Email marketing is the second most effective way to capture leads, right behind organic search and way ahead of social media giants like Facebook and Twitter. Social media is great for assembling a trustful community online and driving traffic to your hotel’s website, but it isn’t the best source for generating guests.
A study from Mckinsey & Company found that email is nearly 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in customer acquisition.
To achieve positive results out of email marketing, you need to get 2 things right. One of them is to build a growing, healthy email list. The other is to regularly market to these subscribers by writing persuasive cleverly structured copy.
Today we’re going to focus on the latter, and teach you how to write great copy to boost your hotel’s email marketing.
Before you commence writing email copy to promote your hotel, you must first find out the demographics of the audience on the list(s) you plan to send the email to.
If you write email copy that is desperate to please every possible reader, you will end up pleasing nobody. Instead, target your guest personas and make sure you’re writing in terms of their interests and needs.
They key is to be as precise as possible and craft messages and offers that will be of interest to that audience only.
For instance, if the email list was built using a lead magnet that helped people organise better vacations with children, it is highly likely that the bulk of the subscribers on that list are parents. Hence, you should definitely be sending out offers that a parent or an entire family would benefit from.
If your email lists aren’t based on audience type, you should begin segmenting them now. You can sort out the subscriber preferences on each list by conducting surveys.
Another point to keep in mind while writing copy is that all the parts of the email have a specific job.
The job of the subject line is to get people to open the email, that of the body copy is to clearly inform the reader what this email is for and the call to action ought to get people to visit your website or landing page.
If you want to boost your email open rate, you should write open loop subject lines. Open loop subject lines contain just enough information to pique the readers’ interest. They don’t spill too much information right away. You need to open the email to find the answer and close the loop.
Joanna Wiebe of Copy Hackers implemented this technique in Neil Patel’s email and got an open rate of 102%. The open rate is more than a hundred percent because some people opened the email more than once! Here’s the subject line she used…
This subject line briefly states that the email contains tips on how to get traffic and convert it. It doesn’t go into detail about what technique you will learn. So ideally, you click on the email to find out! This is called “closing the loop.” The word ‘BOOM’, the exclamation mark and the ellipsis will also play a role in increasing the open rate, since they’re rarely used and add some excitement. They grab your attention.
Open loop headlines are frequently used by click-bait sites like Viral Nova, Upworthy and Bored Panda. They write headlines that contain just enough information to peak your interest. You need to click on the link to check out the article and find the answer. Studying the headlines created by these sites can help you write better open loop subject lines.
Viral Nova and Upworthy actually write several headlines and then pick their favourite. You could do the same thing while writing your subject line too.
AIDA is a formula legendary copywriter Gary Halbert used to write effective sales letters. This formula stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. It can be used for writing things like landing pages, email and essentially any other form of copy.
As you have already learnt how to gather attention by writing open loop subject lines, I am now going to show you how to make use of the rest of the formula.
Interest can be sparked by writing interesting things like the restaurants your hotel has, the facilities offered by the various types of rooms and the unique location of the hotel.
Once people find the copy interesting they won’t be able to halt themselves from reading it. The next step as shown by the AIDA formula is to make it desirable.
This can be achieved by listing the benefits. Good copywriters only write about benefits, whereas great copywriters combine features with benefits.
You should make sure you’re making the benefits of the features you listed earlier clear to potential guests – show them why you’re great. For example, if one of your features is that your hotel is located near the city centre, you can write about benefits like saving money on transport and quick access to nightlife, shops, and restaurants.
The last part of the formula is action. This can be accomplished by placing a call to action in the email. The call to action can be a button or words that have a link inserted into them. It encourages the reader to take action, and tells them where to go to do it.
Using words like ‘NOW’ and ‘TODAY’ will make it more effective as they instil urgency. Making the offer scarce by placing time constrains and restricting the number of units available will also make it more effective – although make sure you’re being genuine, because these kinds of tricks can backfire if you’re using them insincerely.
The above image is a screenshot of a call to action from a sales letter by Ryan Deiss. The action he wants the reader to take is specific, which makes his message clear and powerful. He has also used the power of scarcity to make the offer more effective.
To write great copy to boost your email marketing, you should keep your audience in mind and follow the AIDA formula. Begin with trying an open loop headline, follow it with body copy that is both interesting and desirable and end with a potent call to action.
How do you write great copy in your email marketing? Let us know in the comments below.
