Emails can be sexy
According to Salesforce, Email reading is the number one activity on smartphones, and roughly 50% of emails are currently read on mobile devices. Yet, email remains a forgotten channel for many outdoor and tourism marketers. We often treat email as a necessary evil and don’t give it the same amount of brand love and attention as we do our website or social content. We recently spoke on this topic and wanted to share here a few insights we hope can have some takeaways for your own CRM strategy.
Below, are a few email key elements showcased in the context of a project we’ve completed recently for Jay Peak Resort. We approached the project with the notion that when we make each point of communication within the customer journey feel unique and positioned to be something more than just content. Instead, it will play an integral part in the culture building around the brand, ultimately leading to better retention and action within our email subscribers.
Your email’s design approach
In the case of Jay Peak, we utilized illustration. A major factor was its ability to help us meet some of our goals of differentiation. In addition, it simplified the seasonality aspect, removing the need to update summer or winter images. We worked with Montreal illustrator Laurent Pinabel to develop illustrations for each of our various templates.
Your email strategy
There are key pieces of an email strategy which can be optimized to provide customers with expertly-timed, informational touch-points. Here are just a few of those:
1. Pre-Arrival Email
These are the automated emails sent out to guests who have booked a specific product, activity, or service to help them get the best experience. Content can include what to expect, how to get around, what to bring, check-in processes, and of course, cross-promotional offers. Your CRM can determine what is included in the original reservation and automatically offer additional products, activities, or services. These personalized promotions are based on the guest’s type of reservation and preferences.
2. Planning Email
These are also helpful when first-time guests are coming to your destination and you want to help them plan ahead. In the case of Jay Peak, that content was focused on getting guests to pre-book their ski lessons (which can sell out in high season), and on showcasing the variety of lessons available.
3. Welcome Email
These are often overlooked by brands and are an amazing opportunity to bond with guests on their day of arrival. They can offer real-time information on events, restaurants to reserve ahead, and any property specials. For Jay, they invited guests to email the General Manager directly if they have an issue during their stay.
4. Anniversaries
Otherwise known as those reminders sent out to guests who booked one year ago and have not yet made a reservation in the current year. They’re incredibly effective and when done right, can lead to a deeper brand loyalty. For Jay Peak, we wanted to avoid cheezy anniversary-like language and focused more on the idea of memories.
5. Post Departure
To cultivate repeat customers, it's best to capitalize on timing when satisfaction is high. This means offering incentives for them to book again before departing, or soon after. Another effective strategy for post-departure is a survey which allows you to get a better understanding of which campaigns are working, which markets are increasing, overall guest satisfaction and anything else that makes sense for your business. Surveys will provide you with preference data, allowing you to move more towards a data-driven organization. To align with Jay's brand, we wanted this to feel fun and light.
6. Newsletter
We all have a newsletter email. How can you structure yours to ensure you’re providing value and not just pushing promotions? The key here is to really think about the structure of your template so it allows for flexibility and pulling in content from your content management system, your social feeds, etc.
7. Cart Abandonment
This is the basic but, having automated reminders sent out to guests who have abandoned a reservation before completing the checkout process is not something all of us do well.
Real-world tips
Finally, here are a few tips from Kim Hewitt, Marketing Manager at Jay Peak. Kim manages all of Jay's marketing, including email.
Origin: How do you approach budgeting for something like this?
Kim: We try to build the templates so they can be used across two seasons with edits/changes in year two to refresh them without having to completely redo them. In year one, we budget for a complete redesign and in year two, we budget a lot less for smaller updates/changes. As long as the structure of the template doesn’t change you can make the templates feel quite different by changing all the images and copy
Origin: How do you convince the boss that this is worth it?
Kim: Whenever we send an eblast or newsletter promoting the latest vacation deal there is always a direct spike in reservations, particularly online. Of course, our communications include sales & marketing info but there’s also a lot of value in helping departments communicate information (ie check-in details/locations) to get in front of what could become a guest issue (so they don’t arrive heated because they tried two other locations before finding the right one).
Origin: How do you brief your agency on this kind of project?
Kim: Be honest about your own skills and what you can and can’t do. Make sure your agency knows and understands email design. At Jay, we start by sharing what some of our specific goals are for the upcoming season (ie. increasing Ski School reservations for adult and group lessons, clearly directing guests to new lodging check-in locations). We work on NOT serving up the standard marketing speak that guests might be seeing from other companies. We also let ourselves be a little more irreverent in tone/creative esp with current and past guests. They clearly know and (hopefully) love Jay Peak so we can let ourselves speak to and with them in a very authentic way. I think it’s important to also clearly understand what functionality is available prior to even the briefing process. If you need a communication to do something specific (ie dynamically pull in info from your site) and that’s not possible, you’ll want to know that from the outset. There are usually workarounds but it will likely require you building out the templates in a different way.
Origin: What workflow do you have to get the right people to help contribute?
Kim: I try to build out as much of the details myself and then have the department heads review/approve. There are always things I miss that the departments fill in but it’s easier for them to know what’s expected when they have a baseline to work from. I also like to have them review/approve the final creative when it’s all in place. Sometimes things need to be tweaked when you see it designed. Plus, it’s good that they see exactly what guests are receiving so there’s less room for confusion on what’s been communicated.
Origin: Any advice to other marketers?
Kim: Developing out a full suite of new templates can be overwhelming. With so many templates it’s easy to get a little lost in what each is supposed to communicate, so it’s important to keep in mind how they’ll be flowing to guests and how information from different templates can work together. When Origin feeds me info in a way I can more easily review, this helps: Starting with the brief, then building out the copy and approving the general creative before it’s all finally brought together in the templates. So working deliberately in phases to keep it all easy to digest. And start earlier than you think – it takes some time to get these right. Each year we try to add something to our suite of templates to improve how we’re communicating with guests. Depending on where you’re starting it might be daunting to build out a full set of automated communications (or maybe not if you have a huge marketing team and a big budget). Pick a couple/few that you think will have the most impact and start there.
