Why do users unsubscribe from hotel newsletters?

For a hotel the email database has until recently been one of the most important free marketing tools through which you could increase the bookings. Due to the evolution and growing effectiveness of other channels, email marketing has generally been relegated to the background. Only the hotels that have managed to make proper use of it keep it in a priority position in their marketing strategy.

In this article we review some reasons why the unsubscribe rate begins to rise and we will share with you some recommendations that will help you recover the interest of your subscribers and increase bookings through this powerful channel.

 

Frequency of sending

We all like to stay informed about news and offers, but we are unable to process all the information we receive daily through multiple channels. Sending emails with excessive frequency, although they are interesting for our subscribers, may be the reason people unsubscribe.

The right frequency is not an exact value and varies depending on many factors such as the nationality and age of the target audience, the profile of our hotel, etc. For all these reasons, it is very important to test, know our target audience well and ensure that our database is well segmented.

To test and measure the appropriate frequency with which emails should be sent, we recommend establishing an annual contact plan, in which, during different months, we test different sending frequencies: weekly, biweekly, monthly, bimonthly. At the end of the year we will analyze which sending frequency has achieved the best results for sales conversions, opens, click-through rates and unsubscribes.

 

Value proposition

Any message we send to our subscribers has to spark interest. Reading an email has to be a pleasant and evocative experience for our subscribers. We must contribute value to those who receive our email, for this purpose we have to create and use this channel to communicate exclusive offers accompanied by quality content. Creating relevant offers and interesting content will require time and effort, but we will certainly be rewarded with a good ROI.

If we send emails with poor, boring content that wastes our subscribers’ time, the unsubscribe rate will surely increase.

The goal is not to send emails simply to stay in people’s minds, but to offer an interesting value proposition to our subscribers to help us maintain our readers’ interest and, if possible, encourage them to recommend us to their friends.

 

Segmentation

As we have already mentioned, but it is very important to segment our database, besides the logical and basic segmentation by language, it is advisable to be able to segment our database by other fields to personalize offers and mailings: for example, by city or province to communicate offers linked to local festivities, or by gender to tailor messages.

The reasons people cancel email subscriptions go far beyond the 3 we mentioned in this article, but applying these ground rules will help keep our subscribers’ interest and increase bookings.