Email marketing, is not dead. Please stop writing think pieces planning its premature funeral.
In fact, email marketing has still got serious spunk. It continues to report high ROI on a consistent basis. A June 2016 survey from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and Demand Metric reported that email had a median ROI of 122%. That is four times higher than other marketing formats examined in the study, including social media, direct mail, and paid search.
But that does not mean email marketing has not changed in the past 20+ years. Between mobile design, personalized elements, and serious automation tools, emails look nothing like the plain text paragraphs we used to know. And all of these new technologies in email marketing ultimately attribute their successes to the same thing: a strong email list.
While email lists in the hundred thousands often sound impressive, the raw number of subscribers on an email list is not that important. Rather, the key to a good list is to prioritize quality of subscribers over quantity.
Check out these basic actions to keep your hotel’s email list happy, healthy, and full of quality subscribers.
Regularly scrub your list.
We are talking about a deep clean of your list. While most email marketing clients automatically remove those whose emails are no longer valid (bounces) or who have purposefully unsubscribed, you need to dust, vacuum, and wash your list beyond that. Subscribers who are not engaged are not worth your send.
Identify the disengaged subscribers.
Before you go crazy cleaning your list, use the data you have to your advantage. If you use MailChimp, they have a 16-point scale that measures subscriber engagement to help you narrow down those who are no longer engaged. If you do not use MailChimp, look into how your email marketing client can measure engagement. Metrics like open rates, click rates, and add date all contribute to how engaged a subscriber is. If someone has not opened your email in the last year, they are unlikely to randomly become engaged again.
Try a re-engagement campaign.
Now that you have identified those disengaged subscribers, pause before hitting that delete button. Consider a re-engagement campaign first. A re-engagement campaign specifically targets those with low engagement, is sent exclusively to those subscribers (not your whole list), and should offer an incentive to become engaged again. For example, a hotel re-engagement campaign could offer a special 15% off deal or a free suite upgrade. Check out this ecommerce example for some inspiration. This is a good example because it is carries the “we miss you!” message throughout the subject, header, and copy. Plus it uses humor to lighten the tone of the email. But the most important part is it gives a clear incentive for people to re-engage: ~$13 off the subscriber’s next purchase. Want to see what a hospitality re-engagement campaign could do? Get in touch and we can talk strategy.
But still scrub your list.
You may have won some people back with your campaign. Congrats on successful re-engagement! But that does not mean you can forego cleaning. Still remove those who did not engage with your final effort. Ultimately, email lists should not be about the quantity of subscribers you have, but about the quality of subscribers.
