your site like a red rubber ball. Invest the time and money to hire a professional who can showcase your hotel.
- Add only professional photography
Perhaps the only thing worse than site content written by an amateur is photography shot by an amateur.
- Use professional videography and virtual tours
Guests want to see exactly what they are getting when they book a room online. Highlight the hotel’s exterior, public spaces, dining facilities, meeting rooms, guestrooms and bathrooms when shooting videos and developing virtual tours.
- Use words that sell
Sell the experience of staying at your hotel. Remember you are selling more than just a place to sleep. You are selling a weekend getaway or a seamless business trip. But also sell your image, tradition behind your business
Find words that define your brand and enliven the experience of visiting your location.
- Tell your story
Connect all of the outstanding elements of your hotel so that they tell a story both visually and verbally. Take guests on a journey through your hotel from exterior to guest room using properly ordered photographs that hit the hotel’s highpoints.
- Be unique
Each hotel has unique features that set it apart from all the rest. Is it your exceptional customer service and freshly baked cookies? Your outstanding location? Your free shuttle service?
Your world-class restaurants? Help your guests discover what makes your hotel special.
- Educate guests
Your clients are not visiting your hotel to enjoy themselves, so tell them the details and attractions of your nearby area.
- Hotel details
Make sure your copy has all the details guests want about location, rooms, services, in-house dining and more. If you have washers and dryers in the rooms, clearly state that on the room’s page.
If you have free coffee in the lobby, make it known. Guests research and make decisions based on amenities, so leaving something out doesn’t give the guest the full picture of what your hotel offers.
Leading SEO site Seomoz calls this definitive content.
“Definitive Content educates people so, with their expanded knowledge can engage in conversation and make informed decisions. This content is educational. People who are searching for information have already identified that they’re not comfortable making uninformed decisions. They’re looking for ‘the answer’.”
- Local activities and events
Take time to research the hotel’s local area and include nearby attractions and activities that guests can enjoy during their free time. Be sure to include local events and remember to update events at least quarterly.
Your newsletter is an integral part of your content marketing strategy
Now that we covered the main aspects you you should pay attention to when crafting your content marketing strategy let’s go deeper and see why you should consider have a hotel newsletter.
Here are 4 reasons you might want to consider a newsletter a great choice promoting your business:
- Spread brand awareness. By building a communication with your email subscribers, you enable them to recognize your brand and associate it with a positive emotion
- Guaranteed reach. Using a social media platform, it’s not an inconsiderable way of promoting but the reach of your message in such a platform will not be the same such as in email newsletter.
- Leverage existing content. Many companies do quick summaries of their most popular blog posts and link to the articles from their newsletter.
- Include different types of content. For instance, the same newsletter can contain a popular blog post, a new offer, an announcement of an upcoming event, information about a discount, and a link to a survey.
The do’s and don’ts of a newsletter
You thought I’m done? Here are some tips of how to do your newsletter:
- Balance the content of your newsletter to be 80 Educational and 20% Promotional
Chances are, your email newsletter subscribers aren’t down to hear about your product and services 100% of the time. While they may like and want to hear from you, there’s only so much shilling you can do before they tune out. Don’t be that company that choose to have self-promotion most of the time. Focus on send your subscribers educational, relevant, timely information.
- Set expectations on your subscribe page.
Once you’ve figured out your newsletter’s focus and content balance, make sure you’re properly communicating about them on your landing page.
Get specific: Tell potential subscribers exactly what will be in the newsletter as well as how often they should expect to hear from you.
- Get creative with email subject lines.
Even if your subscribers sign up for your emails, there’s no guarantee that they will open your emails. Many marketers try to increase familiarity with their subscribers by keeping the subject line the same each day, or month that they send it.
- Try a CALL-TO-ACTION button
Your readers love to see you’re featuring multiple pieces of content with multiple CTAs.
- Make it easy for people to unsubscribe.
This option seems a little counter-intuitive, but it’s key if you want to maintain an active, engaged subscriber list.
If you’re not growing your subscriber lost, you’ve got a serious problem. No matter what your goals are – generating leads, happy customer community – your list should be bigger from month to month. More people in your list means more opportunities to reach your goals, so if your list is staying stagnant from your initial send or even petering off, you might want to think about whether you want to continue your email newsletter.
To keep your relationships going strong, you should provide readers with consistent and interesting newsletter content. Below, we’ve brainstormed 25 email newsletter content topics you can use in your email newsletters.
1. An upcoming event, trade show, workshop, or festival you’re hosting, participating in, attending, and/or sponsoring.
2. Frequently asked questions and answers (FAQs)
3. A milestone or anniversary for your company
4. Customer testimonials or spotlights
5. A gift guide
6. A mention of an upcoming sale or offer, and/or an early bird coupon for that sale
7. Your company’s story
8. An award you’ve won, or an award you’re attempting to win
9. Apps or tools you find useful
10. A recipe (this doesn’t just apply to food)
11. Info and a sign up for your customer loyalty or rewards program(s)
12. A contest/giveaway
13. Press mentions your business may have received
14. An announcement of your newly redesigned blog or website
15.Company volunteer projects you’re participating in or supporting
16. Save-the-dates for upcoming deadlines, registration dates, etc.
17. Reviews written about your business
18. A crowdfunded campaign you’re running or supporting
19. Career info or a list of open positions at your company
20. An interview with customer, employee, merchant, industry-related expert, or yourself, of course
21. A photo essay or collage (of products, employees, behind-the-scenes pictures, the neighborhood, your company story etc.)
22. Business updates or changes, such as new hours of operation, privacy settings, holiday closures, shipping guidelines, etc.
23. Season’s greetings
24. Updates about where your product(s) or services can be found, such as a participating website or brick and mortar.
25. A “Thank You!” to donors, event attendees, or customers, just because
Now that we covered what you should pay attention to and saw few content ideas, let’s see which are the most common mistakes you must avoid when creating an email newsletter.
- Having a poorly segmented list
As with any email marketing, the content in your email newsletter should be relevant to your audience. And that doesn’t happen without list segmentation.
- Information overload
Email newsletter often suffer from a few types of information overload: either the breadth of information covered is too wide, the quantity of information is too overwhelming for any reader to actually consume, and the information is just plain not interesting.
- Competing CTAs
In most email marketing, with every new CTA you include, the effectiveness of each is diluted more and more.
- Inconsistent design and layout
Because email newsletters are a compilation of stories, many businesses change the appearance of the emails from send to send to accommodate the ever-changing content. Don’t do it! Use a standard format for every single newsletter so it is recognizable to your subscribers.
Now you’re realizing that sending an email newsletter requires juggling a lot of moving pieces, but it’s worth the effort . Do your best and make your readers feel happy.