Blog post - Email marketing

Lead magnet ideas

Marketing Action Plan

Okay, this is episode two out of the two

episodes on email marketing foundations.

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In this episode, I'm going to be

answering a couple of questions.

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And I am going to talk to you a little

bit more about lead magnets and give

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you some ideas for lead magnets that

you can share with your audience.

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Not going to go through

all the introduction and

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the music and all of that.

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I'm just going to dig right in.

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Let's go.

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So in today's episode, I'm going

to answer some questions and talk a

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little bit more about email marketing.

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Question number one was when is

the best time to send emails?

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And to be honest, that depends

on you and the people that

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you're sending your email to you.

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Most of the email service providers,

mail champion convert kit, and all of

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the big ones will allow you to send it.

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At the time of day where they are.

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So if you say 9:00 AM then

wherever the person who receives

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the email pop up at 9:00 AM.

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And that's a good idea.

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, let's say, most of your audience.

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As busy moms.

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You don't want to send an email

at seven 30 in the morning.

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That's probably the busiest time

of their day when they're getting

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their kids up and ready for school.

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So you would want an email to go out

a little bit later in the day but

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if your target audience is an older

demographic, then their kids are older

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or they're empty nesters or whatever.

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Then seven 30 in the morning probably is

a good time to send out an email to them.

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One thing I advise is just try

different days and different times.

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The only rules on that are I wouldn't.

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I would not send emails on Saturday.

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Those are really busy days.

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Most people make their

weekend plans for Saturday.

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I wouldn't send it out on Sunday

if you send it out on Sunday is

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maybe send it out Sunday afternoon.

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It's three or four o'clock.

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I would not send emails at all on Monday,

Mondays are just generally really busy

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day for people getting caught up with

all the things they miss last week,

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or, starting their new work week.

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So I.

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I would say Monday and

Saturdays are for sure.

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The two days that you don't send.

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And then you can play with the other days

of the week, maybe one, one newsletter you

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want to send out on a Tuesday at 9:00 AM.

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And then the next newsletter

you send at Wednesday at five.

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Now with some.

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Email marketing programs, you

can actually split it so you can

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do a half and half where half of

your audience gets it at 9:00 AM.

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And the other half gets it at 4:00 PM.

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Or you could set that up now?

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No, that's a little bit advanced.

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So to answer the question.

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When should I send an email?

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The answer is you need to

decide that on your own.

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I would start with Tuesdays at

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three, between three and 5:00 PM.

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The next time I would send it on Wednesday

at 3:00 PM or Wednesday at 6:00 PM.

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And then what you're going to get on,

want to do is check your statistics.

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Behind your emails.

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After a couple of months of

sending it at different times.

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I also want to mention that you should

do this with your social media too.

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You should vary the times of

days and days when you post.

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The second question I was asked is what

should I include in a monthly newsletter?

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And this is a really great question

because a lot of people, all they

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do is send their email subscribers,

a link to their website, to book.

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Sometimes I see a little bit

of a snippet of information.

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The first thing I do is create

a email newsletter template.

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And that template is going to have

boxes for all the different things.

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So every time I send out a new email

newsletter, I just use the template.

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I put the things into their boxes.

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Always start your email with a

message always use their first name.

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Hey, Amanda, it's Jody from

blue skies, vacation rentals.

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With fall right around the corner.

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I wanted to share some of my, our favorite

fall activities and some tips for how to

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enjoy the blue Ridge mountains in October.

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And then sign your name just a quick

little, one sentence, little thing.

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That's building that connection.

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They're seeing your name, you're

sending it to them first name so that

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you're, you're building a connection.

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Then you want to write a little article, a

couple of little blurbs . So for example,

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You have a target audience of adults and

you want to write an article geared to

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adults I have a client in wine country

and I wrote an article about all the

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Michelin chef restaurants in the area.

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And literally each paragraph

was about four sentences long.

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It named the restaurant.

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It talked about the chef that was there

and gave just a little bit of detail.

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And then it linked back to that business.

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I may, if I can find

that newsletter, I will.

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We'll screenshot it and

put it in the show notes.

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So you can see it.

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The next thing you want to do is

you want to add a couple of other

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blurbs about upcoming events or

little known places, something else.

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For those people who aren't necessarily

interested in the Michelin restaurants.

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Now you don't have to do this.

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Your entire newsletter could

be all geared to these Michelin

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restaurants, but I encourage you to

add a little something else to that.

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Just a little bit more little

blurbs, maybe it's about.

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The farmer's market, or maybe it's about

I think in this newsletter, we talked

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about the rodeo, the upcoming rodeo.

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Especially if you have multiple properties

with multiple guests avatars, then you

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want to bring in a little bit more layer.

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Now this, the most important thing

is that you want everything to be

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able to tie back to your properties.

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In some way, and that

can be in a little way.

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So maybe one of the Michelin

restaurants is right across the

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street from one of your properties.

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In that article you might

mention this restaurant is right

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across the street from our.

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Beautiful property conveniently

located right across the

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street from this restaurant.

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And then you've just dropped

it in there as a little hint.

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Oh, by the way, if you are somebody

that loves Michelin restaurants and

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you want to vacation in our area, if

you stay at this property, you can get.

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You can be right across the street

from this Michelin restaurant.

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Now you also want to be sure

and have a call to action.

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Within every newsletter to book

your property, but you need to

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give them a reason to feel a sense

of urgency or a reason to check.

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The calendar.

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So you want to say, Hey, are you excited

about visiting the blue Ridge mountains

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this fall to see the changing leaves we,

have just a few dates available, check

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out our calendar, you might want to

focus on just one property each month.

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If you have a bunch of properties, maybe

one or two, or the focus, and you can

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create that sense of urgency by saying.

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We only have two weekends left

for ski season at this property.

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If you're looking for the perfect

place for a group of 10 to take

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out on the mountains, this winter,

then check out this property.

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So that sense of urgency

is what's important.

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Give them a reason.

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Maybe you just added new decor.

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Maybe you just brought on a new property.

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If you're a property management company,

you just brought on a new property and

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you want to give your email subscribers

a chance to book before anybody else

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hears about it or something like that.

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Make it a reason why

they need to book now.

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And of course not, everybody's going

to be interested, not everybody's

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going to click through, but the people

who are interested are going to click

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through the people who are looking

for a fall getaway are going to click

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through and look at what is available.

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I'll also want to mention

when you're doing this.

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You want to link to the specific page?

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I have a specific property.

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Now a lot of times when I'm speaking

to clients about this, they want to say

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but I don't want to do that because I

want them to go back to my search page.

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And see all my properties.

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But you want to feature a

specific property to them.

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You can even say it in the

email, Click through to visit

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our yellow rose of Texas cabin.

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If the, your dates aren't available, be

sure and check out our, check out all of

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their properties or check the availability

button to see what is available.

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So you can remind them that

you have more than this one,

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but you want it to be instant.

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Here's a picture of the yellow rose cabin.

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that click on the page and they

go to the yellow rose cabin.

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You don't want them to click on

the button and go back to your

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homepage or click on the button and

go to another page of your website.

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Then you want to share a review?

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I put the review, usually in the middle

of the newsletter or in the bottom.

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After I talk about properties.

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But when you share a review,

don't just share a review.

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I want you to share it, but again, put

it into context of this connection.

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You're building with your, the

people that are reading it.

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So you want to say, oh, We received

this great review from Karen.

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Last week I wanted to share with you.

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Karen was here with her family.

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We love hearing from guests like Karen.

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And then you can either type in

the review that she left or take a

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screenshot of the review or take a

photo of the review and insert that.

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And that's more social proof.

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Then you want to end with

another connection builder.

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You want to say.

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Thanks Jody, for reading this

newsletter really appreciate it.

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Follow me on Facebook.

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Reply to this email.

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If you need any more help planning

your trip to the blue Ridge mountains

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this year, I'd love to help you.

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Okay.

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Now, the last question that

I received was all about.

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Lead magnet ideas.

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This is something that people

struggle with all the time.

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Remember a lead magnet is the thing

that you give people for free.

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In order for them to want to sign

up, to receive your newsletters.

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And you have to give them

something very specific.

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To your avatar.

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You might, even if you have multiple

avatars, you might even different

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lead magnets for those avatars.

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Suzanne at urban shores did

a great job of creating.

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I think she has three.

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Lead magnets for three different

types of guests avatar.

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And she only has one property right now.

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One of hers is about

planning a romantic getaway.

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One of them is planning a wine

trip getaway, so very specific.

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So you want to be sure that you are

specific to that avatar because those

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are the people you want reading your

newsletters, and those are the people

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you want booking your property.

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You also want to be able,

you want someone to provide

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something that's easy to consume.

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So you want something that they can

look at and read through in maybe

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10 minutes or a little bit less.

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And that it's easy for them to

say, Hey, I'm going to print

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this or I'm going to save this.

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And come back to it when I need it.

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You also want something that's

not everywhere else that they

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can't find anywhere else.

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And I know that's the hard part is coming

up with something unique and different,

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but you can come up with some ideas.

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I have a blog post on my website

that I'll link to in the show notes.

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It's all about lead magnet ideas.

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Instead of a guide to things to do in.

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The hill country you might want

to put how to plan a romantic

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weekend in the hill country.

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Maybe you want to provide safety

tips for hiking in Joshua tree.

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Or . If you're in an area

that has a big events venue.

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Maybe you want to share the

upcoming music schedule that

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would be a great lead magnet.

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. My husband and I go out to music

all the time and I would love it

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if I had a newsletter that was

just everything that's coming up

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that's easy research right there.

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And of course with that lead magnet

though, you would have to change it out

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seasonally, but still it's easy research.

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You could put it together pretty quickly.

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Packing lists are also

really good lead magnets.

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If you're in a destination where

people are flying in or it's a once

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in a lifetime trip or they don't

come off in a packing list or a how

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to get around guide would be great.

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Bucket list are always fun.

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But I didn't want to tell

you about one of my favorite.

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Lead magnet ideas.

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If you have a drive to destination,

then you can do a road trip toolbox.

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What that would be would include

is like road trip games for kids.

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Music for the road, like a Spotify or

Pandora playlist maybe it's rest stops.

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Best restaurants along the way.

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Those kinds of things,

that would be a really fun.

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Lead magnet and it could be

different to every location.

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So I do have one idea that really

rocks that I want to share with you.

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And this is so simple and so easy,

when you go to a visitor center or

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even some hotels still have these and

they have those tourist brochures,

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all in, in the little slots.

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You can grab a few of

those tourists brochures.

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And you can take them to somewhere

office Depot or FedEx store and

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you can put them all together

so that you've created a guide.

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For people, that's really just a

bunch of already created ride guides.

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So you want to put together these

guides together in a collection.

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And of course, when you send that.

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If possible, you want to create your

own little PDF to go along with it and

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add to it that has some information

about you and your properties.

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So that when they download all of

these things together, they've got

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your information in there as well.

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So you definitely want

to try to include that.

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If I didn't explain that.

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Let me know, so I can do a video about it.

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Anyway.

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So those are some of my

ideas for lead magnets.

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So, those are just a few of

my ideas for lead magnets.

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I hope one of those spurred

you into creating something.

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Start with something really simple.

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Um, and you can add to it and add to it.

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Just do a three-day itinerary

with, uh, some of your favorite

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activities, make it personal.

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Remember to include information about

you and your properties and how they

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can book with you and connect with you.

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And then, you know, in three

months time do something different.

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Add to it.

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That's what Suzanne with urban shores did.

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She started with one very simple guide

and then was able to go back later

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and add to it and create another one.

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And then she went back to it and created.

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another one.

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Well, that's it for all of the

answers to your questions and a little

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bit more tips on email marketing.

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Hope that this helped you.

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And let me know if you have any

questions at all about email marketing.

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I would be glad to give you a little

more help through Instagram DMS, or

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you can email me Facebook messenger.

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Wherever you are.

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And however you want to connect

with me, let me know if I can help.

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You can also download my

free marketing action plan.

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Check it out.

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You can go to my Jodie

porn.com backslash links and.

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It's called the vacation

rental marketing action plan.

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Okay.

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That's it for this episode,

all about email marketing, the

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followup to my foundation's

episode from earlier this week.

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Remember email marketing should be part of

a, of your vacation rental marketing plan.

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But it's just part of the plan.

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There's a lot more to it.

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So I want you to stay tuned to the other

episodes that I'll be doing in this

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foundation series to help you understand.

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Which marketing tactics will

work best for your audience.