Hotel email marketing remains a go-to strategy for marketers — despite OTAs (online travel agencies) bringing in a major chunk of hotel guests.
However, as the costs of OTA commissions rise and eat into profit margins, savvy hoteliers are leveraging strategic email campaigns to nurture meaningful guest relationships and drive repeat bookings without sacrificing revenue.
To maximize efforts, tools like Omnisend can be the hotel email marketing software hoteliers need to deliver personalized guest experiences throughout the entire customer journey — from pre-arrival anticipation to post-stay engagement.
In this post, we’ll discuss email marketing hotel best practices, along with types of emails, email ideas, and promotional tactics.
Try Omnisend for powerful hotel email marketing campaigns that deliver results
Hotel email marketing involves sending emails and newsletters to communicate with potential and existing guests. These emails highlight special offers and booking details to ensure continuous engagement.
It’s a direct way to build meaningful relationships with guests and provide comprehensive service that builds customer loyalty and encourages repeat visits.
Unlike general email marketing, which often promotes products or services, email marketing for hotels focuses on personalized, experience-driven content tailored for interactions before, during, and after a guest’s stay.
It leverages guest data for hyper-personalization, promotes time-sensitive offers tied to dynamic pricing, and blends transactional emails with subtle marketing.
Unlike general email marketing, it emphasizes loyalty, localization, and emotional engagement to inspire bookings and retain guests.
Every hotelier must know how to create exceptional emails that resonate with their audience. This will ensure that they get the results they expect.
Here are some aspects to focus on:
Understanding your audience
Effective hotel email marketing campaigns start with a deep understanding of your audience. Who are your guests? What are their preferences? What drives them to stay at your hotel?
The first step is gathering relevant data to answer these questions. Key data points include:
Demographics
Booking history
Website behavior
Social media engagement
Guest preferences
Once you’ve gathered data, it’s time to analyze it and create guest personas. Understanding your target audience helps you create content that they’ll likely engage with.
Creating a successful hotel email marketing campaign
After understanding your target audience, now’s the time to take steps to ensure that your hotel email marketing campaign is successful. You’ll need to consider the following strategies:
Personalization: Use your guest’s name, mention their past stays, and tailor the content to their interests. Even something as simple as personalizing the subject line can grab their attention and boost open rates.
Segmentation: Divide your audience into distinct groups based on demographics, booking history, or behavior. Doing so will help you send emails that truly speak to their needs and answer their questions.
Mobile optimization: Make sure your emails are mobile-responsive. Many people prefer opening their emails on their mobile devices. Guests should be able to read your emails easily without having to scroll horizontally.
Automation: Email marketing hotel automation allows you to reach your customers quickly. Integrate email automation to send timely messages based on guest actions or specific dates.
Compliance: When it comes to hotel email marketing, it’s important to stay on the right side of the law. You must adhere to email marketing regulations like GDPR. Obtain proper consent before sending emails and make it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe.
Use the standard hotel email format
The standard hotel email format is simple. It flows from the subject line to a brief and engaging introduction, informative content, and a clear call to action.
You can incorporate dynamic content to show personalized room upgrades, local events, or loyalty rewards. Using dynamic sections allows you to craft emails easily by changing only the required sections while keeping the rest of the email the same.
This email from Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel effectively combines event promotion with a unique guest experience. It highlights its exclusive offering by saying “Live At The Ritual Pool,” which is followed by clear pricing details. The email has a direct call to action, making it easy for guests to engage and book instantly:
To address the varied needs of your business and target audience, you must know which type of hotel email marketing campaign to implement.
Here are the four main categories to consider:
1. Promotional emails
As the name suggests, promotional emails involve grabbing attention and driving bookings. They outline your hotel’s best offers, packages, and discounts to entice potential guests and encourage them to take action. Here’s what you can promote:
Limited-time offers
Seasonal packages
Early bird discounts
Loyalty program benefits
Special events or packages
2. Transactional emails
Triggered by specific guest actions, transactional emails provide confirmations related to bookings and reservations. They also provide essential information about a guest’s stay. Common examples include:
Booking confirmations
Check-in instructions
Pre-arrival reminders
Post-stay receipts
Guest satisfaction surveys
3. Engagement emails
These emails aim to engage your audience and nurture relationships with guests for customer retention, positive feedback, and customer loyalty. This can include a variety of content like:
Welcome emails
Travel tips and destination guides
Exclusive offers for loyalty program members
Birthday or anniversary greetings
Personalized recommendations based on past stays
4. Re-engagement emails
Sometimes, guests need a little nudge to rekindle their interest in your hotel. This is what re-engagement emails are for. They target past guests or dormant subscribers who haven’t interacted with your brand recently and offer incentives to stimulate interest.
To help you refine your approach and draw inspiration, we’ve compiled examples of successful hotel email marketing campaigns. You can take ideas from these hotel email marketing examples for your next campaign:
1. Soho House
This email is promotional and designed to boost brand awareness and encourage bookings for an apartment within a Soho House property.
The heading, “Introducing Room No. 5,” is direct and tells the guest that this is a new upcoming space. The body of this email is concise yet appealing as it highlights the exclusive calming experience that Soho House offers.
The email targets a specific segment interested in classy hotels and unique travel experiences, concluding with a clear CTA, “Stay with us”:
Image via Really Good Emails
2. Placemakr Wall Street
Placemakr’s email is a great example of a well-executed transactional email. The opening line has a fun yet warm tone to it. The text, “Knock knock,” nudges the guest by reminding them about their checkout time.
While providing essential information regarding the guest’s stay and checkout process, the email sounds friendly, helpful, and personal. The content is concise and informative. It outlines key details and offers a convenient late checkout option.
This email is targeted specifically at guests checking out that day, which shows that email marketing for hotels isn’t just for promotion. To provide options, there are two calls to action here — “CHECK OUT” and “LATE CHECKOUT, PLEASE”:
Image via Really Good Emails
3. The Greenbank Hotel
The Greenbank team’s email is a prime example of an engagement email designed to initiate further conversation with the guest.
The message sets a warm and welcoming tone by asking clients to get in touch with the hotel to fine-tune their stay. The email invites guests to share their preferences and requests by asking questions.
This friendly tone continues in the body of the email, effectively building anticipation for the guest’s upcoming stay. The navigation links have a conversational tone that entices the users to click on them:
Image via Really Good Emails
4. Tripadvisor
This re-engagement email from Tripadvisor effectively draws users back by acknowledging their previous interest in hotel booking. It effectively creates urgency with its “Prices are going up…” headline, prompting users to book before rates increase.
It leverages dynamic content by showcasing the specific hotel the user recently viewed, making the message highly relevant. Additionally, it builds trust by including recent positive reviews, reinforcing the hotel’s credibility.
The direct CTA “Book now” and visually appealing design enhance user engagement, making it easy for recipients to take immediate action:
From personalized offers to automated follow-ups, explore innovative ways to maximize your email campaigns.
Ideas for engagement
To boost engagement and keep your hotel at the top of your audience’s minds, here’s what you can include in your emails:
Seasonal promotions: Leverage the changing seasons by providing targeted promotions and offers. For example, offer discounts on winter getaways or summer stays or customize special getaway packages.
Loyalty program promotions: Implement a points-based system where guests earn points for opening emails, clicking links, or making bookings. Reward your loyal guests with exclusive offers, room upgrades, early access to bookings, or discounts on future stays.
Dynamic content based on weather: Tailor your email content based on the weather forecast for the guest’s travel dates. For example, suggest indoor activities if rain is expected or highlight outdoor amenities if the weather is sunny.
This email from Marriott offers guests 10,000 bonus points for booking three or more rooms — a great loyalty offer:
Image via Really Good Emails
Interactive elements
Interactive elements can also improve your email campaigns, driving clicks and conversions. Here are a few examples:
Quizzes to suggest travel packages: Engage potential guests with interactive quizzes that recommend personalized travel packages based on their preferences and interests
Links to reviews or user-generated content: Build trust and credibility by showcasing positive reviews and user-generated content from satisfied guests
Contests and giveaways: Generate excitement and boost engagement by running contests or giveaways directly within your emails
Sustainable and wellness travel campaigns
Today’s travelers are increasingly conscious of their impact and well-being. Align your hotel email marketing with these values through sustainable and wellness travel campaigns. Here are some noteworthy strategies:
Highlighting eco-friendly practices: Showcase your hotel’s commitment to sustainability by dedicating emails to your eco-friendly initiatives
Promoting wellness packages: Write email campaigns that focus on wellness offerings, such as spa treatments, yoga retreats, healthy dining options, and access to nature trails
Offering “green” incentives: Encourage sustainable guest behavior by offering incentives for choosing eco-friendly practices
Email marketing metrics every hotel should track
To optimize your hotel email marketing efforts and drive better results, you must focus on the right email marketing metrics. Tracking key hotel email marketing metrics helps measure effectiveness, improve engagement, and ultimately increase bookings.
Here are the essential metrics every hotel should monitor to ensure their email campaigns are on track:
Open rate: This indicates how well your subject lines are performing and how engaged your audience is.
You can improve this by experimenting with better subject lines, personalizing them with guest names, and testing different sending times.
Click-through rate (CTR): CTR measures the effectiveness of your calls to action and how engaging your content is.
For a good CTR, make your calls to action more prominent and persuasive. Also, ensure your email design is clear and easy to navigate, and segment your audience for more targeted messaging.
Conversion rate: This is the percentage of recipients who complete a desired action, such as booking a room or signing up for your loyalty program.
Optimize your landing pages for conversions, offer exclusive discounts or incentives, and personalize your offers based on guest preferences for an improved conversion rate.
Guest retention rate: The percentage of guests who return for another stay can play a significant role in establishing loyalty and encouraging repeat bookings.
You can boost your guest retention rate by implementing a loyalty program, sending personalized follow-up emails after stays, and offering exclusive benefits to repeat guests.
Average booking value: By tracking this metric, you can identify which email campaigns are driving the most valuable bookings.
Promote higher-priced rooms or packages, offer upsells and cross-sells within your emails, and target specific guest segments with tailored offers to increase average booking value.
How to effectively promote your hotel using Omnisend
Omnisend stands out as a powerful email marketing automation tool for the hospitality industry, offering personalized email workflows ideal for enhancing guest experiences and driving direct bookings.
Hotels can create tailored guest journeys, ensuring that the right message reaches each guest at every stage of their stay. This enhances email marketing ROI.
You can send pre-arrival emails, such as welcome messages, tailored recommendations, and upgrade opportunities. Post-stay emails include feedback requests, thank you emails, incentives for repeat bookings, and travel recommendations to maintain guest engagement long after checkout.
In addition to personalized workflows, Omnisend simplifies email segmentation and provides powerful analytics, allowing hotels to tailor their communications to specific guest segments. This level of segmentation ensures higher engagement and conversion rates.
Here’s how you can use Omnisend for effective hotel email marketing, particularly setting up a welcome email series:
Connect your store: In your Omnisend dashboard, navigate to Connect Your Store. Follow the instructions to integrate your chosen platform (Shopify, Wix, WordPress, etc.).
Create a new automated workflow: Once your store is connected, go to Automation and click Create Workflow. You can choose to start from scratch or use a pre-built workflow template as a starting point.
Choose a trigger: Select the event that will trigger your welcome email series. For example, you can choose Subscriber added to a list or Booking confirmed.
Build your email sequence: Add email blocks to your workflow. Craft a series of messages that will be sent out over a set period, such as a welcome email, a hotel overview email, and a special offer email.
Personalize and optimize: Use Omnisend’s personalization features to tailor each email with guest names and relevant information. Optimize your subject lines, preview text, and calls to action for maximum impact.
Test and refine: Before launching your welcome series, send test emails to yourself to ensure everything looks and functions as expected.
Transform your hotel email marketing with Omnisend’s workflows, segmentation, and analytics
By utilizing personalized workflows, segmenting guest data, and tracking key performance metrics, hotels can create tailored experiences that drive higher engagement and conversions.
Use the strategies and best practices outlined in this guide to create engaging campaigns, promote your hotel’s unique offerings, and drive more bookings.
While you’re at it, remember to use the power of Omnisend to create targeted workflows and simplify segmentation. Omnisend serves as an exceptional hotel email marketing software that provides valuable insights into campaign performance.
Start implementing these strategies today and watch your hotel’s email marketing efforts flourish.
FAQ section
1. What is the standard hotel email format?
A standard hotel email format will begin with a clear subject line. Then, when you open the email, you’ll see a personalized greeting, a concise message with clear headings and visuals, a prominent call to action, and a footer with contact information and an unsubscribe option.
2. What are the four P’s of marketing in the hotel industry?
The four P’s of hotel marketing are:
— Product: The room and additional services like dining, laundry, etc. — Price: Pricing strategy and revenue management — Place: Physical location and online channels for interacting with guests, such as emails and websites — Promotion: Marketing and communication efforts
3. What are the four types of email marketing?
The four broad types of email marketing are:
— Promotional: Offers and discounts — Transactional: Booking confirmations and receipts — Engagement: Personalized content and travel tips — Re-engagement/Retention: Targeting past guests with incentives
4. How do you introduce a hotel in an email?
To introduce a hotel in an email, focus on highlighting its unique features, such as location, amenities, and special offers. Personalize the message by addressing the recipient’s interests or needs. Lastly, include a compelling call to action, such as encouraging your audience to book a stay or learn more about the hotel’s services.
Richard is a Content Marketing Manager at Omnisend. An avid writer, he's said to have been born holding a pencil. Fascinated by all things handmade, if he's not reading or writing he can often be found practicing leathercraft.
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