Customer service is an undeniable staple of hospitality. But great customer service wouldn’t exist without great guest communication. A well-written hotel email template, ready to customize at a moment’s notice, helps you improve communication with guests, stay on brand and respond faster.
That’s because emails are one of the most efficient ways to communicate with guests. Whether you’re persuading them to book with you again or reminding them of an upcoming trip, emails are invaluable to your marketing and communications strategy.
Get Inspired With 14 Email Templates
The secret to writing a great guest email is understanding your audience. Think about what would excite them based on their demographic. Putting that extra bit of effort into your emails is worth it, trust us. But to give you a head start, we’ve put together 14 types of email templates:
1. Reservation confirmation email template
Subject: Your Reservation Is Confirmed!
2. Pre-arrival email template
Subject: What You Need to Know About Your Upcoming Stay
3. Welcome email template
Subject: A Warm Welcome to [Hotel Name]
Need a bit more inspiration? Check out our blog: How to Write a Welcome Message for Hotel Guests (+7 Templates)
4. Post-stay email template
Subject: It Was a Pleasure!
5. Loyalty program email template
Subject: Become a Valued Member of [Hotel Name]
6. Special offer/promotion email template
Subject: Your Exclusive Offer From [Hotel Name] Awaits!
7. Event announcement email template
Subject: Save the Date for an Unforgettable Event!
8. Newsletter email template
Subject: Stay in the Loop
9. Upselling email template
Subject: Elevate Your Stay With an Upgrade or Add-on
10. Weather advisory email template
Subject: Weather Advisory: Prepare for Your Stay
11. Lost and found email template
Subject: Did You Lose an Item During Your Stay?
12. Special occasion greeting email template
Subject: Wishing You a Very Special [Occassion Title] at [Hotel Name]!
13. Referral program email template
Subject: Share the Love: Introducing [Hotel Name]'s Referral Program!
14. Cancellation email templates
Subject: Important Update Regarding Your Request
7 Smart Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Emails
Now that you have the templates, it's time for a few rules of the road to make the most out of your email communication. The secret starts with how you write and formulate them. It’s important to use persuasive, brand-appropriate language suited to your recipient. But that’s not all:
Email personalization
Personalization is king! In an IHG Hotels and Resorts’ Voco Hotels study: 48% of respondents said that friendly, approachable and personalized service is more important than ever.
Here’s how to personalize your emails:
- Address guests appropriately. Call the guest by their name and preferred pronouns: Always address guests by their name and preferred pronouns (if specified).
- Tailor offers and recommendations: Use your guest’s purchase history with you to find out what promotional offers and recommendations would appeal to them most.
- Personalize subject lines: Include your guest’s name in the subject line or mention something specific to their stay.
- Acknowledge special occasions: Congratulate guests on birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and other special occasions.
Mobile optimization
Making emails mobile-friendly is vital in today’s world. Here’s how you can optimize your emails for mobile:
- Responsive designs: Make sure your emails can adapt to different screen sizes (e.g., laptop, smartphone, tablet etc.,).
- TLDR, be concise but not impersonal: Keep your content short and to the point, but make sure to include all the important information.
- Clickable phone numbers and emails: Make it easy for your recipients to call you with a click of a button. No copying and pasting faff here!
A/B testing
Not every email is going to knock it out of the park. Sometimes you’ll create a flop—that’s just the reality of guest hotel email marketing and communication!
A/B testing gives you a way to find out what messaging works best for your particular audience or audience segment. Here’s how:
- Choose variables to test: This could be a subject line, email copy, images or calls-to-action.
- Split your audience: Divide your email list into two random and equal segments. One segment will receive email (A) and the other will receive email (B).
- Test one variable at a time: This is a great way to accurately attribute changes in performance. If you test multiple variables at once, i.e. change the images and subject line, you won’t know which change influenced the results.
Compliance & data privacy
Compliance and data privacy are not to be taken lightly. You may be aware of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or if you're communicating with guests in Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These are data protection regulations designed to give individuals greater control over their personal data and impose obligations on businesses to handle that data responsibly.
There are a few ways to make sure your emails are compliant, including:
- Understand data protection regulations: It’s vital to read up on the data protection regulations that affect your hotel. This will help you stay within compliance.
- Obtain explicit consent: Asking guests permission to communicate with them via email keeps you compliant with various regulations. It also demonstrates a commitment to their privacy.
- Be transparent in the data you collect: Include a small link at the bottom of your emails that takes them to your privacy policy.
Timing & frequency
Sending your emails at the right time has a big impact on your open rates and click-throughs. Send too many and your audience may become irritated. Send too few and your audience may forget you exist. Although there’s never one simple answer, here’s what Hotelinking recommends:
- Relevance matters: Welcome communications, greetings and actions that add value to the consumer have the highest conversion rates.
- Strategy over timing: The time and day you send your email depends on the audience segment.
- The data: Hotelinking found that the preferred time to finalize reservations spurred on by hotel email campaigns is between 9:30 p.m. and 10.00 p.m.
- In addition, J.D. Power found that overall satisfaction scores drop by 66 points, on average, when hotels do not send pre-stay communications.
Segmentation
Segmentation is a powerful strategy to enhance your email communication by tailoring messages to specific groups of guests based on shared characteristics. Here are a few ways you can segment your audience:
- Demographic: Age, gender, income, education, occupation and marital status.
- Geographic: Location, region, climate, urban or rural areas and population density.
- Behavioral: Behaviors, preferences, usage patterns, brand loyalty and purchasing habits.
Metrics & Analysis
Once your email or email campaigns are written, formatted, and on their way, it’s time to relax. Only joking: It’s now time to measure their performance. Here are a few metrics you can use to measure the success of your email campaigns:
- Email engagement metrics: Open rate, click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, bounce rate and forward/share rate.
- Segmentation performance: Conversion rate by segment, segment size, segment growth and segment churn rate.
- Customer journey analytics: Touchpoint engagement, time to conversion, customer retention rate, abandonment rate and customer satisfaction (CSAT).
Using Technology to Streamline Guest Messaging
Email is effective but today, guests want real-time communication. Forty-five percent of hotel guests say they would prefer to report an issue through SMS or a messaging application.
Consider investing in a guest management system to enable text-based messaging and streamline guest communication with AI-enhanced responses.
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