Quick 'Critical' Tips and Latest Trends in E-Mail Marketing

Jay Schwedelson, Corporate Vice President of Worldata, focused on the newest trends and lastest developments in prospecting, in his presentation 'Critical Email Prospecting Strategies for 2010,' at the Email Evolution Conference 2010 in Miami Beach, Florida. Below are some quick tips your hotel can use to improve your email marketing campaigns:

• Test your e-mail creative on a mobile device to make sure it displays correctly.

• Keep your e-mail campaign on a server so that people can access the message at a later date.

• Don't use recipients' names in the subject lines because they can be picked up by spammers.

• Include the offer deadline date in the subject line. This can increase open rates by 39% (i.e. offer ends Jan 31st).

• Analyze why recipients unsubscribe - why they leave is just as important as why they arrive. Send a follow-up email with a short survey asking why they unsubscribed.

• The top reasons people unsubscribe to a mailing list is because they receive too many emails from a sender (38%), or the emails are not relevant to them (23%).

• Include links that allow recipients to share your email with their own social network. People who use Facebook or Twitter at least once a week are 38% more likely to open a 3rd party email promotion, and people who use LinkedIn at least once a week are 37% more likely to open a 3rd party email promotion.

• Send your e-mail at least 2 weeks prior to the event date.

• Send a reminder email 2-3 days prior to event.

• Try sending your emails on different days of the week, and at different times of the day, to see what is most effective for your audience. In the past, many businesses avoided Mondays, but now Mondays are showing the best response rate. Test deploying your emails on Fridays as well.

• Never send an email after 4 pm. Experiment with sending emails at 8 am.

• Test your subject lines. Select 10% of your email address list and divide it into 2 groups. Send a different subject line to each group. Wait 24 hours, and then analyze the data to see which subject line was most effective.
• Include an offer in your subject line. Some offers that work well are Free Shipping, Invitation Only, Discount on Next Purchase, Gift with Next Purchase, or Exclusive Secret Sale.

• When you analyze the metrics on your open rate you may not be seeing the whole picture. Open rates are tracked only when the recipient enables the email images. Many recipients don't enable the images, so even though they have opened your email, it won't be tracked as an 'open.'

• Your click-through-rate is more important than your open rate. Generally speaking, if your open/click through rate is more than 2% you are doing well.

• Use tools to help you manage your overall campaign. Below are some free tools you can start using right away.

Quantcast.com can help you find your audience. They offer a measurement service that allow you to create demographic, geographic, and affinity-based audience profiles.

Compete.com allows you to learn about your competitors' online marketing strategies. You can see their keywords, traffic metrics, and links.

Browsershots.org generates screenshots of how your website will appear with different resolutions and across various web browsers.

Popuri.us is a tool that allows you to see the link popularity of any site based on its ranking, social bookmarks, and subscribers.

Strive to improve your email campaigns in 2010 and increase your ROI with progressive email tactics. Work to build a solid database and make sure you segment your e-mail campaigns and avoid one-size-fits-all mailings. Email campaigns are a very effective way for hotels to connect with their audience and generate new and repeat business.

For more tips on email marketing please see the following articles from O'Rourke Hospitality:

What's the Link Between E-Mail Marketing and Social Media?

New Email Marketing Tactics to Use in 2010

If you would like to learn more about how these advanced email marketing strategies can increase your revenue, please call us at 978-465-5955 or send an email to info@orourkehospitality.com.

O'Rourke Hospitality Marketing, 44 Merrimac Street, Newburyport, MA 01950
http://www.orourkehospitality.com/



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