Tempted by big audiences and the lure of impressive returns, hotels often want to keep the number of email addresses in their databases high. But this is actually the downfall of many email marketing strategies.
NB: This is an article from Cendyn
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A vast volume of contacts may seem a valuable investment; however, there’s an underlying danger that it is actually causing your hotel significant harm.
Problems with email deliverability can directly impact revenue for hotels. Spam filtering, a lack of customer engagement, and poor email data quality are all issues that contribute to this. Emails going unopened – whatever the reason – is the start of a downward spiral. Open rates gradually decrease, overall engagement wanes, and revenue drops. But why?
Poor database hygiene is a root cause. Hoteliers are pretty sold on the value of email marketing. An ROI of up to $44 for every $1 spent? Yes please! But hotels won’t see anything like this 4,400% ROI if people aren’t opening the emails.
Email lists: quantity doesn’t mean quality
Whenever you send an email, it passes through layers of service providers; including email clients, internet service providers (ISPs), and anti-spam organizations. They evaluate how your recipients interact with your emails when deciding where to place your email.
Sending to unhealthy lists or unengaged subscribers can damage your sender reputation. This increases the likelihood of your emails being flagged as spam, added to blacklists, and ultimately makes it harder to land in the inbox. You may think that’s not a big deal. Does it matter if some emails aren’t opened or land in spam folders? Open rate statistics may look a little lower, but surely, it’s better to get those emails out there to as many people as possible?
Wrong!
Sending an email to an unengaged email address gradually lowers your sender reputation, according to every email client, ISP, and anti-spam organization the email comes into contact with. This means your open rates and click-through rates will gradually but predictably get worse.
The knock-on effect? Emails bounce or land in more spam folders across the board. That means fewer bookings, reduced revenue, and a whole lot of work to get your sender reputation back on track.
How do you know a guest is engaged?
Letting go of guest email addresses from your database is going to happen. You could have the best content, a stellar strategy, brilliant offers…and still lose some. It’s part of the circle of hotel marketing life, and it’s not something to dwell on.
