All guests have different wants and needs, hotel spa packages are a powerful way to promote a selection of experiences your property offers.
Compelling packages create guest engagement, encourage bookings and build loyalty – but forging successful spa packages goes far beyond just bundling a few experiences that you think would match and make a good profit.
Whether you’re an owner, marketer, or general manager and regardless of the size of your property, creating successful packages requires both creativity and awesome data to guide your strategy. In this article, we’ve compiled 11 tips to supercharge your marketing, to deliver a delightful guest experience – and make it seamless for your team.
1.Give some crunch to your offers
The fight for guests’ attention is getting harder – so how can you stand out with an incredible spa package? To capture guests’ attention, you’ve got to be creative, playful and let your guests have fun. It’s ok to try new things and test what your guests enjoy the most.
To pick up additional bookings you can try promoting limited-time spa offers and giving a seasonal twist to your deals: it can be a holiday-themed promotion, part of a seasonal campaign, an exclusive offer to celebrate a local event…
Recently, our marketing-savvy customer The Belfry released a Spa Easter campaign promoting Spa Days that attained a 39.04% open rate – well over the industry open rate average of 20.2%*. This campaign has achieved an ROI of over 1,620%, based on the investment in the CRM itself for the period of the campaign (15 days in April). So for every £1 The Belfry spent on utilising For-Sight, they gained £16 in return.
* According to Campaign Monitor’s Ultimate Email Marketing Benchmarks for 2022.
2. Awaken the senses
There are incredibly talented photographers and videographers out there that can encapsulate in an image or video the atmosphere you have created at your property. Giving a sense of the experience can compensate for the intangible nature of a hotel booking.
Using authentic images of your property in your email marketing will give the vibe you want to create and ensure coherence throughout the experience. It’s also a personalised touch.
3. Target the right audience
When creating promotional spa campaigns, make sure the audience you target has an interest in what you’re offering. The dataset used could be segmented to those who have:
- booked spa packages in the past
- been a spa day visitor and/or had a treatment
- indicated that they have an interest in the spa via a preference centre or signup form.
4. Human-to-Human marketing pays off
Adopt a human-centred approach with your marketing by revealing your property and staff’s personality. Capturing your brand’s essence could be done by giving a name, a face, and a voice to your team – because hospitality is, after all, a people-centric industry and your campaign could reflect that.
A testimonial from your spa therapist, a personal email signature with a photo or a personal style within the copy are just some ideas… Lifting anonymity will get you closer to your guests and help create long-term trust.
5. Use their words, not just yours
Naturally, customers trust other customers’ words – simply because they’re on the same side. They want to ‘know’ that if they spend their money, their expectations will be met or exceeded. Having guests’ reviews on your email marketing campaigns, or your website, can give your audience an impression about the experience and increase their trust.
Another platform you should use to share the love is your social media. Use your guests’ comments, posts, DM’s or stories to reinforce your message and encourage other active social media guests to share their stories about your property.
Struggling to get spa feedback? Reward the guests that take the time to do so with a voucher, a discount on their next booking or by sending them a spa product that they’ve loved. You can also train your spa team to encourage happy guests to leave a review.
6. Give your guests what they want
Trybe, our partner specialists in spa and leisure software share their thoughts on the benefits of focusing on guests’ preferences.
Ensure you have a large choice of package options available on your booking engine to appeal to every type of customer. Whilst they are choosing their spa visit, also grab the opportunity to upsell by including easy add-ons, such as champagne on arrival, an extra treatment or afternoon tea. This way guests can build their very own irresistible package without the reservations team lifting a finger.
7. Ensure a seamless connection between your departments
Your package must be managed seamlessly between teams and supported by your systems.
Connectivity and good communication between your teams will help you control the bookings of spa treatments and secure the packages your guests bought.
Here’s a situation you want to avoid: limiting the spa & stay package to just your room availability without considering your spa capacity. If some guests aren’t able to access the spa or book a treatment then you haven’t delivered on your promise which can break trust and lead to a poor experience.
Let your guests start relaxing pre-stay, safe in the knowledge that they will receive to the spa treatment included is the package. Spa promotions shouldn’t just be a way for you to fill your hotel rooms.
Our solution to make sure you deliver the spa experience you’ve promised (and beyond): look at the guest experience from top to bottom – including the digital side of it. Guest messaging allows you to ensure that guests are getting everything they need in order to have the most enjoyable experience.
- When booking on specific dates, there should be availabilities to access the spa and/or book a treatment depending on the selected package.
- Give guests the opportunity to book spa treatments directly at the booking stage.
- Send an email to your guests pre-arrival with the details of their spa experience.
8. Automate, automate, automate…
You can’t be everywhere at once, but thankfully technology is here to help!
Use pre-arrival emails to make sure your guests are equipped with all the details of their booking so they’re ready to enjoy their spa treatments. These emails can be configured to automatically send out all the guest’s booking details in advance, meaning that you don’t even have to lift a finger.
With For-Sight CRM and Marketing Platform you can simply automate the sending of a pre-arrival email, giving your guests all the information that they must know before their stay.
Here is an example: 2 days before the guest’s arrival, an email will be sent with:
- A reminder of the booking details, e.g., date and time
- A link to the spa consultation form
- A friendly introduction to their spa therapist.
9. Team up with your spa partners
You’ve picked your spa suppliers for good reasons. Perhaps you share values, product ethics and marketing positioning… Why not try to share brand awareness? Build cross-promotion campaigns with your favourite brand to raise brand awareness about your spa and property. You could create a friendly competition to win a package on social media and email marketing. That’s a fun way to make your partner’s audience happy and to collect new contacts to promote to and convert.
10. Combination is always key
Spa packages can be combined with other assets from your property (restaurant, hotel suites, golf course, organised events…). On the other hand, your packages can also be exclusively focused on your spa offers. A larger dataset could engage better with variety (not only spa), whereas a smaller qualified dataset could be engaging better with a spa-focused bundle. For example, using a dataset of local guests that have already visited your spa or have notified interest for spa content in their marketing preferences.
11. Don’t just compensate – make it up big time!
If the unexpected happens and your guests aren’t able to fully benefit from the spa offer that they booked, for example, because you’re understaffed due to sickness, then make it up to your guests! Don’t simply give them their money back:
- Offer them a voucher double the value of the initial treatment for the coming year,
- Gift them a bundle of spa products and a voucher for your restaurant,
- Book them a free extra night
- Give them the choice to choose what compensation they would like.
If you have the chance to learn more about a guest, use those insights to make it personal. Are they passionate about golf? Offer them a private golf class or a free golfing afternoon with drink vouchers. Empower your staff to find out what makes your guests tick!
To Conclude
In the age of big data, there’s no shortage of available guest insights and no excuse not to personalise your marketing communications. Contact us to arrange a demo and to learn about the For-Sight CRM and Marketing platform. We’ll show you how our solution can support your property, unlock the full potential of your data and transform it into amazing, measurable, marketing campaigns.
About Trybe
Founded by ex-Googler Will Taylor-Jackson, Steve Porter and Ricky Daniels, the tech-savvy team behind ‘Design My Night’ and one of the UK’s leading hospitality discovery platforms, Collins Reservation & Enquiry Management Systems, Trybe is the next generation of spa and leisure software and the UK’s first integration focused, fully cloud-based software with an open API, designed to slot into spa and leisure operators’ existing backend systems to improve their operational efficiency. Trybe has the business covered end-to-end, all through an intuitive, simple and easy-to-use cloud-based system.
