Mail model

Hotel databases are packed with the names of potential repeat guests, but how do you lure those on your list who are not quite sure if they could afford another weekend away this year?

One thing that could move them to book a room is an e-mail from you. Keeping in touch with your customers and potential customers using e-mail is another piece of the Internet marketing jigsaw. And it has special significance for hotels, as explained by Felix Laboy, chief executive officer of E-site Marketing, which specialises in the hospitality industry.

He says: "The interactivity of e-mail pieces - appealing designs that reinforce the image and branding of the property, and the ease with which they can be forwarded to family, friends and colleagues - make it a good method of follow-up marketing. E-mail also allows hotels to personalise their relationships with guests."

There are several ways you can use e-mail to follow up and keep in touch with your customers - special offers, details of special weekends, simple newsletters and details of new facilities are all useful ways to keep in touch. And response rates can be good. "E-mails can be sent out to a large number of recipients almost instantly," Laboy says. "The response time for e-mails is also shorter than that for direct mail, with e-mail typically receiving a higher response rate, as it provides recipients with a direct and more convenient means of interacting with the hotel. The results generated by e-mail campaigns can be tracked in real time, which enables hotels to test response rates to different subject lines and content, so that they may determine the message that is most effective in yielding responses from recipients."

But before you send anything to anyone, there is an EU directive covering commercial e-mail that must be understood. The Department for Trade and Industry says that an e-mail must show "clear identification of any electronic communications designed to promote (directly or indirectly) your goods, services or image (for example, an e-mail advertising your goods and services)." You must make it clear who your e-mail came from, give an explanation about any offers made in the e-mail, and also give the company's name, address and contact details.

Customer confidence Though this sounds complicated, Laboy feels the directive is a positive thing. "In a way," he says, "the directive will prove beneficial for hotels, as increased customer confidence will increase the favourability of online communication and online offers."

You can collect e-mail addresses by encouraging your staff to ask customers for theirs, and whether they would be willing to receive e-mails from your hotel. Addresses can also be "captured" from your Web site using a contact form, but make sure you have a check box on the page offering the visitor the option not to receive further e-mails.

There are two ways of organising e-mails - do it for yourself or employ a specialist company. If you decide to do it yourself, you'll need the right software.

One of the most widely used e-mail packages is Eudora. This is easy to use and is powerful enough to deal with the various types of e-mail you receive. For example, bookings, enquiries and so on can all go into their own folders on your computer, which saves time on working through a lot of messages and sorting them out.

Another useful tool is an autoresponder. This will reply to an e-mail sent to it with a standard response that you have written. For example, if a potential customer asks about room prices for a certain time of year, the autoresponder would immediately send back a pre-written message detailing those prices. The advantage with this is it that saves you time writing individual e-mail responses, but the drawback is that it does have an impersonal feel. Autoresponders are often included with Web space packages so check with your Internet service provider, or try a company which provides an autoresponder service.

Another item you'll need is good word-processing software, such as Word or WordPerfect. With such programs, you can create standard "boilerplate" replies (basically, your own private library of electronic form letters) to enquiries about room prices, special offers and so on. These can then be personalised with the recipient's name, and transferred into Eudora for sending.

One important point about using e-mail for marketing is that you can send mail from a real person. Customers will prefer to send an e-mail to julie@a-n-otherhotel.com, rather than to the more impersonal bookings@a-n-otherhotel.com. And customers are more likely to reply to a real person's e-mail address than to a generic one.

Despite the EU's attempts to make e-mail marketing more complicated, it remains a powerful tool for follow-up marketing.

The software

• E-site Marketing can be contacted at www.esitemarketing.com. The company offers Internet marketing services to the hospitality industry.
• Eudora costs about £25 for a single user's licence and can be bought from www.eudora.com.
• Autoresponders UK (www.autoresponders.co.uk) offers an autoresponder service that is easy to use and costs £29.99 per year.
• Microsoft Word can be bought for about £100.

Case study: Cliveden

The five-star, 40-bedroom Cliveden hotel in Taplow, Berkshire, launched its Web site (www.clivedenhouse.co.uk) in February this year. From the start, Cliveden took an active approach to its Internet marketing, working with Internet hospitality specialist E-site Marketing.

As marketing manager Victoria Dunn explains, the hotel wanted more than just a Web site. "We also wanted to meet the need for an online distribution channel that allows users to gather information very quickly, and also drive online bookings," she says. "We also wanted to build an e-database from which to target effective e-blast campaigns."

The company spent £50,000 with E-site Marketing for its three hotels - Cliveden, the Royal Crescent in Bath, and the Cliveden Townhouse in London. This has benefited both customers and the hotels, as Dunn explains.

"The Web site and e-mail have given us the opportunity to load pdf files [essentially, pages in picture form] of our meetings brochure, main house brochure, Christmas brochure, quarterly newsletters, etc, online. Viewers can download brochures or receive them by e-mail, which is much faster and more reliable than the Royal Mail. This has also proved ideal for agents, as they do not have the storage space for all the brochures, so they are saved as computer files."

The site has also proved a commercial success. Within six months of its launch, it had produced more than 15,500 monthly unique user sessions - for example, visitors coming to the site for more information.

Cliveden's database of e-mail addresses has grown to more than 2,000 and the hotel now has an average of 50 online bookings per month. The hotel markets itself to customers using a quarterly newsletter sent to past guests and enquirers, and seasonal newsletters for corporate clients.

As an example of the marketing returns, when Cliveden's Web site was launched, it used an interactive postcard to spread the word. This was sent to 1,000 names; 31.57% of addressees opened the e-mail and a further 6.39% clicked through to the site.

Cliveden's Web site has benefited the hotel in other ways, as Dunn explains. "We have also seen and are continuing to see an increase in sending e-mail confirmations or answers to booking enquiries to our leisure guests," she says. "For both of our markets, we are seeing that e-mail is proving the preferred option."