Marketing your hotel service

1. Email Marketing

Direct email marketing works. Most courses on direct email marketing try to take you from zero to hero too fast. Most dive into the technology too fast. The engine that sends out the emails can be very complex. Most of us are starting from scratch. The easiest way to start is manually. (There is no technology to hurdle over.)

The first step: Assemble a list of email addresses.

You need no technology for this. Your best possible list of people interested in what you sell comprises people who have already bought from you. It’s easy to extract those from your accounting system, your invoicing system, and/or your email account. (Manually – copy and paste.)

When you do it this way you remind yourself of who booked with you, what they booked, and why they booked. That in itself is often inspiring.

The next best list of interested people are prospects who once wanted to buy from you, but never sealed the deal. Get those details from your email client. Drop those emails and names into a spreadsheet with two columns – email address, first name. (The email address is crucial. The first name is nice to have.) This could be the most useful hour you invest in your business this year.

Your business exists to create sales. Everything else that you do, depends on the income those sales bring in. And if everything else is more important than selling, it’s almost impossible to progress. Thats why starting this list is is the most important step you will make for you hotel.

Export your list from your spreadsheet into a CSV file.

CSV is short for Comma Separated Variables. This is a widely used way to transfer data between different apps. A CSV file translates all the rows and columns into a text file which keeps the rows, but uses commas to keep track of the columns. Every marketing tool I have ever used accepts a CSV as a valid import file. Most also send that list back to you as a CSV file when you want to backup your list. (This list will become the most valuable asset your business owns.)

2. Building your email marketing engine

There are two ways to deliver marketing emails. Manually and automated. Keep in mind the most important thing we are trying to achieve. We want to send emails to consumers who are looking for an specific experience. Hotels aim to provide their guests with a comfortable and enjoyable stay but above all the holiday memories of that stay is what is being sold. Additionally there might be specific guest requirements like vegan food, pet friendly etc.

The Manual Solution to Direct Email Marketing (FREE)

Until recently, my go-to startup approach for newbies was to send emails manually. Using simple copy & paste it is easy to send personalised emails to low numbers of people.

The process looks like this:

1. Draft the email.
2. Send the emails by hand. For each email on your list:

• Start a new email in your daily email system (GMAIL, OUTLOOK, etc) and paste the email address into the TO field.
• Paste the email content into the BODY field.
• Add the salutation/name to personalise it, if desired.
• Send it.

Repeat up to 30 times each weekday until you’ve gone through your complete list. Expect to invest about 20 minutes each day.

It looks archaic, doesn’t it? But it works for up to 600 email addresses per month.

The Automated Solution to Direct Email Marketing (FREE)

Automated emailing started almost as soon as the Internet did. In concept, you store your list of email addresses in an app online. (I prefer to call it a platform.) You draft an email, drop it into the app, and click one button to send that email to all the addresses on your list. 

Until recently, these apps cost serious dollars each month. They needed techie skills. Even worse, choosing the “right” app when confronted with hundreds of options was difficult. That decision stopped most of us from starting email marketing.

I’ve been in this direct marketing field for 23 years, and I struggled to choose an appropriate platform. Over the years I have used, and dropped, AWeber, MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, ClickFunnels, Kartra, and a few others. I’ve moved everything into a new, free platform called Systeme.io.

For this course, click here to sign up for a free membership. systeme.io (It’s not a free trial.) It’s a free service. You can add up to 2000 email addresses. That’s plenty for most of us to get started. 

Drafting & Delivering your First Email Broadcast (Video)

A picture is worth 1000 words. A 20 minute video is worth 12000 pictures.

I tried to write this email a few times. Each draft was longer than the first.

Instead, I opted to create a 20 minute video that:

1. Shows you how to write a perfect subject line for an email in about 15 seconds,
2. Shows you how to draft a perfect email in a couple of minutes,
3. Shows you how to deliver that perfect email to 20 email prospects each day by hand,
4. Shows you how to deliver that perfect email to 2000 email prospects in 20 minutes, for free.

Don’t Listen to Lone Voices

Within last few days we have gone from zero to contacting prospects!

• you have extracted a list of emails of customers and previous prospects from your past efforts,
• drafted a better-than-average email to reconnect,
• have sent that email automatically to your list via Systeme.io or manually or via a system you already use.

Well done. 

Did the sky fall on your head?

I ask this because our fears of fallout are always infinitely stronger than the reality which results from the effort. Did you get any negative feedback. This does sometimes happen.

I learned my job is to reach out and offer help in person, by phone, via seminars, or via email. Some people will buy what I offer. Most will ignore the offer. Someone will point out a spelling mistake or grammatical error. Once every ten years someone will complain to me about whatever I am doing. 

It’s not worth changing any process until enough people mention it.

You’ve started direct email marketing. From now on, you will either be earning or learning. Both are fine outcomes. (Although “earning” always feels better.)

How much time should you invest in marketing and specifically email marketing

How much of your time was invested in anything directly related to marketing or selling?

Calculate the following for last week:

+ hours  Marketing Actions
+ hours  Selling Actions
= hours  Income Generating Actions
÷ hours  Total Hours Worked in Week
= Fraction of Time Generating Actual Income

For instance:

+ 5 Hours Marketing
+ 2 Hours Selling
= 7 Hours Generating Income
÷ 50 Hours for the Week
= 0.14 (14%) Time devoted to the key tasks which earn your money.

Sobering, isn’t it?

Since 100% of your income comes from marketing and selling, the result might tell you which part of your business needs more time if your income is to grow.

Every time you reach out to people who face the problems you solve, you dip your hand into a river of money. Anything else is like playing alone on the riverbank.

Why Email Automation is Important

Now you know how to do mass emails periodically (weekly, fortnightly, etc).  It is a short step to add sequences of emails to check in with new customers, new enquiries, and date related recurring sales.

Broadcasting en email to 1000 people at a time is simple in concept. Write an email and send it to your entire list. It feels worthwhile because you reach a lot of people at the same time.

What about writing and automating one email to one person at a time? That sounds like a lot more work for a lot less result. 

But, it does not matter what you sell, your main competitor is not always in the same town. Maybe not even in the same country. Every competitor is just an email away from your prospect for a new sale (whether that prospect is already your client our not).

If I was a florist, I would start building a local list fast. And then make sure each person got an email reminder at the right time to buy flowers for a birthday or anniversary.   Write once, send at the right time forever.

Email Automation

Most of us are so used to doing everything manually that we cannot truly conceive how it might happen otherwise.

This email marketing sequence is a simple example. After investing some hours into producing this course, I will have a permanent email sequence of 20 emails. Each email discusses some facet of email marketing, from zero to hero.

About List Building

You know about 80% of what you need to know to get much richer via direct email marketing. The last bit is about growing your list. The more people on your list, the more income you should get. (I assume you’ll continue to write to your list with as much effort as when you started, or more.)

Growing your list is easier than it sounds.

Let’s consider emailing some strangers. At the start, they are strangers only because you don’t yet know them.

Spam rules in South Africa are simple. You can send ONE unsolicited email to a person to ask them to subscribe to your list. If they don’t respond, or if they respond with a NO, you may not ask them again. (At least not by email.)

Your email recipient is busy beyond distraction. This embattled person does not have the time, nor the inclination, to read your email with the focus it deserves.

It makes sense to make this “sales email” entrancing and beautiful, like catnip for a stray cat. That first email should be like a teaspoon of ice cream, a small tester, with an invitation to get a bucket free, now, to enjoy whenever they have the time.

This is the concept behind a lead magnet. (The reader is the “lead” or prospect.) The lead magnet is like a taster – a snippet where you promise a lot more goodness if they just give you their email address.

So you give them some deep insight in your email, then you invite them to get the rest by visiting your web page. That’s a tiny step.

Once on your page, you enhance the promise and offer them the goodies in a download for their convenience, rather than on one hefty page. To get that download, they simply need to give you their email address.

That download could be anything:

• PDF
• Recipe
• Access to a free course (like this one) 
• Free consultation
• Exclusive Webinar

That lead magnet sets you up as the go-to person for a specific problem your prospect faces. (If you know the most common problem your ideal client faces, then this should be easy to do.)

Once you have their email, you can do many things to buikld a relationship.

• deliver the lead magnet on time
• follow up a few days later
• expand on the problem a few days later
• ask them for feedback about some facet of the problem…

Actually, let me do that right now. In theory, you own your own “small” business. (These are people to whom I can add the most value, and with whom I have worked since 1992.)  That means you face a few problems that we all face:

• cash-flow that flows like cold syrup
• erratic and unpredictable sales
• too much work for too little income
• intense existential stress (Will my business still be here in three months!?)

Tell me which of these you face. And anything else not on the list. Hell, write the entire story if it helps you clear your mind. I will read it. And reply.

In return I will tell you the main reason 80% of startups fail in their first ten years. (Yes, it is about cashflow, but it has nothing to do with you.) 

Today, think about the problem your prospects were trying to solve when they bought your stuff. Then explore that problem so you can write about it for other people like them.

Never ever give up

Your head will play games with you en route to success. Your moods and emotions on any day determine your email marketing success. You will get success if you ignore those feelings and emotions and just keep writing.

What happens when your email appears on someone’s screen is not within your control. You can aim for a day of the week and time of the day based on your statistics, but there are no guarantees. You can split-test subject lines, content, images, colours, and these may increase the results you want. But email marketing is more like fishing than science.

The more often you throw a baited hook into the sea, the more often you will catch dinner. That’s not motivation to continue if this is your leisure activity. When your next meal depends on catching a fish, you look around for a better spot. Or mess with the bait. Or change your time of day. YOU DON’T BLAME THE FISH.

If you’re hungry enough, you don’t blame yourself either.

You live with a single rule: The more you focus on being in a better place at a better time with better bait, the more chance you have of a fine dinner.

En route to regular, predictable dinners, you will have days like I had today.

Don’t feel guilty. Don’t give up.

It’s easy to feel that your efforts are not working. And then to give it a break for a while. (Hint: That’s the first step to stopping forever.)

Most people on your list will never buy. Most will never respond. That’s not because you’re doing something wrong. It’s because they did not have the problem you’re trying to solve. Or they have a bunch of more pressing challenges to solve.

They are not the folk you should focus on. Your task is to focus on those that respond.

75% of the people on every one of my lists purchased nothing. Some folk purchased a little. Some folk purchased a lot. And the top 1% of every list purchased 33% of all my sales.

Your job is to find as many of those as you can. This cannot happen if you get disheartened each time nothing happens.

I write this because this lack of response is a pervasive and enduring challenge.

Why do people give up on important projects?

People give up on important projects for various reasons. 

The two core reasons based on the gap between aspirations and daily reality:

1. Something else is more urgent right now. This is a killer reason. You store this email marketing task somewhere safe so you can work with them when this urgent task is done. But you never go back to those stored emails. This implies a second, more likely, reason.
2. You don’t believe it will deliver what you want, so you are not prepared to do the work needed to test it.

What’s stopping you from investing 15 minutes right now in building your future income-waterfall?

Lead magnets and automation

Instead of needing to take some action each time someone contacts you, automate it.This way you have the feelings only once, while you’re setting up the automation. After that, you kick the feelings into touch and look at the numbers to make future decisions.

1. No longer will you worry about IF it will work. 
2. You will see WHAT PARTS work. 
3. And then you will TEST each part to improve it. No more emotions. Just facts based on what your readers do.

how a lead magnet works.

Before I give you the link to a great lead magnet effort, some explanation of the components. 

1. You will go to a fine landing page offering a free book. (That’s the lead magnet. You only get the book if you give them your email address.) The landing page continues for about 40 A4 sheets and ends with another request for your email address.) 
2. Give them your email address.
3. Wait a few minutes.
4. The book will arrive in PDF format. (It’s a splendid book, motivating and educational.)
5. Wait for (and learn from) the sequence of emails they will send to invite you to use the free version of Systeme.io.

That’s how a typical lead magnet works. They’ve tested and measured it to get the best results they can get. It runs automatically.

This is how your future clients will come into your sphere of influence for the first time.

If you’re going to invest time and money, then do it this way

Whenever we do something new, we face two costs:

1. The cash cost of the effort. Investing in a marketing platform typically needs a few months of effort to get up to speed. During that time, you’re paying for a service you don’t yet need.
2. The hourly cost. This is the time you invest in learning the platform.learning how to import email addresses, learning how to create emails, learning how to send them, learning how to assess them. 

If you have other platforms (like I have) it gets much more complex and expensive.

The time and money involved is a great excuse not to do this. (Most of think we’re tech-challenged.) It’s why I started this course talking about sending emails manually. 

But now we have a platform that offers:

• A single tool for email marketing, course production, and affiliate marketing of your products and services.
• Zero cost until your sales reach a level where the small cost is a pittance.
• One simple interface. (For instance, the same simple editor builds email pages. course lectures, web pages, sale funnels, …)
• A superb, free  training process – from zero to certification.

I am so inspired that I am consolidating the last decade of my work here – including 400 lectures for all my courses.

Nobody knows you business as well as you know it

Marketing cannot work if you don’t do it. You are a creative person if you own your own business. You’re creating something new every day. Especially in this marketing arena.

If that new thing earns money, wonderful. If it does not, even more wonderful. (In the words of Thomas Edison, “That’s one more way that won’t work. That’s progress.”

What defines us creative, self-employed people as professionals?

• We show up every day.
• We show up no matter what.
• We stay on the job all day.
• We’re committed over the long haul.
• The stakes for us are high and real.
• We accept remuneration for our labour.
• We master the technique of our jobs. (Including marketing.)
• We have a sense of humour about our jobs.
• We receive praise or blame in the real world.

It’s scary to launch a new email. We assume every person has the time to analyse what we’ve done.

Honestly?

How often do you take the time to read anything to the end? People reading your emails don’t have time to judge your efforts. (Just as you don’t have the time to judge theirs.)

Do your best in the time available with the tools available. Then send your efforts to people who face the problems you solve.

This effort does not need to be perfect. It just needs to be shared. Every week, or every fortnight, or even every month. (I prefer every week.)

The biggest challenge we face is not the technology.

You get marketing emails, so you have some examples of how & what to write about.

You have a keyboard and screen, so you can write marketing emails.

You have a free tool like Systeme.io, so you can send marketing emails.

That’s not the tough part.

The tough part is “just doing it”.

The biggest problem that holds our marketing hostage

No one likes to be found at fault. In fact, this is what many of us walk around fearing–that we’ll be exposed as imposters, we’ll be put on the spot in front of people, we’ll have to admit error. This makes us defensive, it makes us play it safe, and in some cases, it even makes us dishonest.

It’s a cure, you could say, that’s worse than the disease.

Gandhi, once being interviewed by a reporter, dispensed with all that. “I am very imperfect,” he said. “Before you are gone you will have discovered a hundred of my faults and if you don’t, I will help you to see them.” Why would he do such a thing? Perhaps it was because he knew that as a leader, egotism and an outsized sense of one’s abilities was dangerous and destructive. Perhaps he was inoculating himself against the fear in advance–taking away the power of the reporter to control Gandhi’s fate by disclosing up front what might otherwise be investigated (or even misconstrued).

There is a line from Epictetus who, after being criticized, joked “Yes, and he doesn’t know the half of it, because he could have said more.” It’s not that Epictetus had a bunch of bodies buried somewhere, it was that he had also inoculated himself against criticism by being more aware of his flaws–and more concerned about addressing them–than even his enemies.

Why should we be afraid of criticism? As Marcus Aurelius writes, if that criticism is correct and we are in error then the person criticizing us has done us a favor by correcting it. If they are wrong, what do we care? More likely, if we are doing our job right, we should already be well aware of the issue that people are raising and already be fixing it. We should have no sense of ourselves as perfect or above critique. Nor should we be so fragile and vulnerable as to not be able to bear being disliked or disagreed with.

The technology is not holding us back. Our fears are. Isn’t it time to let those fears go?