How to Craft a Hotel Sales Email That Gets Recipients to Click Reply
When you craft an email, you never want it to hit the digital trash can. Instead, you should aim to create a hotel sales email that always gets read and always receives a reply. Want to learn how? Read on for our five steps on how to craft a hotel sales email that will get your recipients hitting the reply button.
The Secrets to The Best Sales Emails
1. Open with a strong headline
Unlike a book or movie where it’s perfectly fine to start slow, a hotel sales email need a strong opening. The email headline is the first thing your recipient will see (and hopefully it’s not the last) and determines whether or not they’ll click to open it. The most successful subject lines let the recipient know there’s immediate value in the email’s content. If they believe it, you should make every effort to deliver on the promise of the headline.
Research on these subject lines also plays an important part. One such resource is Mail Chimp’s Subject Line Researcher. It takes your keywords and compares them to the most successful sales email campaigns in the same industry. For example, a quick type of hotel, hotel deals, and similar keywords returns these as the top three subject lines:
- New Hotel
- Hotel Accommodations
- Hotel Gift
Depending on the season and the target market you’re trying to attract to your property (be it event planners, customers, or business travelers) can determine your headline. Test a few subject headlines and see what resonates the best with your audience.
2. Get to the point
Hello. We are Hotel Name and thought we would share some information in order to…
Have your eyes glossed over while reading this? It’s for a good reason. If you are fortunate enough to have a recipient open this email that you wrote, you want to get to the point ASAP. One of the best ways to write a great opening line is to refer back to how you obtained their contact information. For example, if the recipient signed up for a hotel deals newsletter, you can begin your opening line with a word of gratitude and an immediate deal. For example, Thanks for signing up for our monthly deals newsletter! We know you like deals (we do, too) so here’s one just for you for subscribing to our newsletter.” Make the deal a good enough one that would push you to click.
Want to take it a step further? A/B test the dollar amount on the deal you send to see which gets more click throughs. Our guess is that the better deal will get the most clicks but each audience is different so be sure to test different variables.
3. What’s in it for them?
Although it is tempting to talk solely about how awesome your property is, re-shift the focus on the benefits for your recipient. Similar to getting to the point, clearly state the benefit and what is in it for them within the first paragraph. Are you trying to attract event planners to use your newly renovated ballroom for gala season? Or how about a beverage discount if a planner books lunch service during their conference versus lunch on the attendees’ dime? Be sure to focus on one benefit, although if your offering comes with several, feel free to share them.
Be sure to focus on on the strongest benefit you can offer in lieu of sharing several small offers.
4. Have a clear call to action
Unfortunately, we’ve received many a hotel sales email that had too many asks that the email went straight to the trash. This is why your email should have a clear call to action (CTA) that you want your recipient to take. Maybe the ask isn’t always transactional like booking a hotel room. Perhaps the ask is to contact your sales rep to learn about a new event catering menu or a new hotel ribbon cutting event. Whatever the case may be, make it clear what you’re asking recipients to do.
5. I’ve got great emails. Now what?
As you get better at crafting at the hotel sales email process, you’ll need to evolve your strategy. Note what works (and certainly, what doesn’t). Create a few different versions of your email, include a lot of content in one or a little in another. Relentlessly A/B test them and refine as you go. It can even get granular as creating variants of the email, such as changing just a button color, a font size or weight, or even just a few words that will increase open rates. So never stop experimenting and see the email replies file in.
What have you tested in a hotel sales email that worked well? Let us in on your sales email secrets on Twitter @socialtables!
Up next, discover the tactics for event sales that drive more group business, and check out our easy customer relationship management software for handling group business, no stress.
