Social media may have stolen the limelight in recent years, but email marketing is going nowhere. Although most marketers recognise the ongoing importance of email, certain email best practices, such as Segmentation, have been slow to catch on. Segmenting your contact database into separate categories and tailoring your email to target those specific groups can take your resort’s email marketing campaign to the next level. Here’s why.
Your Customers Are Different
Your resort, like most businesses, doesn’t cater to just one kind of customer. For example, you might cater mainly for families on their annual holiday, while still attracting couples on a romantic weekend getaway and corporate travellers who need a one night business stopover. These are clearly three different kinds of travellers with different expectations and needs and they should be treated quite differently. If you were to produce some email marketing content to target these three customers, blanketing them with the same, general message wouldn’t be nearly as effective as sending each a tailored message that directly addresses their individual needs.
You probably already have a good idea of the kinds of target customers or ‘buyer persona's’ that make up your customer base and this makes segmentation a much easier process. The best thing about segmentation is that the possibilities are almost endless. Do you only want to email couples, between the ages of 25-40, who booked in for Valentine’s Day last year? Maybe you want to contact travellers who stayed during an annual local festival as the event approaches?
Your Contacts Are at Different Stages of the Booking Cycle
Not only is your email database made up of separate target groups of customers, it also features individuals who are at different stages of the sales cycle. Person A, for example, might have subscribed to your newsletter/blog after reading an article on your blog about local attractions, while Person B has stayed with you before, has written a review for you site and regularly contacts you to ask about upcoming offers. Don’t you think your email to Person B should include targeted content that speaks to someone at that stage of the sales cycle, instead of a broad, general email that strives to also include Person A?
The bottom line is: failing to tailor your email content in accordance with your prospect customers point in the sales cycle is too big an opportunity to miss.
You’ll Enhance Customer Engagement
This may be an obvious point, but when you send out emails tailored for your specific customer segment groups, your content is naturally far more engaging to that group. This is because it speaks directly to their individual needs as a consumer. Over time, your customers will realise that whenever they receive an email from you, it’s going to be interesting and relevant to them – which will make them far more likely to click ‘open’ instead of ‘delete’!
You'll Get Results
If you still need convincing that email segmentation is the way forward, here’s the proof. Recent data from the Lyris Annual Email Optimiser Report has shown that 39% of marketers who use segmentation to send targeted emails experienced higher open rates, 28% found fewer customers were unsubscribing, while nearly a quarter experienced greater revenue. Moreover, findings from Jupiter Research have revealed that targeted emails drive 18 times more sales than blanket, general emails.
As these stats show, those who understand the importance of segmentation and do it well are reaping the benefits.
Is segmentation the missing link in your resorts email marketing campaign?
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