91% of consumers use email at least once a day, according to ExactTarget. If you are looking to maximize your vacation rental company’s marketing reach and to nurture potential leads into bookings, an effective email campaign is one of the best tools you can use.
While it is natural for some people to unsubscribe from your emails, losing multiple subscribers might indicate you need to adjust your strategy. Use the following guidelines to help your vacation rental company reduce your unsubscribe rate and increase your chances of converting your email recipients into bookings.
Subject Line
According to a study performed by Convince and Convert, 69% of email recipients report email as Spam based solely on the subject line. To avoid being sent directly to the spam folder and losing yet another subscriber, it is important to start at the beginning, with the first impression your email will make on your subscribers, its subject. The following tips will help you create a better subject line for your emails:
- People DO respond to words of urgency including “urgent” and “important” with higher-than-normal open rates.
- Personalization increases open rates, with the largest positive impact coming from using both first and last names in the subject.
- Studies show that companies in the travel industry should NOT use the word “free” in subject lines as it actually has a negative impact on open rates.
- Do use the word pair “Thank You.”
- Don’t ask recipients to “Sign Up” or alert them that it is their “last chance” for anything; these two pairs have negative results on email open rates.
Gaining the attention and trust of your email recipients with a good subject line is the first step to reducing your unsubscribe rate.
Suited Content
Once you’ve captivated the interest of your email recipients, show them that you are a valuable, trustworthy source of high-quality information. By distributing relevant, original blog posts in your emails, recipients will be more likely to click through, taking them to your website and one step further to becoming a lead for your vacation rental company. For ideas on blog post topics, and other pieces of content to interest your email readers, check out:
Segmented Lists
One of the most effective ways to help reduce your vacation rental company’s email unsubscribers is using segmented lists. Once you have created suited content, make sure that you are distributing it to the right audience by creating segmented lists of your email recipients.
You do not want to send blog posts about the most happening nightlife spots in your vacation area to your 55+ recipients as you probably don’t want to send “5 Free Activities for Kids in (Your Area)” to your younger, single email recipients either.
To maximize the positive response your emails generate and reduce the number of unsubscribers, begin by distributing a piece of content that a wide span of your audience might enjoy, such as a blog post titled: “25 Reasons that make (Your Area) the Best Place for a Summer Vacation.” Place a Call to Action (CTA) in the email offering more related content in exchange for some information about the recipient. Once you receive this information and deliver your promised content, you will then know more about that specific recipient and be able place them in a segmented list for future, more personalized emails.
Seamless Compatibility
Make sure that your emails are seamlessly viewable across all devices, including PC, tablet and mobile. 48% of emails are opened on a mobile device, according to Litmus, therefore mobile compatibility cannot be ignored, or you have the potential of losing almost half of your subscribers. For more helpful tips on ways to tap into the full potential of mobile email marketing , check out:
By following these four S’s for your vacation rental email marketing campaign, you can help to reduce the unsubscribes your emails receive, thus increasing your chances of retaining more readers and converting more leads into bookings. For more information, or for other helpful marketing tips, visit Paveya’s Vacation Rental Marketing blog.
