Maximising Loyalty: Six Targeted Campaigns that Keep Guests Coming Back

In this blog, we’ll run through some of the best loyalty campaigns you can run to drive return visits, boost revenue, and build great guest relationships. Here’s a taste of the campaigns we’ll cover in this post:

• How to convert OTAs into direct bookers
• Inspire return bookings with seasonal campaigns
• Recognise and Reward Loyal Guests through RFM segmentation
• Expand your guests’ relationship with your brand via cross-selling.
• Offer Priority Access to loyal guests.
• Recognise significant moments in their lives!

Why should I focus on Loyalty Campaigns?

Save time and effort spent on gaining a new customer!

According to Harvard Business Review, it costs 5-25 times more to gain a new customer than to retain an old one.

Your existing ones already know the best things about you. Sometimes they just need inspiration to book! On the other hand, you have to invest more time to make new customers aware of your brand and then entice them to book. They might be more wary about trying a new brand.

Loyal guests are your best marketing tool!

They spend more, stay longer, produce valuable reviews, and help lower the cost to acquire and re-engage. Word of Mouth Marketing brings in 5 times more sales than paid media (Review42)

Convert OTA guests into direct bookers.

Online Travel Agents (OTAs) can be a valuable tool for hoteliers to gain new business. Sites like Booking.com and Expedia are convenient for travellers while providing hoteliers with the potential to reach new audiences and boost their profile (and occupancy rates).

Convenience comes at a cost, though. Commission rates charged by OTAs can range from 15% and 30% of the reservation. That means if you’re charging £200 per room per night, you’re losing £25 – £50 per night just with OTA commissions.

And even once you’ve guaranteed a reservation through an OTA, customer information, such as emails, is masked through generated OTA emails. This limits your ability to market to these guests, as these generated emails are temporary and will disappear after they’ve left your property.

Your first assignment is to clear these OTA emails and replace them with real emails!

But how do you get started? For-Sight’s Front Desk Report makes it easy to see your daily arrivals along with their emails. Then, when your guest is checking in, you can ask them for their actual email. In a previous blog, we took a deeper look at how hoteliers can convert OTA emails into real guest emails.

Once you’ve captured their real email and gained marketing permissions, send them an email a few days after departure, encouraging the guest to book their next stay directly with you. You can also include an incentive for your guests to book direct for their next stay. Whether it’s a 10% discount or a voucher for a free breakfast, you’ll have an opportunity to transform a single stayer into a loyal guest!

Use RFM scoring to target valuable bookers

For-Sight’s CRM Platform creates RFM scoring is based on your guests’ overall value to your hotel, including other bookings such as spa, dining and golf. This gives you a full profile of your guests and allows you to make marketing decisions with a complete set of information in front of you.

For-Sight customers have used RFM for segmentation to tailor messaging and offers, offering a treat upon arrival.

But it’s not just high-value guests that you should spend your time on! For-Sight customers have specifically targeted low RFM scoring guests with offers to book again and take them to a higher level of brand loyalty.

Interested to learn more about For-Sight’s RFM scoring and segmentation capabilities?  Book a call with our team. We’d be happy to chat and discover how we can transform your guest communication strategy!

Expand your guests’ relationship with your brand via cross-selling.

Let’s say we have two hotels in our brand: The Mountain View Resort and The Sea View Resort. You may have guests who have booked with one property. They’re already familiar with (and love) your service, attention to detail, and amenities. However, they could be unaware that you also operate another property elsewhere. This is an opportunity to market a new property to bookers who are already familiar with your brand and reputation!

Here’s how we’d do it with For-Sight’s CRM segmentation capabilities:

We can create a segment for guests who have stayed at the Mountain View Resort (but not The Sea View Resort), and then run a campaign inspiring a new holiday booking at the Sea View Resort.

Similarly, we can create a different segment for guests who have stayed at the Sea View Resort (but not The Mountain View Resort), and then run a campaign inspiring a new holiday booking at the Mountain View Resort.

Now you’ve created two marketing campaigns that have raised your brand awareness and driven bookings!

But what if you just have one property? The same principle can be applied to capture guests who haven’t made spa or dining bookings!

Inspire During the Holidays with Seasonal Campaigns

Seasonal campaigns are one of the easiest ways to inspire bookings year-round. By creating offers and packages themed around specific times of year, you can create a more cohesive rhythm to your marketing cycle. Consider these opportunities to target your guests with seasonal marketing.

• 

  Valentine’s Day

• School Holidays
• Easter
• Bank Holiday Weekends
• Black Friday
• Christmas and Boxing Day
• New Year’s Eve

Not all of these holidays will be exciting marketing opportunities for all of your guests! Couples may be best targeted for Valentine’s Day stay and dining packages, while Families may be more enticed for a weekend everyone can enjoy. Consider what segments exist within your loyal customer base and how you can best target each one with alternate messaging.

Pro Tip: Consider the low season (or non-holiday periods) for a campaign opportunity. Loyal guests may be more open to booking during a less desirable time of year if it’s somewhere they already know is great!

Struggling to create cohesive seasonal campaigns? We’ve broken down how to create seasonal marketing campaigns that work for you in this blog post.

Including countdown timers and time-limited offers in your marketing communications inspires urgency and encourages your guests to book with you early.

Take Your Seasonal Campaigns Further and Offer Exclusive Booking For Loyal Guests

Seasonal campaigns are a great tactic to market to all of your marketing list, but why not reward extra loyal guests with some extra perks like early access? You can offer early access to spa bookings or event offers to your loyal guests. If you already know they’re more likely to spend more at your property, you want to give them first access to exclusive seasonal packages.

Recognise Special Moments like Birthdays

Birthday campaigns are a simple touch that goes a long way to making your guests feel special and recognised. After all, it’s a campaign specifically made for them!

Birthdays can be captured via a preference centre and funnelled into an automated programme designed to celebrate guests’ birthdays with tailored messages or special offers.

Here’s an example of how we set up an automated programme for a birthday campaign:

We took this birthday campaign a step further with tailored messaging and offers based on whether they had expressed interest in spa or dining. You might have other ways that you’d like to customise your message, but that’s the best part: you get to choose. It’s all about crafting the right gift for your guest!

What we love about automated programmes and workflows is that once you’ve got it set up, it’ll run itself. No need to remember everyone’s birthday and send an email every day; the campaign will send on its own based on the parameters you’ve set for it.

Conclusion

While we want to expand our marketing efforts to engage new stayers, it’s important to continue focusing marketing efforts on engaging customers with loyalty campaigns. We’ve given you six ideas for marketing campaigns to ensure your guests book again. We hope we’ve inspired some new loyalty campaigns for your hotel!

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