Hotel email marketing is a chance to delight your potential guests and drive bookings or upsells. One-off campaigns, like newsletters or temporary promotions, are a great way to reach audiences. However, the real power comes from automated emails.
Automated emails run in the background to earn revenue with minimal ongoing effort from your team.
Forge Apollo provides hotel email marketing based in Philadelphia. Today, we’re breaking down nine automated emails your team should use for your hotel marketing strategy.
Types of Automated Emails
Let’s start by breaking down the different types of automated emails your hotel should use.
Basic Transactional Emails
Guests trigger these emails by making transactions with your hotel. Your booking engine should handle these emails, but we’ll cover some tips later on how to maximize them. Some examples of transactional emails you should send are:
- Booking Confirmations
- Payment Receipts
- Cancellation Notifications
- Cart Abandonment
- Loyalty Program Status
Stay-Related Emails
These are like transactional emails, but take it a step further. They include emails like pre-stay reminders or post-stay survey requests.
Personalized Emails
Our last category is personalized emails. These relate to personal details of your guests, like birthdays or anniversaries.
9 Automated Emails Hotels Should Send
When setting up these automations, keep the structuring of your workflows in mind to ensure you don’t accidentally send one guest too many emails in a short period of time.
1. Welcome Emails
When a guest checks into your hotel, you greet them with friendly service. You should do the same with emails! When someone joins your marketing email list, send them a welcome.
When to Send It:
When a contact joins your marketing email list.
Ideas to Highlight:
- Welcome them to your list.
- Let them know what to expect, like special updates and offers.
- Extend a welcome offer if you can, like a percentage off their next stay or a free drink at the bar.
Personalization Ideas:
- If you have any demographic or location data, try to customize the list of what they can expect to things they would care about.
Subject Line Ideas:
- Welcome!
- Welcome, [First Name]!
- Act Now: Your Welcome Awaits!
2. Pre-Stay Reminders
A pre-stay reminder is a key moment to delight your guests with valuable information and drive upsells.
When to Send It:
A few days to a week before a guest’s check-in date.
Ideas to Highlight:
- Reminder of key amenities on-site (dining, pool, spa, etc.). Include any relevant links or actions, like “Make a dinner reservation” or “Book a spa service.”
- Enhancements they can add to their stay.
- Things to do in the area.
- A packing list with relevant items for your area (ex. “Don’t forget your swimsuit!” or “Leave the beach chair at home–we’ve got you covered.”)
- Directions from key travel centers.
Personalization Ideas:
- Highlight family-friendly activities for guests staying with children.
- Create different versions for different seasons of the year if that affects packing lists or activities.
- Different directions based on what area they’re coming from.
- Unique phrasing based on the room they’re staying in. For example, “Start your morning with breakfast on your balcony” for rooms with a balcony vs “breakfast in bed” for rooms without.
Subject Line Ideas:
- 📆 Your Stay is Just Around the Corner!
- 🎉 Can’t Wait to See You Soon!
- ⏳ It’s almost here…
3. Event Invitations During Stay
Reach your guests while they’re on-site and primed to act with invitations to events during their stay.
When to Send It: A day or two before the event.
What to Highlight:
- Upcoming events or specials on-site.
Personalization Ideas:
- Segment for the types of people who would enjoy the event, like couples for a romantic dinner or families for a holiday brunch.
Subject Line Ideas:
- [Tomorrow] You’re Invited!
- [Tomorrow] Don’t Miss Out!
- Join the Party! 🎉
4. Other Stay Activities
During longer stays, check in with guests mid-trip to see if you can enhance their experience.
When to Send It: Mid-stay for guests staying for at least a week.
What to Highlight:
- Local activities
- Hotel amenities they may not have had time to visit (ex. “Have you made a splash yet this week?” with an image of your pool).
- How to contact you if they need anything during their stay.
Personalization Ideas:
- Share family-friendly activities and amenities with guests staying with children.
- Highlight ways solo travelers can enjoy themselves, or ways those traveling for business can relax (ex. “Long day of meetings? Unwind at our bar.”)
Subject Line Ideas:
- Enjoying Your Time with Us?
- Don’t Miss [Amenity] During Your Stay!
- There’s still time to [make a splash / unwind / etc.]…
5. Pre-Checkout
No one likes to say goodbye. Make the check-out process a breeze with reminders on check-out policies.
When to Send It: One day before checkout.
What to Highlight:
- Check out policies and procedures.
Personalization Ideas:
- If it’s available for a guest’s room, mention late check-out or staying for another day. For example, say, “Want to sleep in? Upgrade to late check out tomorrow” or “Keep the fun going–stay for another night!”.
Subject Line Ideas:
- 💔 We hate to say goodbye
- It’s almost time to check out…
- [Tomorrow] Check-Out Essentials
6. Post-Stay Surveys
Collect feedback and build positive reviews online to bolster your brand while your guests’ experiences are still fresh.
When to Send It: A day or two after check-out.
What to Highlight:
- Ask for feedback on their stay via a survey or review request. Encourage positive online reviews by either using a flow that requests positive survey responses for a review, or use software that sends negative feedback to you to handle privately and posts positive reviews online.
Personalization Ideas:
- Add feedback questions based on details of their stay, like amenities in a particular room or services booked.
- For travelers with children, add a fun flair by directing a survey or feedback request to the kids, like asking them to rate how much fun they had. Bonus Idea: For family-focused resorts, this could turn into a fun ad campaign idea featuring quotes from kids over imagery of your amenities.
Subject Line Ideas:
- Rate Your Stay – Was it Amazing?
- ➡️ Rate Your Stay Now
- 🔔 Share Your Experience Now…
7. Occasion
Who doesn’t love to celebrate? Show guests you’re celebrating them by reaching out on their important occasions.
When to Send It: On important dates, like anniversaries or birthdays. You can also send this one a month in advance and encourage them to book a stay at your hotel to celebrate.
What to Highlight:
- Special offers, like a percentage discount for their birthday
- Ways to celebrate with you (ex. “A Romantic Escape for Your Anniversary”)
Personalization Ideas:
- For anniversaries, suggest couples spa treatments, romantic restaurants, or room enhancements.
Subject Line Ideas:
- 🎉 Happy [Occasion]!
- Celebrate Your [Occasion] at [Hotel Name]!
- Your [occasion] gift…
8. Action-Based Automations
Action-based automations catch potential guests at the right moment to encourage bookings. They require data flow between your CRM/email system and your marketing efforts.
When to Send It: When a contact takes an action that expresses interest but they haven’t converted yet, like spending time on a landing page for a particular hotel location or clicking on an ad.
What to Highlight:
- Drive urgency and motivation
- The location of the hotel in the asset they looked at (Example: “It’s time to take that trip to San Diego…” or “Boston is calling!”)
- Indulging in the special or event they were looking at (Example: “You deserve to treat yourself to a spa getaway,” or “Tickets to our bourbon dinner are running out…”)
Personalization Ideas:
- Personalize the content to the asset they were looking at, such as location or speaking to the target audience of that asset.
Subject Line Ideas:
- Tickets are running out…
- ✨ (City) is calling ✨
- 🍹You deserve a getaway
9. We Miss You
Getting a past guest to return is easier than earning a new guest’s business. Remind your past guests of the great time they had with you and invite them to stay again.
When to Send It:
When a contact hasn’t stayed with you for an extended period.
Ideas to Highlight:
- The length of time since their last stay. For example, “It’s been a long [two years/few months]…”.
- An offer to entice them into booking again.
Personalization Ideas:
- Create some urgency around the time of year they’ve visited before. For example, “We haven’t seen you since last summer, and our rooms for this summer are booking up fast!”
Subject Line Ideas:
- 💔 We miss you…
- It’s been a while…
- 😢 (Destination) misses you!
3 Tips for Better Transactional Emails
Transactional emails may be standard, but that doesn’t mean they have to be basic. Use these tips to enhance your transactional hotel emails.
- Feature restaurants or your on-site spa – This can get guests excited for their trip and encourage them to make reservations or book services.
- Highlight add-ons or enhancements – Earn some upsells by sharing how guests can enhance their stay with options like a bottle of wine to enjoy in their room.
- Add information about your loyalty program – If you have one, this is the perfect opportunity to encourage new sign-ups with phrasing like “You could’ve earned X points from this stay.”
Create the Best Hotel Marketing Emails
Automated emails aren’t exactly “set it and forget it,” but require minimal effort after the initial setup. While they’re a fantastic addition to email marketing in the hotel industry, they can require careful setup. If you need help setting up automated campaigns for your hotel, Forge Apollo can help. We provide email marketing based in Philadelphia. Contact us today to start discussing your hotel marketing strategy.
