The advantages of using segmentation well in mailing lists.
You have been managing a good customer mailing list for some time now. Basically you use it to confirm bookings or resolve queries, but little else. At most, you have sent them a Christmas greeting -hopefully not the typical one with dancing elves- and that's it.
But have you thought about what you can do with that big mailing list?
Let's take a look at some examples:
- You can create automatic emails that are sent at specific times to a single customer after making a reservation. I'm sure that when you made an online purchase, you instantly received a message confirming your purchase. And a few days later, another email letting you know where your package is on its way. If they keep you so informed with a purchase, why not do the same for your guests?
- Yes, we could say that English is the universal language and the one we all use when someone gives us a poker face when we speak to them in our mother tongue, whatever it may be. But how nice would it be, as a guest, to have hotel information sent to you in your own language?
- You have a lot of guests who are already like part of the family. They stay at your hotel every year, so you'd like to do something nice for them by sending them an exclusive promotion. But there are 832 of them. And you're not going to send 832 emails, ONE BY ONE.
- You don't own a hotel. It's a whole chain. And you'd love to be able to send a promotion to clients in the hotel with a spa without giving the rest of them a hard time. But, once again, you're not going to select customer mail after customer mail...
The power of segmentation
To save you ALL that work that you could do by hand (and which will waste precious time, even if it's a small hotel just starting up), SEGMENTING was invented.
What is segmenting?
To make it easy, segmenting is choosing a specific group within a larger audience to send them a message uniquely. It is refining an audience. It doesn't make much sense to send an email in Spanish to people who don't understand the language, does it?
That's why, in GuestPro's CRM - that big database of your customers - we have prepared a lot of variables that allow you to segment according to the data that the guest has given you when they have created a contact and made a reservation. With all these variables, you choose who you send the email to.
What do you get with email segmentation?
- Create a relationship of trust with your guests. The moment they send you that message that your purchase is on its way, you sigh with relief, don't you? The same thing happens to your guest. Every time they hear from you, every time you contact them, they expand their level of trust with you. Just by being there.
- Reinforce your brand image through messaging. Every time you hit the send button, you are giving the guest information about your brand. The way you treat the guest, the way you write the message, the tone you use, the photos you choose speak about you. Take good care of this to anchor your brand in the direction you really want to take it.
- Create sales strategies based on the moment, sending promotions to encourage bookings. Segmentation and mailing lists are a powerful sales weapon. But it must be used well. Keep in mind that a mailing list is not pure mathematics: don't think that because you have sent 1,733 emails with a promotion, you will get 1,733 bookings. But it is quite possible that you will get more bookings than if you didn't send that promotion.
What you have just read is just the tip of the iceberg of what our CRM can do in terms of segmentation. If you are curious and want to know more, contact us!
