Background Hotel Email Marketing Best Practices

When I asked you to name an email Marketing instrument, what could you say? Hotel Email Marketing Best Practices

MailChimp? Aweber? ActiveCampaign?

Like most online industries now, email marketing continues to be Dominated by the same big players for the previous ten years. Which means that they get encouraged very deeply and accomplish a lot of mindshare.

Now and then, however, an Underdog disrupts the market, inducing long-time users to question their loyalties.

MailerLite has done precisely that.

So today, in this review, I’ll be tearing MailerLite from limb To limb to find out whether it stands its ground against the big boys…

…and, what’s more, whether youshould consider making the change.

MailerLite Advantages

– Uses tag-based system (called Groups)

– Powerful Segmentation using rules

– Custom Fields for advanced email personalization

– Advanced Campaign types (auto-resend, A/B, etc.. )

– Simple to Utilize email builder/template editor

– Practical Email elements such as countdowns and merchandise boxes

– Intuitive Form, popup and landing page builder

– Supports Automations using visual workflows

– Offers Both digestible and in-depth reporting

– A Fraction of the price compared to most other options

Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.

MailerLite Disadvantages

– Strict Approval process

– Few email Templates accessible

– Very few Form templates available

– Can’t Create mails without leaving the visual workflow builder

– No Support for site tracking Hotel Email Marketing Best Practices

Sign-up Procedure

Like most email advertising providers these days, you will need to Go through a review process before being able to correctly use the program.

When you first sign up, you’ll be asked to complete your profile.

This includes information such as your company name, website, Industry, address, company size, record size and even the kind of material you plan to send.

Then, You Have to verify your Website (or domain ).

This is still part of this acceptance process, and MailerLite will Simply inquire which email is related to that domain so they could email you a confirmation link.

As Soon as You’ve completed these Steps, you’ll need to wait it out.

The MailerLite team will review your application, assess your Website, and determine whether you are a fantastic fit for their service.

(In other words, they are making sure you’re not a spammer/scammer)

As shown above, you’ll nevertheless be Able to use the software to create campaigns and perform with the features, but you won’t be able to send anything until approved.

I had been”partially” approved within a few hours, which gave me a Temporary limit of 500 subscribers.

Here Is What the email said:

Annoying, sure.

But while these steps aren’t perfect for getting started, it Does help stop malicious users from damaging everybody’s deliverability.

Campaigning

If you are anything like me, you’ll rely upon automations to Deal with The majority of your email advertising.

(We’ll get to automations shortly, do not worry.)

But if it is a new blog article, podcast, or timely Announcement, there’s always a reason to send a more immediate email.

That’s where’Campaigns’ come in.

Clicking the new’Produce Campaign’ will give you several options.

– Regular effort: A Conventional broadcast email.

– A/B split campaign: Multiple email Versions, including subject line, from title and, yes, even content. (Woop!)

– Auto resend: Resend to subscribers who Do not start your broadcast email, together with the choice of altering the subject line and email articles.

– RSS effort: Produce a recurring campaign That sends fresh content to readers using your site’s RSS feed.

Aside from a few additional options, the Majority of these will follow The same step-by-step process of a normal campaign.

So let’s walk you through it.

As Soon as You click to create your campaign, you’ll be requested to Pick a preferred editor, whether that be the dragn’ drop, rich text or HTML.

Otherwise, you can change to the Templates tab and select from among their pre-designed email templates — that will move you into the dragn’ drop editor by default.

At the time of writing, there are 21 email templates to select From which is a little on the low side, however, the layouts are super modern.

And, of course, if you’d just Prefer to reuse a previous email, you can click the’Recent Emails’ tab.

For this instance, I will choose the first template from the library.

The editor is easy to work with, Which makes viewing these templates a 5-minute job.

You can also utilize the cubes in the sidebar to add different Kinds of content to your email, including videos, merchandise columns, and social links.

After making your adjustments, just click’Done Editing’ and you will Be carried to the recipients’ choices where you are able to choose your groups or segments.

The tab also allows you To develop segment-like rules , in the event your targeting isn’t quite perfect.

Finally, before sending, then you’ll get into the’Program’ screen.

This is where you control if your broadcast email should go Out, if that’s immediately, at a set time/date, or in accordance with your readers time zones.

Impressive, right? Hotel Email Marketing Best Practices

Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.

Handling Your Clients

Possessing granular control over your subscribers is arguably one of The most important aspects of any email marketing software today.

Why?

Because highly personalized campaigns are necessary if You are searching to increase opens, clicks, and, above all, your conversions.

And while many providers allow you to”tag” readers in order To target them more effectively, MailerLite uses a slightly different approach.

When you open up your subscriber dashboard, you’ll see two Options; Segments and Groups.

Segments are essentially rules.

Your readers belong to a segment only when they meet the Specified rules, and are automatically added or removed accordingly.

Here is what establishing a rule looks like:

Notice how you can also blend Rules, in addition to an alternate rule if the first doesn’t exist.

Pretty smart, eh?

The following tab is for classes, and also the difference in name, These behave much like your usual”tagging” system.

(MailerLite even debated Changing the title to’Tags’, but finally decided against it.)

Contrary to Segments, Groups are upgraded manually or via an Automation principle — that we’ll get into in a moment — and they have no value aside from what you call them.

As you Begin to use this platform, you’ll Start to understand Where Segments and Groups are typically used, but MailerLite offers a hand in case you’re uncertain:

Basically, groups are much more of a Deliberate activity on a per-subscriber basis, whereas Segments allow you to bulge multiple contributors together according to a common denominator.

A tad confusing, I’ll admit… but I feel it is a fair trade-off For the additional flexibility. In any case, they’re discretionary.

Finally, the’Fields’ tab is used to personalize your email copy.

You will notice that MailerLite has Already populated this area with their own fields, such as name, business, and country.

If you want to create your own custom fields, you can do so by Clicking the’Add new field’ button.

So how do they really work?

You can either upload a CSV record of your readers together with Your custom field data in separate columns… or can simply add these fields to a forms which will only apply to future subscribers.

Here’s a screenshot of a test field I made and added into a form:

I won’t go too much to the form Things here since I have an entire section on this below, but this is the approach I’d recommend if you wished to use this feature.

Again, as Soon as You’ve collected your custom field data from new Subscribers, you can pull them into your email content and subject line.

Just click the’Personalization’ drop down and choose your Custom field.

I am barely scratching the surface Of what is possible with custom fields, but it’s important that you know that this is a feature you can use.

Overall, it’s reasonable to say MailerLite has their subscriber Direction and personalization features on stage. Hotel Email Marketing Best Practices

Landing pages.

If you are not impressed by what you have seen up to Now, then perhaps The page builder will tickle your fancy.

After selecting’Landing Pages’ in the forms page, you will be Able to pick from 8 pre-designed templates.

Again, while the template selection Is not winning any awards, it will offer a fantastic foundation to work from if, like the majority of us, you do not have that natural eye for design.

I went ahead and chosen the’Lead Generation’ template, though They all ultimately do the identical job; collect an email address.

This time, the editor will give you 17 building blocks to Further build or change your landing page.

Now, I’ve used my fair share of Visual page builders, and this is better than some dedicated alternatives *Infection * WPBakery.

Along with the basic building blocks, you can use elements like Hero segments, popup buttons, reviews and countdown timers.

No, it won’t be replacing landing Page builders like Thrive Architect or even LeadPagesanytime shortly, but credit where credit due, this item over-delivers on all three kind types.

Form Builder Tool

Unlike some email marketing tools, MailerLite really offers a Decent pair of type building tools.

Not only that, but you can also create popups and landing pages Through this exact same interface, so there’s a whole lot to cover here.

Let us begin with your Bog-standard embedded form.

These forms are created inside MailerLite so as to get An embed code, which you can then place on your website to show it on particular pages.

Despite starting off super fundamental, the form designer lets you To personalize everything in the kind style, subjects, background, name, enter fields and, clearly, the button.

Form text may also be edited directly, which gives you a chance To visualize your copy in real-time.

It would have been nice to have Some templates, but as you know, there’s more to a form than simply its physical appearance.

Clicking on the’Settings’ tab will Make It Possible for you to configure how the Form functions, such as adding extra fields and establishing a custom success page.

(There is a GDPR compliance option. Sweet.)

And speaking of the success page…

…MailerLite also lets you customize the default message, Which can replace the embedded form and prevents users .

Last but certainly not least, you Can assess the way your form screens on cellular by switching the toggle to responsive mode.

You won’t Have the Ability to make any layout changes , but it makes Sense to test, nevertheless.

So that is an overview of this Embedded form but like I said before, you can even create popup forms in MailerLite.

While the Vast Majority of the installation Procedure is identical, there are A few differences I’d like to point out.

Unlike embedded kinds, you can choose between a set of Templates:

While this isn’t the most Comprehensive selection, they do provide a fantastic foundation to work from and the editor is at least as simple to use for this form type.

Clicking the’E-commerce’ template takes me into a preview Before moving into the editor.

Here, you’ll notice there are some new options under form types This time around:

Considering paid programs like Thrive Leads exist for ribbons and slide-in forms, it is pretty impressive to observe this level of control over popup types.

And, as before, you can play with the styling options to get it Matched with your branding.

Finally, you can Select the close Behavior of your form under the’Settings’ tab.

The default option is that the X icon, but you can swap this out for A”No thanks” text option, or have both.

That is where most email Marketing platforms will render you, but MailerLite has one more trick up its sleeve.

Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.

Reporting & Analytics

Like many tools, you’ll find a summary of your effort Data in the dashboard.

Here you’ll see everything from effort open and click info, Subscriber growth, automation analytics, and form signups.

Clicking into any effort will Give you special coverage for this effort.

This is where you’ll find some more advanced statistics such as Unsubscribes, spam complaints, bounces, studying surroundings, email client and more.

This should be plenty of Information for the average consumer…

…but if you really want To dig into the numbers, it is possible to click into different areas of the report for a more comprehensive breakdown.

You can find some real gems beneath These reports.

By Way of Example, the’View Mail’ tab also displays a click map, so You can see precisely how your subscribers interacted to another.

Reports for automations are Available under the’Automations’ tab, even though I found these to be less insightful than effort reports.

Here’s a quick example:

Total, MailerLite does a Stellar job with their reporting port, and most will get the available data more than enough to fulfill their needs.

Email Automation

What’s email marketing with no dash of automation?

For many reading this, MailerLite’s automation capabilities Could easily make or break this review.

The good news? If you’ve used a visual workflow builder, You will instantly feel at home here…

Much like the rest of MailerLite, That the automations interface is easy, clean and easy to navigate — something that certainly can not be said for every email advertising program.

After establishing your trigger, you can Start adding steps to your workflow.

These measures could be anything from sending an email, adding a Postpone, a conditional split, or an act, such as transferring a subscriber or updating their records.

Here’s a simple workflow I set together, where readers Are unsubscribed when they don’t open my email within 7 days.

There are innumerable Possibilities in regards to workflow automations like this, and MailerLite ought to not have any trouble with the vast majority of use cases.

Granted, it is not quite as Feature-rich as something like ActiveCampaign because it lacks a number of the conditional elements. (Split, Visit, Goal, etc.. )

For example, there’s currently no automation for moving Readers directly into another automation.

That being said, most of these actions can still be achieved by moving Subscribers into various groups that trigger new automation workflows. It is just not as efficient…. yet.

Another question of efficiency here is when generating new mails In the automation workflow builder.

After having an email block to The workflow, you will be asked to add your topic line that appears on the block itself.

From there, clicking the’Design email’ button will automatically fire up the Editor:

Now, you’ll be briefly Redirected to the typical campaign creation wizard, which I covered earlier in the review.

This time, but as Soon as You’ve established your email, clicking on the ‘Done editing’ button will direct you back into the automations workflow rather than the usual sending options.

Finally, your email will be Loaded into your automation.

A nice touch here is using a thumbnail preview of your Email within your automation cube, so you can get an concept about what it contains at a glance.

While this process may seem like A grind on newspaper, it’s actually much quicker than what I am used to with other email marketing tools — ActiveCampaign being a fantastic example.

On the other hand, if you have come over from something such as ConvertKit where The editor is loaded inside the automations builder, you’ll likely find that this downgrade in functionality.

It’s fast enough for me, Personally, but I guess it is all relative.

Before I wrap up this section, there’s 1 type of automation You will not find in MailerLite, also that I think it’s important to highlight.

Website tracking.

The ability to activate an automation (or step) based on the way Subscribers interact with the webpages on your website.

This Sort of behavioral targeting just isn’t accessible MailerLite right now, so if it’s something you use or intend to utilize, you may want to skip this one. Hotel Email Marketing Best Practices

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Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.

Pricing

The Price of MailerLite is one of those tools biggest Selling things, and let us face it, most of us love a fantastic bargain.

For starters, they offer an infinite free plan that includes All features (including premium) for as many as 1,000 subscribers.

While there is some subtle Branding on your emails using this plan, it is still an amazing option for anyone starting out.

And what about the top plans?

It ends up, at around half of the Price of the competition on average, MailerLite is by far among the least expensive options on the market. Additionally, if you are ready to pay yearly, you are also able to get a much greater discount.

In fact, I haven’t been able to find anything that does the same job, cheaper.

Wrap-up

MailerLite is among those very few advertising tools The (very crowded) industry in recent decades, which is no simple feat.

While it’s not as quickly as ConvertKit, or as feature-rich As ActiveCampaign, or as template-heavy as MailChimp, it works exceptionally well at virtually anything you can throw at it.

Overall, I find MailerLite strikes the perfect balance Between flexibility, simplicity and speed, and all at a price point you will seriously struggle to conquer.

Thinking of giving it a twist? Let us know how it works for you From the comments. Hotel Email Marketing Best Practices

Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.