Fuel Hotel Marketing Podcast: Episode 98 – Takeaways From Revinate’s 2018 Global Hotel Email Marketing Report

Email marketing is still the most effective way to drive direct booking business (if done correctly). The trouble is that a lot of hoteliers resort to spamming their list with nothing but discounts. The key to a successful email strategy is to play the long game. Don’t sacrifice long-term success for instant gratification. In this episode, we look at some recently released data from our friends at Revinate and give you the Fueligan spin on their findings.
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SHOW NOTES
Download Revinate’s Study:
https://www.revinate.com/benchmark/marketing/
STAT OF THE WEEK:
55% of consumers prefer to get permission-based promotional messages from hospitality brands via email, vs. direct mail, text, phone or social media.
Email Effectiveness:

1. Measureable: Open rate, click-through rate, booking conversion rate and revenue
2. Data-Driven: If well integrated, marketers can use data from the PMS to optimize their content and timing of messages
3. High ROI: 55% of Revinate customers see an ROI of 10x or more

Segmentation Matters:
Correctly used, database segmentation helps marketers send the right message to the right audience.

1. Best if connected to PMS data to segment on booking behavior
2. Demographic attributes
3. Geographic attributes

Examples of segments: guests that live within x mile radius, weekend guests, loyal guests
Segmented email campaigns had a 20% higher open rate, 70% higher click-through rate, and 73% higher revenue per recipient than non-segmented campaigns.
One Time vs. Automated Campaigns:
Open rates for one-time campaigns averaged 17%, while automated pre-arrival messages averaged 62%. Automated non-transactional messages like birthdays, “we miss you” or OTA winbacks were mid to upper 20s.

• Study shows highest open rates for pre-arrival messages had “room upgrade” in the subject line.

Upsells and Upgrades:

1. 98% of upsell revenue was made through pre-arrival campaigns
2. Breakfast offers drive the majority of upsell revenue, followed by advanced parking. Other offers are early check-in, late check-out, and airport transportation

When to Send:
Different campaign types can generate different booking windows.

1. Newsletters were evenly distributed amongst most windows
2. Birthday messages had 48% of bookings 0-6 days out
3. Room offers were well distributed, but were most popular within 0-6 days (36% of bookings)
4. We miss you offers were booked 40% in 0-6 days
5. Announcement/events had 39% booked within 0-6 days
   1. Have to assume these were heavily promoted close in to event
6. OTA Winback weighed heavily in the 0-6 day window, with 52% of bookings.
   1. Assume these were promoting “come soon” deals
7. Pre-arrival: the highest converting upsell messages are sent 0-4 days prior to check-in: 0-1 day had a 9.2% conversion rate, and 2-4 days had a 10.8% CR

Mobile:
33% of email opened on a phone, 35% on a webmail client (could this also be on a phone?)
Must optimize for mobile experience with ease of scrolling and CTA
ROI:
55% of marketers saw an ROI of 10x or more from email marketing
Also – 45% saw less than 10x
Wrap-Up
How do your stats compare to these? Testing subject lines, offers, type of message, etc. to get the most bang for your buck. If done well, email marketing should be one of the most cost effective forms of advertising you can do.
Shameless Plug
If you’re interested in improving your email marketing, Fuel has been hard at work revamping our Fuel Mail eCRM product. We’re proud to announce the all new AI-driven version of the product will be rolling out to existing clients in early November and we will be taking on new clients in December. Some of the key features of this revolutionary guest communication  system include:

• Intelligent Profiling
  The system combines everything from message engagement, website behavior, and
  PMS profile information for a Single Customer View of each guest, allowing for true 1:1
  Marketing.
• Intelligent Segmentation
  State-of -the-art machine learning algorithms and Fuel’s data scientists combine forces to provide automatic segmentation recommendations.
• Intelligent Targeting
  Leveraging predictive analytics, the platform analyzes aggregated guest
  research and booking behavior patterns to automatically determine each guest’s
  potential value, sentiment, and propensity to book, allowing for targeted drip campaigns
  that were previously impossible
• Predictive Engage Time Optimization
  Based on historical data, each guest will receive the message at the precise time and
  channel that is most effective for the individual through a sending model based on full
  cross channel engagement.
• Predictive Channel-of-Choice
  Deliver the campaign on each individual customer’s channel of choice, such as email,
  push, and SMS, plus real-time integrations with the Facebook Ad Network and the Google Ads platform for the automatic syndication of targeted advertising campaigns.

If you’re interested in taking your email marketing to the next level, send us an email to info@travelboommarketing.com.
***UPCOMING 100th EPISODE LIVE SHOW***
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30th 2018 at 1:15 pm ET, The Fuel Hotel Marketing Podcast will be broadcasting a live “Ask Me Anything”  video show on Facebook and YouTube. Tube in live to or submit your questions to @_travelboom on Twitter or email them to info@travelboommarketing.com.
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In The Newsaroos
Skift: Marriott’s New Reservations System Could Be Its Secret Weapon in Direct Booking Wars
https://skift.com/2018/10/15/video-marriotts-new-reservations-system-could-be-its-secret-weapon-in-direct-booking-wars/
Google Produced 92% Of US Organic Search Visits in Q3 2018
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-produced-92-of-us-organic-search-visits-in-q3-2018-report/275005/
 
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