You may have installed email capture on your website and have already captured many emails—but business is tough. There is still an urgency to collect more emails to power your mail campaigns. How can you successfully increase the capture rate?
In this case study, we compared the results from hotels with different types of email capture messages to see which convert best—without an offer and with an offer. Plus, we looked at how one of our clients collected 20x more emails than an equivalent hotel.
The Data
To explore the power of an offer, we compared two similar hotels located in the Dutch countryside. One hotel used a standard message, the other combined their email capture message with a 10% promo code offer. The code was sent out via email and could then be applied in the booking engine.
The hotel using an offer collected 20 times more emails per message displayed than the hotel with no offer. Over 80% of all bookings that were made by visitors who saw an email capture message on exit, were made by visitors who had signed-up. Offers clearly have a big impact.
Easy Offers
As occupancy rates are low, it is now easier to provide an email voucher for free late check-out, free early check-in, or a room upgrade. It also doesn’t cost much to provide welcome beverages or hotel credit as an alternative offer. Think about creating offers that fit with what your hotel is already capable of offering, as there is an operational aspect.
Booking.com Genius Program
For hotels already offering a 10% discount to Genius members through Booking.com’s loyalty program, it is a no-brainer that you should also offer the same 10% discount on your own website as an email voucher.
Face Value
To enhance the success of vouchers you can mention their face-value e.g. ‘2 free cocktails, worth €20.’ While the actual cost to the hotel of two cocktails is much lower, visitors see the value as €20—making it an attractive freebie.
An example of two different types of email capture message on mobile—one without an offer and one which combines a voucher with email capture. Notice that the perceived value of the extras is mentioned, and a sense of scarcity is created by limiting the supply of vouchers.
Strong Terms & Conditions
Hotelchamp has designed email templates for sending a promo code or a reward voucher to your website visitor’s inbox. These emails can be easily customised with any important terms & conditions that are relevant to your offer, for example:
- Require guests to ring or email before their stay to confirm a late check-out, early check-in, or a room upgrade. This will help operations prepare.
- Prevent non-guests from using vouchers by asking guests to show the voucher on their mobile during check-in. You can then provide the guest with a physical token which can be used in the hotel.
- Ask guests to show the voucher upon check-out to settle purchases made in the hotel.
Make sure that these requirements are clearly stated and that your internal teams are aligned to prevent confusion (front desk, housekeeping etc.).
To read more about Hotelchamp’s Email Capture technology and how this could work for your hotel, click here. If you want to increase your email capture rate, prepare an offer and get in touch with our team at welcome@hotelchamp.com to get your campaign up-and-running.
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