Repetition is the key to successfully building a brand. Branding is the key to success in any business, including selling travel on and offline. When you capture the attention of an audience, the next step is to ensure that you stay visible in front of their eyes, constantly feeding them with new, relevant and exciting information until they eventually become a customer. One of the most effective ways of doing this is through email marketing. Here are some tips how to run and build an effective marketing campaign.
1. Capture Attention
The first step in building a successful email marketing campaign is to ensure that your subject matter is interesting enough that people will want to hear about it. Build your site or travel blog around a niche product to attract those who share the same interest. Pick a subject that you can give constant value and information on.
2. Capture Emails
Can’t run an email marketing campaign without email addresses. Call me captain obvious. Once you have built your travel site or travel blog, you need to ensure that there is a visible opt-in section where users can easily subscribe to your newsletters. Offer incentives for users to subscribe. Be aggressive about getting emails. Ensure that all the emails addresses you collect are saved in a place where you can easily sort and extract, on an excel spreadsheet.
3. Sign-Up For A Mass Mailer
Once your email list has grown into the hundreds, you will not be able to email your subscribers using your Gmail or Hotmail account. You will need the use of a bulk mailer. Not just to send emails to a big list, but also to design beautiful newsletter templates, with images and graphic content that captures attention quickly. Mass mailers like Mailchimp, Constant Contact are some of the best on the market. However, these services will come at a monthly fee. If you are a member of The TravelNet, your subscription includes a newsletter feature that you can use to capture emails and send newsletters to the contacts on that list.
4. Set A Newsletter Schedule
Once you are ready to start your newsletter campaign, you need to be consistent in order to get the results you need. Decide how often you want to send your newsletter. Whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly or once per month, you need to set a time and be consistent. Your subscribers need to start anticipating your newsletter at a specific time.
5. Send Valuable and Actionable Content
When you are designing your newsletter, make sure what you are sending has value for your readers. If you are not providing value, they will start disregarding your emails or they will opt out of your list. Make your content interesting with a variety of content types. A great article or useful tip, a discount voucher, a travel package deal or two. Have a clear call to action. A Book Now button, or a request a quote. Make sure for every newsletter you are asking your readers to take action. Once you have created value, this should be pretty easy.