Create Seasonal Marketing Campaigns That Work For You with Automated Programmes!
We’re headed into a season of back-to-back (to back) holidays. They happen every year. We know they’re coming up. You know they’re coming up. Are you dreading the looming to-do list of seasonal marketing campaigns you need to plan for and execute close together?
Does it look a little something like this?
- Halloween
- Black Friday Deals
- Christmas Gifting
- New Year’s Eve Celebrations
- Romantic Getaways for Valentine’s Day
Maybe you’re hoping to put this list off as long as possible. The possibilities might be overwhelming. We bet there’s a lot that you’d love to accomplish, but you think you simply don’t have the time or resources to achieve everything you’d like to. If any of these resonate, then this blog is for you!
When it comes to recurring events like the holidays, implementing automated programmes into your marketing strategy can be a valuable tactic to save your team valuable time and resources, while creating consistent and targeted campaigns that will drive revenue! Everyone wins here.
Intrigued? Read on to learn more!
How will automated programmes help my team?
Regular communications, such as monthly newsletters or one-time releases (e.g., “Hey, have you checked out our new menu?”), change based on what is happening with your property at that point in time.
On the other hand, seasonal campaigns, such as Black Friday deals, are more consistent and predictable. The content will need to be updated annually to ensure that you are sending relevant and exciting information to your guests, but the overall flow will likely remain relatively the same. When you take this into mind, automated campaigns can be set up weeks or even months before they need to be sent.
According to Zapier, marketers save up to 25 hours per week using automation tools. They also said that automations improved morale and efficiency.
By focusing on your seasonal campaigns early, you’re setting your team up for success during a busy holiday season. When your team may be dealing with adverse weather, cold and flu season, and team members on vacation, automations help keep your marketing working on schedule.
Need some additional help with your campaigns? We offer email marketing campaign management to clients who need a helping hand.
Keep Your Campaigns Organised and Easily Track Results
One email doesn’t make a holiday marketing campaign. You might want to send multiple emails to different audiences. Automated programmes help you organise your content, time your sends, and direct the right content to the right people. This takes your campaign from a series of unrelated email sends to a timed and coordinated campaign that you can easily test, track, and replicate.
Check out this example of how we created a Black Friday campaign with an automated programme.
With an automated programme, we were able to take these emails…
- Teaser email a week before launch
- Early offer access to subscribers specifically interested in Black Friday offers
- Offer live email
- Reminder at 24 hours to go
- Final “last chance” push in the final hours
… and transform them into a controlled campaign. This programme also captures new subscribers and feeds them into the program, so you don’t have to worry about new subscribers missing out on your campaign.
By the time the campaign ends, this automation has nurtured interest, created urgency, and captured bookings without you having to continually organise and track information from separate email sends. You’ll already be racing to the next seasonal marketing campaign.
Drive revenue with alternate messaging based on guest preferences and segmentation
Automated programmes give you the power to create multilayered seasonal marketing campaigns, sending different messaging based on guest preferences or predetermined segments. By thinking creatively about your guests, you can build campaigns that will deliver personalisation at scale.
Companies that used personalisation in their marketing campaigns gained 40% additional revenue compared to other businesses (McKinsey). So, how do you implement preference centres and segmentation in your automated campaigns?
Preference Centres
Preference centres don’t just provide an opportunity for your guests to opt in to communications. They give them the power to engage with your hotel and tell you exactly what they want to hear about. Think of it like a buffet where your guests can self-select what they’re most interested in!
Example: Send early access offers to guests who have indicated preferences for a specific topic, while other marketable contacts will be funnelled into an alternate campaign.
Segmentation
For-Sight’s unique guest profiles give you the ability to take segmentation far beyond basic demographics. You can build segments that reflect each guest’s relationship with your property based on whether they’ve enjoyed a weekend golf package, indulged in spa treatments, dined at your restaurant, or booked a certain type of room.
Example: Split a Valentine’s Day campaign to send different messages tailored to families versus couples. You could also include a special message for singles with an offer on spa treatments.
Test strategies and easily replicate your campaign year after year!
Once you’ve run your first automated seasonal campaign, you’ll be able to evaluate, see what went well, and identify areas for improvement.
Then the real advantage comes when you move into the next year’s seasonal marketing cycle. Instead of building a campaign entirely from scratch, you’ll be able to start with your proven framework. By making targeted tweaks to subject lines, offers, imagery, timing, or audience segmentation based on campaign reporting, you can continuously improve your strategy year after year.
Automated programmes aren’t just for your seasonal marketing, too! By implementing automated pre-stay communications, For-Sight customer, Rockcliffe Hall, saw a 47% increase in average room revenue. Read more about how Rockcliffe Hall has used automation and personalisation to enhance their guests’ experience.
How can I implement automations into my marketing campaigns?
We understand the value of automated programmes, which is why we make sure that For-Sight customers can take advantage of market-leading communication tools that integrate with our powerful CRM. For more than fifteen years, we have partnered with Dotdigital to offer only the best in the market to our customers.
For-Sight starts with helping you know your guest by creating complete customer profiles aggregated with data from across your tech stack, giving you layered segmentation capabilities and detailed reporting. With a strong knowledge of your guests, For-Sight’s powerful CRM system then feeds Dotdigital with this data to super-charge your communications. You can execute attractive, personalised multi-channel campaigns, collect firsthand insights via Surveys, Pages, and Forms, and track multi-channel KPIs with the combined power of For-Sight and Dotdigital.
Curious to learn more about automated programmes? We’ll be sharing tips and tricks for building creative and structured campaigns that you (and more importantly, your guests) will love this holiday season. Make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter to hear the latest news and insights from For-Sight.
