Email marketing is one of the best ways to keep in touch with your hotel guests. But how do you do it properly? There has to be some reason to send an email to your guests. If you just send emails without rhyme or reason, it will look odd and eventually the guests may lose interest and may not check out your mails.
In this article let us give some ideas of what kinds of emails you should be sending your guests at different stages. If you employ this strategy you can establish a strong communication with the guests and open the pathways for long term relationship.
Pre-Stay Emails:
1. Reservation Confirmation: This is an automated email that should be sent as soon as someone books a room at your hotel. The purpose of this emal is to confirm and reassure the guest that the reservation was successful. This is a kind of acknowledgement from the hotel which can provide the guest with a peace of mind that the booking has been done and their credit card information is safe with the hotel management.
2. Thank You: This is a personalized message which should have a friendly, warm tone. In this email you thank the guest for booking room with you and giving you chance to serve them. You should mention that you look forward to hosting them and providing them a pleasant and memorable stay.
This email should ideally be sent a day after the confirmation email. This email creates a warm feeling in the guests and can make them excited.
3. Preparation, Preference & Reminder: As the guest stay draws near, you send them an email to make sure everything is in order. In this email you can remind them of their check-in and check-out times, inform them of all the documents they need to carry with them, and any other terms and conditions that you want them to be aware of.
Use this email to learn more about the guest – their preferences, if they have any allergies, etc. There is an excellent opportunity to upsell or cross-sell them in this email. You can upsell your extra products or services.
Post Stay Emails:
1. Feedback Request: After the stay is over, you should always ask your guest for feedback and suggestions. Whether the guest had a pleasant or an unpleasant stay, don’t miss the feedback request. Even if you know the feedback is not going to be good, you will at least have information of what the guest felt like and what changes or improvements you can make to improve your hotel service.
If they leave a positive review, kindly ask them if you can use their review for marketing purpose. Usually they will say yes. You could even forward them links to popular online hotel review sites and ask them to kindly leave a short review at all or some of these websites.
If they leave a negative review, still thank them and assure them that you will take necessary steps so that such a problem does not happen again in future.
2. Promotions and Offers: Hotels should try to drive repeat bookings. An excellent way to do this is to stay in periodic touch with previous guests who have stayed at your hotel. You can send them promotional and discount offers from time to time. These offers will serve as a reminder of your hotel and could also entice them to book with you again in order to avail the discounted rates.
You could send them seasonal promotions or special offers that are only for selected people who have stayed at your hotel earlier.