Email Marketing: Tips on making your email work harder to drive bookings with Sarah Orchard of Get Fully Booked
Do you have a monthly email newsletter where you send exactly the same version to everyone on your database?
Do you, or your marketing team spend a lot of time working on producing social media, without much interest in email marketing?
If so you could be missing out on a significant amount of sales.
Today’s episode is all about email marketing and the simple things you can do to make it work more effectively to drive bookings.
“Email has open rates of between 30 – 60% in comparison to Instagram and Facebook where you will only reach around 3-10% of your followers.”
In this episode, Sarah shares some excellent tips based on her years of experience successfully managing email campaigns for her own businesses and for her clients.
Tips for making your email more effectively:
> For a small team or lone marketer, taking time to set up email automation can be really efficient and important to driving sales.
>Tailor your emails based on the audience’s interests, rather than sending blanket emails, to increase effectiveness.
> Delete inactive email subscribers to save money on your email software.
> New subscribers for destinations (towns and cities) could be asked whether they are visitors or locals. You can also ask for a person’s postcode.
> Collect birthday (but not age) data and use the occasion to trigger personalised content about planning a special trip, meal out, or children’s party.
> Use AB (formerly known as split testing) to test subject lines and send times to improve email marketing campaigns. All email systems provide this option, where you can choose 10% of your subscribers to test 24 hours before to see which works best. The most effective is then sent to all remaining subscribers.
> Create a nurture or onboarding sequence to engage with potential visitors at different stages, such as sign-up, booking, and post-visit. Sarah has 11 emails that she sends to guests booking at Hudnalls Hideout.
> Example automations for visitors to destinations could be the highlights of a destination or accommodation options. Attractions could send some of the specific things they can do during their day – tailoring content based on their location and preferences.
> Having a digital guest book, such as that provided by Touch Stay, allows visitors to have up-to-date access to everything they need to know. This can be amended, whereas the link in your automations stays the same. It’s great for accommodation, destinations, and attractions; in fact, many other types of businesses can use it if they have to share lots of information with people to ensure they make the most of their visit.
> When your booking system and email marketing software don’t connect and you haven’t set up an API or can’t do this for any reason, use a CSV file to update the database before campaigns go out.
> It is important to have a process in place to update the database. Ensure you include this in the planning process of sending out your email campaigns.
> If you are emailing all subscribers exactly the same email and you haven’t asked for preferences, Sarah suggests adding a link at the bottom of an email for subscribers to manage their preferences. You can set up preferences within your email provider and link to this.
> If you have to use the automation from your ticketing or booking systems, don’t get hung up on the aesthetics. The information provided in a timely manner is more effective than pretty pictures.
>Keep emails short and sweet to direct readers to the website for more information and to avoid overwhelming them with too much detail.
