Travel and Tourism Email Strategies

8/9/2019 Travel and Tourism Email Strategies

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3 Top Email Strategies for Travel & Tourism

www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk 1

3TopEmailmarketingstrategies

forTravelandTourismcampaigns

ByAbiClowes
http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/


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Welcome to our latest guide this one focuses on email marketingstrategies and advice for Marketers in the Travel & Tourism industry.

In this guide Marketing Manager Abi Clowes will take you through three of the mostsuccessful strategies that you can implement, without trouble, to improve your email

marketing activities.

Use dynamic content to talk in their language

As a marketer we should never underestimate the power of our content, you can grab

someones attention with a cheeky offer or catchy subject line but its the content that

will take them through to the all important conversion.

We all know that our email marketing messages should be relevant and targeted but

at what detail have you tried to talk their language?

You could add their name into your email for a bit of personalisation, its a good

place to start. As an extra why not also add it to the subject line? Dave its been

a while since youve taken a break treat yourself.

Taking it to the next level, you would want to send relevant holiday options toDave so you probably have separate messages for that at the moment. Why not

make it easier for yourself and use dynamic content in your actual messaging to

change content without having to set up a new email? Heres a quick example...

Hi Dave,

Its been [insert number months] since you went to [insert previous location],

surely its about time you treated yourself to a break?

The timing is great because weve just launched a special deal on winter

breaks to [insert relevant location], saving you 25%!

Contact your local branch on [insert local branch number] and [branch

manager name] can get you booked on your next amazing holiday before the

offer ends.

Now you can use the same email message to cover off loads of different

holiday types and theyre all super targeted at each recipient.


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All you need is a bit of segmentation from buyer behaviour or attributes and some

html tweaking and youre suddenly appealing to the masses but in a very relevant

way.

Make the event last a whole month

Taking a holiday is an experience that many people try to make last much longer than

the actual holiday itself. Why wouldnt they? Its great to build up excitement and have

something to look forward to and when theyre back, try and savour it and share the

experience to keep it fresh in their minds.

This provides a great opportunity for marketers in the travel and tourism industry tokeep their brand and services fresh in the minds of their target audience for even

longer with some clever email marketing.

Take a look at the calendar below from the moment the holiday is booked you can

start planning in totally relevant and useful emails that build the relationship with the

customer. And it doesnt end after the holiday, then is the time to get feedback and

reviews for your website and marketing collateral, cross sell with other products and

upsell with the next holiday after all if they had the time of their lives then theyll be

chomping at the bit to go again.


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Nice example from Holidayextras.com

These guys have got it right with their email marketing, once a holiday is booked then

they will push their other services such as airport parking, car hire and insurance.

They also make great use of adding weight to their call to action by telling people that

they can get an extra 10% off but only if they click through from that particular email,

so theres no time spent thinking about it, use that email or pay more elsewhere.

Finally theyre spreading the reach of their email message by asking people to

promote it via Facebook and forwarding to a friend. Social media can be very

powerful when used in conjunction with email marketing as both are pushing trafc

back to the website and promotions alongside educational content are very popular

on social sites.

Get automated

Make sure youre well planned for holidaycampaigns and know what emails youd like to

go out at which key points around the booking

and holiday.

It doesnt have to be hard and you dont need

to remember for each person your email

software provider should have anAutomation

feature that allows you to set up a series of

emails that automatically go out on specieddays after an event or a web conversion. All you need to do is set it up once and

youre done.
http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/email-marketing-solutions/email-marketing-software/email-marketing-solution-compare/features/automationshttp://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/email-marketing-solutions/email-marketing-software/email-marketing-solution-compare/features/automationshttp://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/


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For example...

Bob buys a holiday to Egypt online.

With the automation set up he will receive an instant conrmation email and then 7

days before his holiday he receives an email telling him the weather forecast in Egypt

so he knows what to buy. Five days before his departure he receives a reminder to

purchase travel insurance, then 2 days before he gets an email with the weather again

plus how is he getting to the airport?

Bob feels very prepared and happy with his holiday provider and gives glowing

reviews when he receives an email a week after his holiday asking him how it went

and reminding him to give a review.

You can also set up automated emails based on a date eld in your distribution list for

example a birthday or holiday date.

This means that you can send

emails automatically based around

this date without having to think

about it!

STA Travel did this based on a

birthday and they even added

additional personalisation with the

persons rst name using dynamic

content to make it extra targeted.

Recap Checklist

So to quickly recap on the best way to make your

event last a whole month...

Decide what emails should go out around an

event

Plan in when they should go

Design the emails (are you including social share features?)

Plug them into the Automations feature in your software

Measure the results after a month to see what is working and what needs tweaking


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Retargeting your database

Retargeting your existing database is a really easy way to keep your email marketing

costs down, reconnect with inactive customers and upsell to active customers.

You could split your database into the themed categories and then send a targeted

email to each, for example:

Customers by email activity

The opens entice them to click with a special promotion

The non opens change up your subject lines and test different days/times to

get that click through

The clicks you know theyre interested but perhaps the price is putting them

off or the holiday isnt quite suitable? We saw you looking at x and thought wed

offer you some alternatives or Today only an extra % off x

The converted these guys are prime for either post purchase feedback (if you

have holiday reviews on your site then link to that and ask them to leave one)

or an upsell with connected product Enjoy the snow in Whistler? prebook for

next year before the end of month and get 20% off.

Customers by purchasing activity

Purchasers by type of holiday If it was a school holiday break they took then

retarget them for the next upcoming school holiday offers or if they took a winter

holiday then they must be due a summer one...

Purchasers by holiday frequency- If theyre only purchasing on holiday a year

then perhaps they can be enticed with a weekend getaway instead of a fully

edged second holiday. For those people who go on a couple per year then

instigate a loyalty scheme so you make sure theyre all booked with them and

are they referring you to friends? Have they left glowing reviews?

When youre retargeting, think about what information you already hold about them

and use it to personalise the subject lines. Even if you dont have their name you can

still use information you do know such as the products they were looking at or the last

time they responded to an email.


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Re-engaging with your database works especially well when you are more

personalised with them and show you know what they want, so make sure youve

armed yourself with insight as we talked about in the previous two sections.

Topdeck Travel

Topdeck Travel recently did a great email campaign

retargeting their database by geographic location

such as New Zealand and Australia.

They then sent out news that their latest European

brochure was live and provided a time-limited offer

to push sales from the campaign.

A nice touch was that they added urgency to

their campaign with an early bird discount and

gave a clear deadline for bookings. They also

incorporated their social share channels and not as

an afterthought at the bottom of the email!

Truprint

In this example one of our customers Truprint wanted to increase the numbers of

purchases they had during an Easter promotion. Not travel related I know but they did

well using seasonality as a theme.


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They sent an email to previous non-purchasers which was designed to drive

them to purchase

They then analysed the results and sent a second email to the non-openers ornon-clickers offering them a further discount

They found that by retargeting their current database they turned a vast number

of their non actives into actives who continue to engage with their email

marketing campaigns. They also saw an

increase in their purchases, so much so

that they are now looking at new ways

to segment and target their distribution

list.

Park Holidays UK - Lifes a beachwith targeted email campaigns

ParkholidaysUK has 25 parks stretching

from Devon to Suffolk and is the largest

operator of holiday parks in the whole of

the South of England. The company offercaravan and camping holidays and also

feature a caravan home sales page on their

website. Park Holidays UK started working

withPure360in 2008.

Stacey Long, Marketing Executive explains: We felt that Pure360 were a very cost

effective email solution with an easy to use interface. We needed to be able to target

different areas of the business with selected different email content each month.

One size doesnt t all, effective targeting is key
http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/http://www.parkholidaysuk.com/http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/http://www.parkholidaysuk.com/http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/


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Park Holidays UK has segmented its database in order to send emails to ve different

groups of recipients each month. The content is specic to the recipient depending

on what type of customer or prospect they are. The fabulous ve are:

Holiday offer mailers: Retargeted at previous customers and potential customers

to encourage them to visit the website and purchase a holiday

Holiday post purchase mailers: Regular mailers to existing bookers to try and

enhance their holiday experience. These emails give them the opportunity to

make additional purchases and also provide helpful customer service information

Sales mailers: Used to target potential holiday home owners, detailing special

offers and encouraging recipients to click through to the site and make an

enquiry

Touring mailers: These emails go to potential bookers and are used to sell

touring pitches

Owner emails: A weekly emaill newsletter

Stacey comments: The weekly newsletters are particularly useful as they help enable

us to keep a feeling of goodwill amongst the owners, so they know what is going on.

It also encourages them to pay more frequent visits to the parks.

Stacey continues: We have worked very hard on creating regular communication

between ourselves and our owners. We wanted to create a community spirit and

show customers we still care about what they think even after they have made their

purchase. This helps us with our customer retention.

Using Automations

In the last year Park Holidays UK has made some dramatic changes to the way in

which they communicate with their customers. These changes include introducing

an email template to all emails and increasing the customer lifecycle. Park Holidays

UK is very savvy when it comes to their customer lifecycle. They communicate with

the customer not only when they book their holiday but also in the 8 weeks leading

up to it... and on the day they return. Want to know how? They use anAutomations

feature.
http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/email-marketing-resources-insights/the-newsletterhttp://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/email-marketing-solutions/email-marketing-software/email-marketing-solution-compare/features/automationshttp://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/email-marketing-solutions/email-marketing-software/email-marketing-solution-compare/features/automationshttp://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/email-marketing-resources-insights/the-newsletterhttp://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/


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With 25 holiday parks it would be near on impossible to send pre-arrival and welcome

home emails to every single customer, but the Automations feature in PureResponse

allows Park Holidays to do just that. They can even go so far as to send out emails

based on their customers arrival and departure times. Perfect.

As if that wasnt enough, Park Holidays UK also use the Automated Import feature

and re-occurring deliveries to send emails to save even more time. Rather than

send 25 emails on a weekly basis they just amend the content on the URL and

PureResponse takes care of the rest.

And the all important results?

Park Holidays open rate is 16% and click-through rates really give them something

to shout about, they gain an average of between 27-32%, an increase of 9% from

last year.

Stacey comments:We want to grow our email campaigns to make them even more

targeted. We have started to do this but we know there is more that we can do. We

want the Pure360 system to grow with us and help in our ongoing mission of being

more intelligent with our emails.

To sum up

The Travel & Tourism industry is one of the most fun and easy industries to get some

creative and effective email marketing campaigns going in. There are plenty of tools

readily available that can make your lives much easier

and by using the strategies Ive outlined in this guide,

you should nd your bookings increase and your

client-base much more likely to rebook again.

Want to know more?

Author of this guide,Abi Clowesis one of the many

talented and experienced people who make up the

team at Pure360.

Pure360 provides the best email marketing servicesto customers such as innocent drinks, Seatwave,

The FT Group, Rightmove, Zoopla and LA Fitness.


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www pure360emailmarketing co uk 12

Pure360 dont tie customers in with a long contracts, instead we maintain a high

customer retention rate of 98.6% by making sure marketers are getting the best

possible results from their email marketing campaigns. Members of the DMA, we

have recorded a 10% higher open rate for our customers than the DMA average,leading to higher clicks and conversions.

You can nd the team working to improve over 2,000 marketers email campaigns,

down in Brighton. If youd like to talk to one of us then call or email us at

[email protected].

Were also on Twitter (@pure360) or sign up for our newsletter online.
http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/mailto:contact%40pure360.co.uk?subject=http://www.twitter.com/pure360http://www.twitter.com/pure360mailto:contact%40pure360.co.uk?subject=http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/

Travel and Tourism Email Strategies

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