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I keep sending out E Zines, but i am getting no results!!!!
How often we hear that!
We can see from our statistics that with many E Zines less that 20% of recipients actually bother opening it, and less than 1% find anything inside atractive enough to actually click on. The result is; Blood sweat and tears compiling the E Zine and very little results. To explain this we offer the following thoughts;
It might be useful to try and understand why SMS Marketing appears to be so successful compared with E Zines.
- Many hotels dont have a database of Mobile Numbers sitting around that they can throw together, they have had to compile this from new, so guess what?. The people they are sending SMS messages too have quite possibly expressed an interest to receive the messages becuase they have a genuine interest in you and your product.
- With just 150 characters available in an SMS Message, hotels have had to be clear about the 'bait/freebie/offer', ie in an SMS there is not enough space to send out a bland list of generally available Special Offers. They are forced to offer something clear, unique and tangible.
- Having said all that, the underlying reason that SMS Messaging is more successful is because an average E Mail user is said to be receiving nearly 100 spam messages per day, its very difficult to catch the receivers eye if your message is sitting in an inbox with 99 other spam messages, whereas it is very unlikely that anyone will delete an SMS Message without opening it first.
We can use that comparison with SMS Messaging to generate a list of where E Zine Marketing can go wrong.
1. Database was thrown together using for example people who have previously booked online, ie They have not specifically said they want to receive your E Zines.
2. E Zine is not personally addressed ie Dear 'John Doe' etc.
3. The subject line of the E Zine is not eye-catching enough (the bit that viewers will pick out of a list of spam e mails to open if they see something interesting). Compare the following
FREE Tickets to Country Music Show for Premier Guests 12/08/2008
or
Special Offers from the City West Hotel
4. The E Zine contains a simple list of Special Offers that anyone can obtain. (The messge here is that the customer is not unique in anyway, they are not receiving anything of genuine value).
5. The E Zine is too long and wordy, remember by and large e mail is a medium for people with a short attention span, (which is all of us in the 21 st Century).
6 The database is simply too small. You have to start somewhere, however it helps to have reasonable expectation until you surpass the 2000 members level.
In our experience, many hotels have a problem defining a 'Frequent Customer Scheme' that appears to offer genuine tangible benefits to its members, and furthermore have difficulties putting in place a system to attract genuinely interested customers to sign up to their scheme.
It is also worth mentioning however that just because you dont receive a flood of bookings after you send out an E Zine, it does not mean it was a worthless exercise. E Mail Marketing can appear to fit into the area of 'Raising Brand Awareness' or 'Under the Radar Marketing'. To you and me, what this means is that our Sample Hotel sends out every month an E Zine containing 'Family Break Offers' and receives no traceable/direct bookings as a result. John Doe is receiving these E Zines and more or less ignores them, however one Thursday evening John Doe's wife suggests they take the family away for the weekend! What hopefully is the first hotel that enters his mind? Yes, hopefully our E Zines have done their trick, and the Sample Hotel is the first on the list.
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