As other digital marketing strategies have evolved, one question that keeps coming up is: “is email marketing still important?”

In short, yes. (Or we wouldn’t have spent a lot of our time and energy developing an integrated Email Marketing Campaign feature for Vacation Creations!! )   

Reading and sending emails is one of the most popular activities for smartphone users, beating out web browsing, social media apps, and even apps for maps or directions!

Creating a strong email marketing strategy helps you reach your target audience better and increase sales at an affordable cost. Email marketing tools give your business the ability to reach customers easier than ever. 

Stay in regular contact with your audience and stay top of mind

Emails have the ability to keep your customers informed. Consumers are capable of checking their email when it is convenient for them. It can give them a feeling that you are thinking of them. This email can be as simple as saying: “Hi, you’re on our mind, here is a special offer!” or “Here is an update on what has been going on here in recent weeks.” This last one is especially important as situations change and evolve while there are still COVID concerns.

Reach your customers in real-time

According to research, 54% of all emails are opened on a mobile device and 70% of travel-related emails are opened this way. This is significant. We know for a fact that more consumers are using their mobile devices to access not only emails but all other types of media and information. 

Well-designed and engaging emails produce higher conversion rates on mobile than any other medium. Who doesn’t love looking at travel destinations and sales on their phone? If you aren’t engaging with clients in email, you could be missing out on possible booking opportunities!

People engage with emails

Did you know, email has been a form of communication for over 40 years now?! It is a top choice of communication and has grown even more as a large majority of people still work from home. We have all been trained to engage with an email in some fashion.

Whether it is to reply, to forward, click through to “learn more” or “view details”, delete, or to buy something, or to sign up. Knowing this, you can use email to drive people to your website, to pick up the phone and call, allow customers to request a quote or book their travel with you or any other call to action you desire. In fact, over 25 percent of sales last year were attributed to email marketing.

Many studies have shown that email users prefer to receive marketing emails just once a week.  This frequency allows you to communicate consistently without overwhelming your subscribers (or yourself in generating or managing email content.

It’s affordable, especially in comparison with paid ads

You can reach a large number of consumers for less than pennies per message. The cost per potential conversion is incredibly low with email marketing. 

Most travel agencies are working with a limited budget.  This means agencies and agents need to find the most affordable ways to reach and engage their audience. Email marketing is a cost-effective digital marketing tactic that takes very little investment to get started.

Additionally, it is also relatively inexpensive to maintain over time, allowing small businesses to get more for their marketing spend. It’s just a matter of getting started!

Allows for targeted messaging and promotions

Let’s talk about the importance of email marketing when it comes to lead nurturing – sometimes referred to as email lead marketing. The main idea here is that your potential customers are at different stages of the buying cycle. Some may be in the consideration stage, while others may be at the research and compare stage, and even others in the ready-to-purchase stage. (A flood of people will be in that “Ready to Book Travel” stage very soon as travel opens up more and more!) 

Segmenting these customers into appropriate email marketing lists (using Customer Tags) will help you target these groups more effectively. Examples could include Cruises, Theme Parks, Golf, Honeymoon, Couples Resorts, etc.  Or get even more specific with Theme Parks for example, Disney World, Disneyland, Universal Studios, Sea World, etc. 

Customers need information to move them to the next buying cycle stage. Pushing the right content can do just that. It’s all about moving these prospects down your sales funnel with information they are interested in. Sending them information they care about encourages them to open the email and take action.

Email marketing integrates well with social media marketing

If you are running a social media contest or giveaway, you can drum up excitement for the campaign through email.  Additionally, you can use email marketing to grow your social media audience by including social share buttons and CTAs (call to actions) within your email content.

Increase your agency’s brand awareness

Contrary to popular belief, social media isn’t the only platform that helps an agency’s brand awareness. Email marketing gives you the ability to increase their interest level, that brand awareness, by staying top of mind.

This doesn’t mean to send four daily emails to every single customer!! (That’s actually an excellent way to get customers to hate you… ) Too many times companies try to sell, sell, sell their products via email marketing, and completely ignore the brand awareness factor. Let customers know about your experience when traveling to a particular destination, offer travel tips that have been useful for you, keep customers informed of health and safety updates or share something you or your team are doing in your local community. Customers love to get to know the people behind the business.

It’s timely and personalized

Speaking of sell, sell, sell…

Yes, one of the benefits of email marketing can be to sell your products, if you approach it correctly. It’s important to use all the customer data and information you can. Send them a special offer on their birthday or anniversary. Let them know that their favorite vacation destination is half off. These are much more effective than simply sending a list of deals at all destinations.

Sending a customer an email about new cruise itineraries on their favorite cruise ship or cruise line is significantly more effective than sending them hotel deals in Europe if they have no interest in European vacations. 

This email marketing strategy also can incorporate seasonal offers, such as promoting a holiday special or an anticipated annual sale. Be sure to create a sense of urgency for any offer – customers are much more likely to purchase when a deal is ending soon.

Everyone uses email (well, almost everyone)

A Hubspot survey states that 91% of consumers use email. That alone should be enough to convince you to explore using email marketing campaigns. Email presents an incredible opportunity to reach customers. Not only can you provide them with discounts, specials, new products, and more, they can share and forward those emails to anyone they’d like. A good email marketing strategy is to encourage customers to share offers as much as possible. Remember brand awareness?

No double data entry required!

Because our Email Marketing Feature is integrated with your customer database in Vacation Creations there’s no need to double data entry. If you use a third-party system like Mail Chimp, Constant Contact or Drip, you would have to re-enter emails. Save time by not having to compare lists and make sure all of your customers and prospects are in both systems.