Pay says it’s important to send a strategic number of emails post-booking-if they book a week from their arrival, you may only have time to send one well-crafted email. Everything you do here should be customer service oriented-a transaction has taken place and now you’ll want to build upon the experience you promised them.” Kath Pay, Founder and Senior Consultant at Holistic Email Marketing This helps build loyalty, and can lead to increased sales in the process. Once a customer books a stay, you should begin to reach out with messaging that matches their expectations for the trip. By using email, you may have more success kickstarting the customer relationship with potential guests.Įmail serves as a strong engagement channel, especially for return customers. Probably because you’re worried Walgreens will jam up your already packed text message inbox, ironically, with deals on Smucker’s.Įmails are less invasive and can be collected with less resistance than phone numbers.

Think about anytime you’ve been at a store checkout and refused to give up your phone number. People are much more likely to provide their email addresses. Why Is Email Marketing Still Valuable for Hotels?Įmail marketing, alongside direct messaging and social media management, should be a major part of your customer engagement toolbox. We spoke with Kath Pay, founder and senior consultant at Holistic Email Marketing, to answer a few common questions about exactly how to leverage any data you have to boost direct bookings, additional sales and customer loyalty. Independent, boutique hotels should take note: You have an opportunity to use guest data to personalize engaging emails to great effect. (The full report, “ Assess the Impact of Four Key Trends in Email Marketing ,” is available to Gartner clients.) Leading marketing executives continue to see the value of email-45 percent of marketing leaders in a new Gartner survey plan to increase their email marketing budgets in 2017. So it may be surprising to hear that email, a much older marketing staple, is just as ubiquitous: Messaging through smartphones is often considered the most direct way to engage with hotel guests before, during and after their stay.

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