Direct Email Campaigns

Deliver Your Message Directly to HotelExecutive's Exclusive Readership

A Direct Email Campaign is an effective marketing strategy that allows you to contact multiple HotelExecutive readers simultaneously. Whether you are just starting with email marketing or you're already sending marketing emails regularly, you know that emails are one of the best channels to sell.

According to a study conducted by McKinsey & Company, direct email marketing is up to 40 times more effective than social media marketing. The same study showed that the buying cycle was also 3 times faster.

With a HotelExecutive Email Campaign, you will reach key professionals and decision makers in the hotel industry. Your message will be put directly in front of experts with purchasing authority, providing your business with the respect, credibility and exposure it deserves.

Benefits of a Direct Email Campaign

Direct Email Marketing is a powerful way to communicate with your target audience. An effective campaign will not only increase your sales, but it will also help to build your brand image.

A HotelExecutive Direct Email Campaign includes the following benefits:

Lead Generation - Each new lead is a potential new customer for your business.
Customer Engagement - Direct email is an opportunity to connect with your target audience. You can share relevant information, offer exclusive deals, and demonstrate your expertise.
Sales Conversion - With a Direct Email Campaign, you can target specific users for exclusive communications and promotions, resulting in increased conversions and sales performance.
Data Collection - A Direct Email Campaign allows for greater user interaction and the opportunity to learn more about your customer. Customers will often share important data with you and, in return, you can share with them more targeted and personalized offers.
Customer Feedback - Many customers are willing to provide feedback about your business in the form of a customer survey. What you can learn about your business is invaluable.

Examples of Direct Email Campaigns

Email marketing has many forms, depending on your goals. Below are the types of promotional emails that HotelExecutive is able to conduct for you:

Announcement Emails - These emails are sent to announce the release of a new technology, product, service, or feature, or an upcoming event, holiday or anniversary. The aim is to engage and inform customers, and to encourage them to buy or to visit.
Holiday Emails - This type of email provides customers with holiday discounts on products and services. In addition to incentivizing customers, it builds trust and reinforces positive associations with your brand.
Newsletters - Newsletters are becoming a more common format for an email campaign. They provide customers with valuable educational information, which reinforces the credibility and authenticity of your brand. HotelExecutive can extend your newsletter market reach to an additional 100,000+ readers.
Invitation Emails - This type of email campaign invites customers to attend an online webinar, zoom meetings, industry conference or event, etc. Invitation emails are the most popular format for an email campaign through HotelExecutive and can be a very effective lead generator.
Upselling Emails - These emails offer more advanced and expensive upgrades from the types of products the customer has considered or purchased before.
Re-engagement Emails - These are sent to previous customers who may have forgotten about your company. Make the effort to re-engage with them and remind them how much value you have to offer by sending out company announcements. A direct email campaign can increase and reinforce brand recognition, as well as drive traffic to your website.
Testimonial Emails - These types of emails are sent to customers to request their feedback by reviewing, commenting, or completing a survey so that you can improve your business.

Measuring Campaign Effectiveness

The following list of statistics is how a Direct Email Campaign measures its effectiveness. These are numbers you will want to analyze to determine how well your campaign is performing:

Open Rate - This statistic measures how many emails were opened out of the total number of emails sent. The average open rate for HotelExecutive email marketing is 12-15%. Whether a recipient opens your email or not depends on many things, including the effectiveness of the sender's name, subject line, and preheader - the first information recipients see.
Click-through Rate - This statistic measures the number of clicks on a call-to-action button within your email. If the click-through rate is high it is an indication that your content is of interest and value to your recipient. The average click-through rate for HotelExecutive email marketing is 2-4%.
Bounce Rate - This statistic measures the percentage of emails that were not delivered. There are numerous reasons why some emails are undeliverable - non-working email addresses, unacceptable size of the email, a full inbox, or classification as spam. The accepted benchmark for bounced emails is around 2%.
Forwarded Emails - This measures how many of your emails were shared on social media. It is an indication of how many recipients are responding positively to your brand and taking action.
Unsubscribe Rate - The average unsubscribe rate is between 0.2%- 0.5%. Sudden spikes above 0.5% are often considered to be an indication that something is amiss, and you may need to reconsider your email marketing approach.

Campaign Content

There are all kinds of content ideas you can incorporate into your email campaign to help you increase sales, and improve retention, loyalty and user engagement.

Case Examples - Every brand should be able to cite personalized case examples of how their product or service solves customers' problems or satisfies their needs. If customers are made aware of how your product/service positively impacts their lives, they are far more likely to engage and embrace it.
User-Generated Content - This is content created by your brand's consumers. It could take the form of comments, reviews, testimonials, photos, videos, etc. User-generated content is considered more trustworthy than other forms of traditional marketing, so it's a great way to establish credibility with customers.
Videos - People prefer visual content. Emails that incorporate videos can increase their click-through rates by 65%. Behind-the-scene videos and how-to videos are especially popular.
Newsletter - This is a regular publication of short articles and news about your company, employees, products/services, announcements, industry, etc. It is intended to inform, educate and engage your customers, and it is an effective way to drive traffic to your website. Generally, a news digest is sent weekly, biweekly, or monthly.

Best Times for Direct Email Distribution

The best days to send email messages are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Monday is typically the busiest day of the week and on Friday, people are focused on finishing up their work week. Saturday and Sunday are generally reserved for family and recreation.

The best hours are:

Around 6 am - Many people check their phones first thing in the morning
Around 10 am - People check their emails at the beginning of the working day
Around 2 pm - People check their emails after lunch or coffee breaks
8 pm to Midnight - Some people have a habit of reading emails before going to bed

Mechanical Specifications

To conduct a really effective email campaign, be sure to follow the guidelines below. This will ensure the success of your marketing goals.

Dimensions: Not to exceed 650 pixels wide
Accepted format: HTML file
Maximum file size: 200 KB
Advertiser must host graphics and images.
Example: <img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/images/banner.gif">
All links should be absolute URLs
Click-throughs should be tracked by the advertiser
No active content is allowed (Javascript, Forms, Flash, ActiveX)
Advertiser must provide a subject line for the email

HTML Specifications

HTML must be provided as an HTML file or a .txt file. (Files can be delivered via e-mail as attachments or by sending a URL from which the HTML source for the eBlast can be taken).
We will ask you for your subject line, send time, email addresses for proofing and other details will also be requested.
Keep HTML code as clean as possible.
Do not include complex CSS — this is rendered differently by email applications and some have poor support, resulting in display issues.
Test your HTML code in multiple email clients (Outlook, Yahoo and Gmail) to ensure correct delivery.
All CSS must be embedded in the HTML code.
Characters (apostrophes, quotation marks, em/en dashes, etc.) should be coded properly.
All artwork must be received within 10 business days of scheduled run date.

NOTE: Submitted HTML should be designed to minimize deliverability issues. HotelExecutive sends you a test email run before the actual deployment to check for errors, but we will notify you if any revisions are required.

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