Email Marketing Best Practices

Email Marketing Tips for Tourism Marketers
These are troubled times for the tourism industry. The marketing dollars spent now, more than ever, must hit their mark. Direct email marketing is a low-cost, high yield avenue that many hotels, travel associations and tourism groups are taking to get the most from marketing budgets strained during tough times.

According to Carrie Harrison, director of sales for Forge Marketing, a permission-based email direct marketing, capturing customer data on company web sites is a crucial first step. Initial data capture on a home page is needed to build a database of customers who have given their permission to receive future marketing material on upcoming travel specials and tourism promotions.

"We recommend our tourism clients have a prominent icon on their home page that leads to a data capture form, or if they prefer, a pop-up window on their site designed for the same purpose," Harrison stresses. She adds that the cost for adding this option is low.

Vancouver's Wedgewood Hotel acquired 1,600 email subscribers within two months of adding data capture to its hotel web site. Before that, and according to the tally of site visits, the hotel was potentially missing 800 people per month.

Offering an incentive, such as free room nights or a chance to win a trip for two, is also a big help in increasing the rate of subscribers who sign up or opt-in to receive future material. Harrison recommends that tourism marketers follow-up with subscribers to let them know who won.

"That way they know the contest is real and that there will be future chances to win by continuing to subscribe to the site," she explains.

The initial data capture point is the first opportunity to find out whether new subscribers travel for leisure, business or both. Next, by using an auto response form to thank them for subscribing, marketers have a second opportunity to build a profile on customer preferences. What kind of information do they want to receive? Is it specials on road trips, cruises or travel by rail?

There's no better way than asking, as the British Columbia Automobile Association (BCAA) has shown through its extensive use of direct email marketing polls to survey the views of its membership.

The BCAA recently polled its email subscribers and received a 12 percent response rate by first sending to a list of members who had given permission to receive their materials, and by adding the incentive of a chance to win a Samsonite Cabin Carry-on suitcase.

With the information BCAA gathered through its survey, the association is planning future highly targeted email direct mailings to its members based on their stated preferences.

Yukon Tourism recently had major success reaching brand new audiences with an email campaign promoting the "Yukon Alaska Ultimate Adventure Contest." Tourism Yukon rented two types of lists-one owned and operated by TELUS made up of Canadians who had previously requested other types of travel information, and the second, a Forge Marketing database of people who had already indicated an interest in Yukon travel.

The "click thru" rate (rate of those who viewed the messages) was exceptional at almost 19 percent, and about equal for both lists. The industry average for click-thrus on marketing messages is between two to seven percent.

The second list of recipients, those who were already qualified as interested in receiving information about Yukon travel, had a not unexpected 69 percent conversion rate (rate of customers who completed a subscriber profile and asked for more information). Of the TELUS list, those who had indicated only a general travel interest, a respectable 11 percent signed up to receive more information on Yukon travel.

Harrison is pleased with the results. "Yukon Tourism can now send out emails in the future about what is happening there and in Alaska. They walked away with more exposure and their own permission-approved database. It's a real asset to them and to their profile."

She also believes travel and tourism marketers should take a big picture approach to their promotional efforts. "You can better serve customers by telling them, not only about your service or organization, but also about all the other things there are to do if they come to visit, which can be a real revenue generator. Telling them about musicals or shows happening in the city, for example, leads to increases in hotel and restaurant bookings."

In the end, says Harrison, "If you're going down the electronic direct marketing route, take three steps first: capture data and permission from your customers, find out about their travel preferences, and keep the big picture in mind when developing promotional messages." It's an approach that's working for her clients, and one that can yield high returns for the tourism industry at a relatively low cost.

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