If you saw my Instagram story last week, I posted about an email I sent to my email list of past guests of Tokyo Family Stays which resulted in over $6,500 in direct bookings in under 24 hours – all with a single email and email marketing. Since then there has been another $5,000 in bookings too. BOOM. Sure this was a pretty good email – if I say so myself.
The key thing to note is, I wrote this email to guests who have stayed with me in the past. These are folks who are keen to stay again and just needed a reminder to whip out the credit card. In marketing speak, this is a WARM audience. It was my email that put me at the top of their mind and gave them the motivation to make a booking right now. This is for a booking they would possibly be making at some future time, but I was able to get their commitment and the booking locked in.
Guests that have stayed with you before are a goldmine. They already know what to expect, they chose you once and so they have a relationship with you even if you never met them in person. For you, it means the guest has already been pre-approved by you. You know they are not going to trash your place or throw a big party. Focusing your marketing on trying to get bookings from new people over and over again is hard. Plus it is like TINDER – you really don’t know who you are hosting until they show up on your doorbell camera.
The case for collecting email addresses from guests
So many hosts I speak with are not collecting email addresses or using email marketing. They think it is all too hard, too technical and too much hassle. But let me break it down for you and give you some simple tools. I’ll share the workflow that works for me and the lessons I have learned along the way.
If you are not collecting email addresses of all your guests right now, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to have guests rebook with you which is easy to do with email marketing. PLUS if you are ever locked out of your Airbnb account (and this does happen), you have LOST all your past communications with guests.
If you are solely on Airbnb, I understand that it is hard to collect email addresses – Airbnb don’t want you to do this. Why? They know how valuable client email addresses are. They know the power of direct emails with customers who already know the brand and have used their services before.
But as the host, it is YOU who are delivering the service to the guest and doing all the work and investment. So you deserve to get paid what you are worth. I am here to help you build a business where YOU are in control and where Airbnb and the other OTAs are one of the ways you get paid- i previously wrote more on this here.
How to collect email address…
So firstly, how do I collect email addresses? Easy – I ask. Here is my standard wording:
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Hi {guest first name}
I am thrilled that you have chosen to stay with us on {date}.
So you can be fully prepared for your stay, I have a PDF welcome pack that I need to share with you by email. Please reply with your email address and I will forward it to you immediately.
As a fully licenced, professional host, we are required to securely keep guest information and ID’s due to the regulations in our city.
We are looking forward to hosting you.
Cheers
{your name}
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Yes this is as simple as that.
But as I said before, Airbnb don’t like you collecting email addresses directly like this. So it is a good idea to use an alternative way of collecting email addresses – here are some ideas you could use:
Send a form via an email link (Airtable or Google are great!) where they need to fill this out. As an example, here is the form that I use for collecting guest data prior to check in.
Or once the guests have checked in, you can collect using a system like StayFi that collects all email addresses when guests log into the WiFi.
There are plenty of other ways of collecting email addresses too so that you can use email marketing even with Airbnb guests. The main thing is to have a system built into your workflow that automatically and quickly collects email addresses.
Now you have the email addresses – what do you do with them?
Firstly, you send them the welcome email as you promised. Make sure you take care of their immediate needs first. If you can automate this then all the better for your time and customer service.
Secondly, these email addresses need to be put into a good professional mailing system. There are a few around and they all have their pros and cons.
I use the free version of MailChimp which is totally fine to start out with. There are different ways to get the email addresses into the system. For the longest time, I manually copied in email addresses of guests from my signin form. But now I use a zap system to literally zap them from the google form into MailChimp. When I do this, I add a tag, “pastguest”.
*disclaimer – In some countries, you will need to double check with a guest that they have agreed to receive emails from you. This does depend on which country you live in. For example, EU zone has the GDPR regulations that you need to follow. For more information on this, check with your email provider. They will have templates and wording to use.
In MailChimp I can choose to send an email to just my “pastguest” segment. This way, I can really create an email where I am speaking to guests I KNOW have stayed before. Remind them of their awesome stay and my special amenities which is the key to getting guests to rebook.
How often to send rebooking emails?
This is totally up to you, how much time you have and the seasonality of your business.
Obviously the best time to get a rebooking is right after the guest has had a great stay with you. Part of your email sequence of an active booking should include a final email that encourages them to rebook for next month, or for a different season for a change, or for next year to make the guest a regular. This will depend on what type of business you have.
Let’s say, you have a ski lodge and your peak season is winter. An email right after a ski guest has stayed to encourage them to book in the summer to experience the different season and the (hiking, birdwatching or golfing etc) is a great way to capture them again.
For me, I am in Tokyo and so I am lucky to see the same guests come back each year but it is unlikely that they are coming back within the same year. So when I write my emails I keep in mind that people plan their trips to Japan a long way out. It is never a last minute decision. But for your guests, an email from you could spur a spontaneous staycation. Your email content would be geared towards this sort of decision. Knowing your ideal guest and their buying triggers is again key.
If it has been a while…
Sending an email to past guests a few weeks or months after they have stayed is totally fine too. For me, I tend to only send seasonal emails. But for you, the right frequency could be monthly.
What to say...
Consider why people stay with you. What brings them to the area? What problems do you solve?
If you know of a seasonal event or activity that is important to guests, talk about how you are preparing for this and how your area is gearing up for the event. Remember that you are the local eyes and ears of your area. You are the local expert. Talk about things from YOUR point of view.
If you have recently added an amenity like a hot tub, or you have renovated the bathroom or if you have purchased new sheets, talk about this in your email. Always consider how this will benefit your guests and this will have the gagging to return.
Don’t forget to include a really cool photo or two as well.
So back to my story – what did I say in my email to past guests that made me $6,500 in new bookings in under 24 hours? I updated past guests about how we are doing here in Tokyo and the status of the borders opening.
Trust me, this works. Talking to your past guests as people and showing them that you remember them is an easy way to get new bookings from past guests.
If you have been wanting to create an email marketing program with guests but think it is all too hard, I am here to help. I can show you how you CAN collect emails in under a minute of your workflow and how you can batch (or even outsource) your email creation. Book a call and I can help you out.
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