The Vacation Rental Manager's Podcast with Sarah and T Episode 162 - 14 Ways to Blast Your Email Marketing Into a Booking Machine
In this episode Sarah and T take on the topic of e-mail blasts. Are you doing them? Are you doing them effectively? How do you know? 14 specific points are covered in how you can crush your next effort and know exactly how well you did.
1) Build up your email list & segment - all previous guests list, potential guests, by season, by type of property, etc.
- Every single email you get should be added to a list and segmented. I recently stayed in a VR with a company. After we booked, they kept sending us promotional emails. Made me wonder if we had a booking! Make sure your upcoming guests aren't sent an email that you are now offering 40% off!
- Booking Anniversary to previous guests on their booking date from last year
- Type of properties, size of properties, season they visited only?
2) Consistent (so you're there when it's time to book) - top of mind. Only way to pull this off is to make your emails interesting/professonal
3) Frequency of sending - at least once a month, ideally once a week (TIM & SARAH DISAGREE)
4) Not Always a Sales Email - way too many VR emails are like this "20% off for next week!" - think about your own perspective when you get an eblast.
5) Types of eblasts - introduce a new property (attracts Lookie Loo's), newsletter format - new restaurants/activities in the area, Resort developments (new gondola), groups of properites/themes, Snow alerts, local partners (make sure you show them they were included), booking anniversary, ...others, TIM?
6) Professional looking, template so recognizable (idea - personalize by showing a person from your team at bottom), highlight properties at bottom, social links, videos, other examples
Paul Hanak from ICND says open rates don't matter! Listen to his reasoning mid-podcast.
7) Call to Action - we always had "book direct & save" at bottom of every single email.
8) Lots of links! Link logo and photos too
9) Always include all owners on your emails
10) Tracking code to conversion! Follow by email monthly - this is the WHOLE POINT. Don't send an email without tracking conversion.
11) A/B testing - most platforms easily allow you to test everything from subject lines to send times - utilize it!
12) Stop gathering emails from "contests" just to have a bigger list. We've tested it! They signed up to win a contest, not to engage with your brand. Open rates are poor, so you wind up paying for all these extra emails without any payoff. Quality over quantity.
13) Subject Lines are the name of this game. Without a good subject line that captures attention and creates curiosity, that email won't even be opened. Need some inspiration? Just google "Good email subject lines" and ask ole chatGPT.
14) Check and recheck for spelling/grammar errors - everything speaks! (sarah example of "piece")
Find all of Sarah and T's content at www.sarahandt.com
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Special thanks to our podcast Partners:
Intercoastal Net Designs www.icoastalnet.com
KeyData www.keydatadashboard.com
Sojo www.getsojo.com