To suc­ceed in the trav­el indus­try, you need to keep your cus­tomers hap­py and engaged through­out their expe­ri­ence: from that first email touch­point, through book­ing their first trip, even as they’re post­ing glow­ing reviews about your com­pa­ny. There are many fac­tors that con­tribute to a suc­cess­ful trav­el cam­paign, and tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to raise con­sumer expec­ta­tions. Today, a suc­cess­ful email cam­paign requires per­son­al­ized, con­tex­tu­al mes­sag­ing and offers.

Email mar­ket­ing has entered a new era of inno­va­tion, allow­ing the trav­el and hos­pi­tal­i­ty indus­try to reach con­sumers with high­ly per­son­al­ized and dynam­ic expe­ri­ences like nev­er before. In terms of email ROI, the trav­el indus­try leads the pack. Accord­ing to a 2015 study from Sil­ver­pop, the trav­el and hos­pi­tal­i­ty indus­try has a 56.7 per­cent email open rate — the high­est among the 17 indus­tries includ­ed in the study — and comes in sec­ond for click-through rates at 15.2 per­cent. This is great news for the trav­el mar­keter, but it’s only the begin­ning when you’re try­ing to grow a loy­al fan base. Here are six email mar­ket­ing tips for trav­el and hos­pi­tal­i­ty mar­keters that have proven to engage cus­tomers, dri­ve ROI, and build a loy­al fan base.

1. Think Mobile, But Don’t Forget About Desktop

There’s no ques­tion that this is the mobile age. Mobile opti­miza­tion should con­tin­ue to be a pri­or­i­ty for mar­keters. How­ev­er, although we see more and more con­sumers in gen­er­al engag­ing with email on mobile devices, desk­top still remains an impor­tant fac­tor to con­sid­er for trav­el and hos­pi­tal­i­ty brands. Many trav­el indus­try email opens and con­ver­sions still hap­pen on a desk­top — 39 per­cent and 69 per­cent respec­tive­ly in 2015, based on our analy­sis.

2. Use Data To Take Personalization To The Next Level

You can engage your audi­ence effec­tive­ly by using con­sumer data to pre­cise­ly tar­get audi­ences and per­son­al­ize mes­sag­ing. While tar­get­ing audi­ence seg­ments with rel­e­vant mes­sag­ing has always been a pri­or­i­ty for most mar­keters, using data to per­son­al­ize email mes­sag­ing and offers takes engage­ment to the next lev­el. Con­sid­er incor­po­rat­ing per­son­al­ized mes­sag­ing about your cus­tomers’ pre­vi­ous trips, loy­al­ty points, and more. While basic forms of per­son­al­iza­tion such as incor­po­rat­ing the recipient’s name into the email image and body copy are a good start, also think about more advanced tac­tics like geo­tar­get­ing to offer the near­est busi­ness loca­tion. The pay­off? Accord­ing to Exper­ian, per­son­al­ized emails have 29 per­cent high­er unique open rates and 41 per­cent high­er unique click rates than non-per­son­al­ized emails. Tru­ly per­son­al­ized emails require accu­rate, up-to-date data on your sub­scribers. Col­lect­ing that data can be a chal­lenge. User pref­er­ence cen­ters often have low par­tic­i­pa­tion rates, and the more fields a form has, the less like­ly cus­tomers will com­plete it. As a mat­ter of fact, accord­ing to Quick­Sprout, increas­ing the num­ber of options in your form fields from three to six can decrease con­ver­sion rates by 66 per­cent. Pro­gres­sive pro­fil­ing is a form of gam­i­fi­ca­tion using polls to con­tin­u­ous­ly col­lect deep­er insights about a con­sumer, while cre­at­ing an engag­ing, inter­ac­tive email expe­ri­ence that encour­ages sub­scribers to par­tic­i­pate. And it works. Accord­ing to M2 Research, gam­i­fi­ca­tion can lead to a 100 to 150 per­cent increase in engage­ment. Giv­ing cus­tomers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote for their favorite des­ti­na­tions, or oth­er trav­el pref­er­ences, right in the email, allows you to use that data to send rel­e­vant offers that they’re more like­ly to act on. Phrase your poll ques­tions in a way that will elic­it a more emo­tion­al response. For exam­ple, ask what fam­i­ly des­ti­na­tion their chil­dren or grand­chil­dren would most enjoy vis­it­ing.

3. Make Deals Relevant With Weather Targeting

Weath­er tar­get­ing can increase CTRs by 39 per­cent. The more rel­e­vant the offer is to your cus­tomers at the moment of open, the more like­ly they are to click-through and con­vert. You can use weath­er tar­get­ing to include real-time weath­er at the recipient’s loca­tion — wher­ev­er they open your email — and give them a peek at the weath­er con­di­tions at one of your trop­i­cal des­ti­na­tions. For instance, aim to entice con­sumers in cold weath­er loca­tions with a trip to a trop­i­cal par­adise by help­ing them envi­sion the expe­ri­ence, or tar­get skiers by show­ing them that fresh pow­der awaits at their favorite resort. As an added touch, you can use ani­mat­ed GIFs — like falling snow or a sparkling ocean — to bring eye-catch­ing visu­al ele­ments to des­ti­na­tion images.

4. Build A Sense Of Excitement To Drive Action

Offer count­down timers to inspire a sense of urgency and excite­ment to dri­ve book­ings. One way to do this is to incor­po­rate a deal timer/countdown clock into emails so recip­i­ents can keep track of how much time they have left to act on a lim­it­ed-time offer. While cre­at­ing a sense of urgency for a spe­cif­ic deal is a good way to spur action, avoid cus­tomer frus­tra­tion by always offer­ing an active cam­paign at the time the con­sumer opens the email. When a deal expires, swap it out with your next deal, or a link to book a com­pa­ra­ble trip, giv­ing con­sumers anoth­er option to con­vert.

5. Create Seamless Experiences With Real-Time Inventory

You can make book­ing eas­i­er for cus­tomers by using web crop­ping to offer real time, inter­ac­tive reser­va­tion ser­vices right in an email. Web crop­ping imports real-time web­site con­tent into your emails ensur­ing cus­tomers always see your fresh­est con­tent — every time they open the email. Use real-time inven­to­ry to incen­tivize an upgrade. For exam­ple, pro­vide addi­tion­al air­line seat or hotel room options based on the reser­va­tion they already made by pro­vid­ing live inven­to­ry that refresh­es each time the cus­tomer goes back into the con­fir­ma­tion email. Web crop­ping also cre­ates effi­cien­cies and boosts ROI by sav­ing time on email pro­duc­tion. This is because it pulls in con­tent that’s already been cre­at­ed and approve and that updates auto­mat­i­cal­ly in the email every time you update your web­site.

6. Harness The Power Of Social To Drive Sales

Social media dri­ves sales. In fact, 62 per­cent of con­sumers say social media inter­ac­tions dri­ves them to buy more in most or some cas­es, accord­ing to PwC. Incor­po­rat­ing social into your email cam­paigns can help you lever­age the pow­er of social in two ways:

• Cre­at­ing an engaged social com­mu­ni­ty: Cre­ate an oppor­tu­ni­ty for con­sumers to come togeth­er to expe­ri­ence your brand. Pull in a live social feed from your Insta­gram account so recip­i­ents can see, and share, the lat­est, excit­ing trav­el accom­mo­da­tions you offer. Social images of vaca­tion des­ti­na­tions are visu­al­ly engag­ing and authen­tic.
• Let­ting your fans share their pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences: The trav­el indus­try is often dri­ven by rep­u­ta­tion. Cus­tomer feed­back and reviews can make or break your busi­ness so let your fans ampli­fy your mes­sage. Incor­po­rate live social feeds into your emails and let your hap­py cus­tomers do the talk­ing for you. Offer an incen­tive — like a chance to win a free trip or accu­mu­late trav­el points — for them to share their love for your busi­ness on Insta­gram or Twit­ter.