Shownotes
In this episode, I'm diving into why your emails might be getting the cold shoulder and how to fix it.
Firstly, your subject line is make-or-break time. I'm not being dramatic here - it literally determines whether your email gets opened or deleted faster than you can say "direct booking." Those generic, snooze-fest subject lines? They're doing you absolutely no favours.
I'll share my tried-and-tested tricks for writing subject lines that actually get people curious enough to click. We're talking about tapping into emotions, creating a bit of urgency (the good kind, not the pushy sales-y type, yuck!), and making your potential guests feel like you're speaking directly to them.
Plus, I'll give you the lowdown on personalisation - and trust me, it's not just about adding their first name. When you get this right, your open rates will thank you for it.
Better email marketing = more direct bookings = more profit in your pocket. And who doesn't want that?
If you've been wondering why your emails aren't converting into bookings, this episode is packed with no-nonsense advice to turn things around.
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Key Takeaways:
- Your subject line is everything. Seriously, it's the difference between your email being opened or ignored. Get this bit wrong, and all your brilliant content inside goes to waste.
- Quality beats quantity every time. Don't just churn out emails for the sake of it - make sure what you're sending actually adds value for your readers. Nobody wants their inbox clogged with pointless fluff.
- Find your email sweet spot. Too many emails and you'll annoy people (hello, unsubscribe button!). Too few and they'll forget you exist. It's all about hitting that perfect balance.
- Get personal - it works. Adding someone's name to your subject line isn't rocket science, but it makes a real difference to open rates. People like feeling special, not like they're just another number on your mailing list.
- Create that "I need to know more" feeling. Whether it's sparking curiosity or adding a gentle nudge of urgency, give people a reason to actually want to open your email. Make them think "Ooh, what's this about then?"
- Consistency is your best friend. When people know to expect your emails and they arrive when promised, you're building anticipation. That's marketing gold right there.
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Need to up your email marketing game?
Why not check out Sarah's monthly marketing club where you can access her 4-part Mailchimp step-by-step email marketing training. Find out more here
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Connect with Sarah:
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Are you ready to take more direct bookings?
Take Sarah's FREE quiz here to find out how ready you are with your marketing to ditch the likes of Airbnb! Put your business to the test...
Transcripts
You're listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard.
Speaker A:Are you ready to master your marketing so you can ditch your reliance on the online agents and grow your direct bookings?
Speaker A:I'll be sharing with you exactly what it takes to grow your direct bookings and the simple marketing steps to get more profit in your pocket.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Get Fully Booked podcast.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Sarah Orchard.
Speaker A:Thank you as always for being here and I'd love to know where you are listening in from today.
Speaker A:Are you doing a changeover?
Speaker A:Walking the dog?
Speaker A:Driving the car?
Speaker A:Don't know what you could be up to, but do drop me a message on send me a DM on Instagram at getfully Booked and let me know what you're up to and what you like to do when you're listening to my podcast.
Speaker A:Okay, so let's get going with today's episode and I have a hot topic for you.
Speaker A:Email marketing.
Speaker A:So you've listened to me rattling on and on about the fact that you should be sending email campaigns and you're actually writing your emails.
Speaker A:You're being brave and you're sending them out and you have a list that you have lovingly grown, but when you send them, hardly anyone is opening them.
Speaker A:Now, this cues the email tumbleweed.
Speaker A:And if we're honest, that little stab of rejection when you look at your inbox stats, it's.
Speaker A:It's almost as bad as you feel when you get that one unsubscribe.
Speaker A:Now, I know it can be very demoralizing and email marketing is a numbers game, let's face it.
Speaker A:But I thought I'd share with you today in this episode, a few things that can help to address why your emails are not being opened.
Speaker A:And I'm going to talk about.
Speaker A:There could be lots of reasons, but I'm going to talk about the three most common reasons why your emails are not being opened.
Speaker A:But more importantly, I'm going to share with you how to fix this.
Speaker A:So let's dig into what's really going on with those disappointing open rates.
Speaker A:So the first thing, and I think this is the most typical thing, which often gets overlooked, and if I say it, you'll think that it seems really obvious, but it's your subject line, because your subject line is the most critical element of any email campaign that you send.
Speaker A:But I hear you saying, but you spend ages on the copy and the images and you're fretting about whether the content is good enough and whether you've got the right number of images.
Speaker A:And have you got some Interesting content to put in there.
Speaker A:I'll come on to that later.
Speaker A:And you're thinking that that's the most important bit, right?
Speaker A:Wrong.
Speaker A:Your subject line is what it's probably the strongest thing that influences your open rates.
Speaker A:So let's look at what might be going wrong.
Speaker A:So typically if you're having problems with your open rates, it can be that your subject lines are just way too generic.
Speaker A:So the number of times I see our latest update and then maybe like from and insert your business name spring newsletter or name of business newsletter, please don't get me started on calling it a newsletter.
Speaker A:Anyone who's done my challenge that I run every January will know how passionate I am about not calling them email newsletters.
Speaker A:Because I don't want your news.
Speaker A:I want to know what's in it for me.
Speaker A:So if you're using those sorts of generic subject lines, you can guarantee that you are not going to get a great open rate.
Speaker A:It may be that you're sounding a bit spammy.
Speaker A:So if you're using cliched sort of lines like Click now for 20% off, you can just look like you're spam.
Speaker A:Basically, it may actually get your message put into the spam folder in the first place, so no one gets a chance to see it.
Speaker A:But also it can just, you know, put up the red flags really for people.
Speaker A:The other thing, and the last thing is that you could be giving too much away so there really is no curiosity left for them to open it.
Speaker A:So if your subject line tells them the full picture, they don't really have a reason to open it because at the end of the day you've sort of told them everything.
Speaker A:So why do they need to open and read the email?
Speaker A:So what should you be doing instead?
Speaker A:So human beings, we are nosy people, so we want to find things out.
Speaker A:So if you use curiosity, emotion or urgency, that can definitely tempt people to open it.
Speaker A:So you could have a subject line.
Speaker A:You won't believe what we added to the cabin last week that's going to make people think, what did you add to the cabin?
Speaker A:I want to check this out.
Speaker A:Three reasons are autumn getaways always sell out early.
Speaker A:Again, there's a sense of urgency because you're saying that you sell out, you're going to share something with them and they're probably a little bit intrigued as to what that might be.
Speaker A:You could use something like you have till insert a date to grab this exclusive subscriber only deal.
Speaker A:Using urgency can boost open rates by an estimated 22%.
Speaker A:So definitely giving people a sense that they need to take action by a certain deadline can definitely or they're going to miss out can definitely actually improve your open rates.
Speaker A:You should keep your subject lines short and mobile friendly so they reckon around under 50 characters is best.
Speaker A:But play around with it because I've done subject lines that have been a little bit longer than that and they've performed well.
Speaker A:One other top tip for you is actually to use personalization.
Speaker A:So with most email marketing software you can use merge tags to insert a person's first name.
Speaker A:And this can be really powerful.
Speaker A:So you could have something like the person's first name at the front and say this one's for you or an exclusive offer for you or person's name.
Speaker A:Don't miss out on X, Y and Z.
Speaker A:It's been found that personalized subject lines can increase Open rates by 29.3% on average compared to using non personalized subject lines.
Speaker A:Again, I think it works because it builds an element of trust because they see their name and you're also directly talking to them.
Speaker A:So that definitely makes more of a connection with your audience.
Speaker A:I've got a bit of a pro tip for you today which is to keep a swipe file like a, I don't know, a Google Drive, Doc, notepad, whatever you want, but keep a bit of a, what we might call a swipe file of email subject lines that made you click and open.
Speaker A:So maybe consciously look at the emails that are coming into your inbox.
Speaker A:What are the ones that made you open?
Speaker A:What are the ones that you automatically deleted in the preview pane, you know, that preview pane where you can actually see what the, you know, see a couple of lines of text and you can see what it's all about.
Speaker A:That actually can be very influential if you look at, you know, what's, what's making you open because that is going to influence what influences you, will influence other people.
Speaker A:So don't be afraid to start, you know, writing down subject lines that work or even ask ChatGPT or another AI tool to help you with some ideas.
Speaker A:So maybe put in some that you like in your swipe file or ones that you've used before and get them to generate you some more that will be similar if you're feeling a bit stuck with it.
Speaker A:Okay, so I've got an interesting fact for you.
Speaker A:And this statistic might actually surprise you.
Speaker A:But the average, according to mailchimp, which is actually the email marketing software that I use, the average open rate across the travel and hospitality industry is around 20.2%.
Speaker A:So it's actually quite low.
Speaker A:Our hideout emails for our treehouse that I do, we get on average between 40 and 50%.
Speaker A:So you know, if you're, if you're hitting the sort of 30% mark, you're doing quite well.
Speaker A:But if you find that your emails are sort of falling flat and you're down in the low teens or high teens and sort of around about 20%, that is on the low side.
Speaker A:But you're not alone.
Speaker A:But it also means you've got plenty of scope for increasing how well your emails are performing.
Speaker A:And I alluded to this before, but most people decide whether or not to open an email in under 3 seconds.
Speaker A:So this is why your subject line is so vital.
Speaker A:And typically about 80% of emails do get deleted just by people looking at that preview pane where they can actually see what the email is sort of about.
Speaker A:And also some of the news email marketing systems, email clients like Outlook and various others, they actually show you like when I look on my iPhone, it actually gives me a summary of the email.
Speaker A:So you can quite quickly work out whether you want to risk opening it or not.
Speaker A:So people are getting wiser as to whether they want to sort of open it.
Speaker A:But I would say that the little line, normally when you're doing your email subject line, you'll also have the chance to fill in what they call like the preview text, the preview pane text.
Speaker A:So this is like another supporting line of copy.
Speaker A:And that's really, really important because a lot of people are skimming and they're deciding whether to delete in the actual inbox before they've, you know, they've even bothered to open it.
Speaker A:So you've got to grab people's attention really quick.
Speaker A:And those subject lines really do matter.
Speaker A:So I often leave my subject line till the end to do I write my email campaign and then I come back to my subject line.
Speaker A:But don't forget to fill it in because you wouldn't be the first person that sends an email with a blank subject line.
Speaker A:Even some of the big brands have done this by mistake.
Speaker A:It happens to the best of us.
Speaker A:So just a word, a cautionary tale there.
Speaker A:The second point is even if your subject line is really, really good, you can be affected by other factors.
Speaker A:And one of those is that your timing and your frequency is off.
Speaker A:So if you are sending too many emails, you will annoy your audience.
Speaker A:And I tend to think that about monthly is about the right frequency for us in short term rentals and glamping.
Speaker A:I know people who send more frequently than that, but I do think that if you are sending a high volume of emails, you can trigger that sort of annoyance factor and that can make people switch off.
Speaker A:I always say that, you know, timing and frequency are really, really important in your email marketing strategy and thinking about your, you know, contact strategy and with your audience and how often you're going to talk to them.
Speaker A:And you need to be consistent.
Speaker A:So if you, you know, send one email and then you don't send another email for about 12 months, they might be slightly surprised when it turns up in their inbox.
Speaker A:They might open it out of curiosity because they haven't heard from you for such a long time that they thought your business was dead.
Speaker A:So they might open it or they might just think and just delete it.
Speaker A:So I do think that frequency has a really important point to play.
Speaker A:And I, and I think that it is possibly the second most strong reason why your emails might not be being opened, because maybe you are inconsistent or you are creating the sort of cheese off factor if you're sending emails too frequently.
Speaker A:And number three is, and I'm sorry to say this, that your content actually sucks.
Speaker A:It's not good.
Speaker A:So I don't like to say that out loud because it seems a bit mean, but, you know, people are busy, their inboxes are overflowing, they're skimming, they're trying to keep on top of their inbox, so they're deleting things.
Speaker A:So if they have found in the past that your content has not been good, or if they cannot immediately see that the email is for them and that it has something useful for them or relevant or timely, they'll skip it.
Speaker A:They'll just delete you and that's it, game over.
Speaker A:And I do think that that is a major factor.
Speaker A:So why might, you know, this be happening?
Speaker A:It could be that you talk about yourself all the time.
Speaker A:So it's like you do the, the we all over you.
Speaker A:So it's very much you talking about your business, hence why I say it's not a newsletter.
Speaker A:It's not your opportunity to update your guests or past guests or your potential guests about all the lovely things that have been happening in your business.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's about them, not you.
Speaker A:So it has to be relevant and engaging and timely for them.
Speaker A:And another reason could be that your emails always sort of feel the same.
Speaker A:So if you're constantly going out with, we have availability.
Speaker A:Come stay.
Speaker A:Here's our insert the month.
Speaker A:You know, April, May, June offer.
Speaker A:They just get a bit worn down by it and it's not are creating much of an interest.
Speaker A:There's no hook or story or tip or reason to actually, you know, click open and and come and have a look.
Speaker A:So you really need to think about, you know, creating content that is appealing.
Speaker A:So let's think about some things that you could try to include in your content which would make it more appealing, obviously share helpful information or inspiration, maybe some local things that are going on, seasonal guides, guest stories.
Speaker A:You definitely don't want to just be talking about your business.
Speaker A:You're trying to engage with them to give them another compelling reason to come back and stay again or stay for the first time.
Speaker A:So you definitely need to give them broader appeal in terms of why why would they want to come and stay with you.
Speaker A:You can segment your list as well so that your content feels more relevant.
Speaker A:So if you've got past guests and sort of new signups, you might want to send different messaging to your different audiences.
Speaker A:So I use tags in mailchimp to actually be able to tag all of our past guests and I use a variety of tags and that can be quite helpful if you want to segment for campaign offers.
Speaker A:It can also be good, like I said, from a content point of view in terms of being able to say different things, because obviously a message to a past guest where you're trying to remind them of the experience and why they loved it so much and they want to come back again could be quite different to tempting and assuming a lack of knowledge for your new signups because they've not stayed with you before.
Speaker A:You can also use techniques like storytelling to give your reader a moment of escape or curiosity.
Speaker A:So telling a story about not what necessarily has been happening, but storytelling about the sort of the broader experience would be helpful.
Speaker A:Tease what's inside in the email, in your subject line.
Speaker A:So you know your subject line does need to correlate to your actual content in your email.
Speaker A:And that little preview pane, that preview text needs to support that, to make people realize that the content is of interest to them and that they want to open.
Speaker A:So your goal really is to show up regularly in their inbox so that they're almost anticipating your emails arriving.
Speaker A:That would be our wish list that you send them in a timely manner and that you don't annoy them with too high a frequency and that they really look forward to the content.
Speaker A:And your subject line gives them a really compelling reason, it's tempting and makes them want to open it.
Speaker A:So Just to wrap up this episode, really just a quick recap of the three most common reasons why your emails are not getting opened.
Speaker A:Take a look at your subject lines.
Speaker A:They need to be punchy, they don't need to be perfect, but they need to be appealing and not generic.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So please, please, please, I don't want to receive any more updates from hosts that say spring newsletter or, you know, newsletter with your business name.
Speaker A:Think about the frequency, make sure that it's going out in a timely manner.
Speaker A:At the moment, at the point where this podcast is going out, what we're finding is that.
Speaker A:What I'm finding is that payday emails are working quite well.
Speaker A:So sending them out nearer to payday because obviously the sort of current financial situation it' when people have got maybe a bit more disposable income.
Speaker A:So that can work quite well.
Speaker A:And then lastly it's the relevance and the quality of your content.
Speaker A:So giving people a reason to open the con and look at the content because it's so good.
Speaker A:So we need to remember that it's not about writing, definitely not about writing more emails.
Speaker A:It's about writing better emails that actually have content that appeals to our ideal guests and gently leads them towards that direct booking with us.
Speaker A:So if email marketing is something that you struggle with, why not come and find out a bit more about how you can improve it?
Speaker A:You can check out my I have a mailchimp email marketing course which is called Get Going With Email Marketing, which does include lots of tips about how to improve your campaigns in terms of subject lines, content, how to develop a good sort of contact strategy.
Speaker A:So you can head over to my website Get Fully and you can find out more about that on my Everything page or drop me a message on instagram over at getfullybooked.
Speaker A:I have been doing email marketing for over 20 years now.
Speaker A:Saying that does make me feel old, but I just love talking about this subject and I know how important email marketing is and how effective it can be.
Speaker A:So if you're not doing email marketing, I'm going to ask you the question why?
Speaker A:And definitely something that you should check out and it is a very powerful tool in getting your direct bookings.
Speaker A:Thank you for tuning in today.
Speaker A:I will be back next week with a brilliant host as my guest, a lady called Vicky Jones from Tractors and Cream Glamping.
Speaker A:And Vicki and I are talking about all things AI in your marketing.
Speaker A:It's a really fascinating trip into this topic.
Speaker A:So I hope that you'll come and join us for that one.
Speaker A:If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.
Speaker A:You know how much us hosts love those five star reviews.
Speaker A:I'll see you next week.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard.
Speaker A:If you want to see if you are ready to ditch the likes of Airbnb and grow your direct bookings, put your business to the test with my free direct booking Roadmap quiz.
Speaker A:Head to my website get-fullly booked.com quiz and let's get you more direct bookings and more profit in your pocket.
