Before You Hit Send: A Crash Course in Email Marketing for Tourism

Great email marketing is about reaching the right people with content that matters to them.

For travel and tourism destinations and attractions, that could mean inspiring someone to plan their next getaway, introducing them to a new experience or giving them a reason to come back for another visit. Whatever the message, the opportunity is to connect with travelers in a way that’s relevant to them.

So, what’s the best way to make sure YOUR messages do the same? It starts with taking an intentional approach to planning, creating, designing, sending and measuring your email communications.

Welcome to Hit Send! This blog series is going to be part how-to guide, part inspirational ideas to improve the effectiveness of your email communications. We’ll focus on email marketing for tourism destinations and attractions, and throughout the series, we want you to walk away with ideas you can actually implement – whether you’re starting an email marketing program from scratch, looking to refine what you’re already doing or simply looking for key takeaways to help keep your email marketing efforts moving forward.

Why Email Marketing for Tourism Matters

Email marketing shouldn’t be something you do just to check a box. It should serve a purpose and contribute to what you’re trying to achieve through your marketing efforts.

Here’s why it matters:

1. It supports your goals. For destinations and attractions, that often means encouraging visitation – whether year-round, during a particular season or for a specific event. Your emails should be part of a larger strategy that helps bring prospective travelers closer to your destination.
2. It’s a direct line of communication to your audience. Think about it: You’re sharing the messages, visuals and links you want your audience to engage with, right in their inboxes! That’s a valuable opportunity to deliver relevant and meaningful information.
3. It’s measurable. Are people opening your emails? What links are they clicking? Are they unsubscribing? These are all data points that can help you better understand your audience, what they’re interested in and how you might improve your communications moving forward. (And we’ll dig into this later in the series!)

Where Email Fits into Your Marketing Mix

If you’re familiar with how we approach strategy here at TAP, you’ve probably heard us talk about the PESO model: paid, earned, shared and owned media. Email falls under owned media – channels and assets that belong to you and that you have control over. And that control makes owned media incredibly valuable. You decide what you share, how you share it and who you’re trying to reach.

For tourism marketers, email can support every stage of the traveler journey – from building awareness and inspiring future travel to helping someone plan or book a trip and even connecting with them while they’re in-market. And when those communications work alongside your other paid, earned, shared and owned efforts? You have an even stronger opportunity to move travelers from inspiration to action:

• Paid: Use targeted digital advertising to grow your email list and reach people who may already have an interest in what you offer. When they sign up, they’ve essentially raised their hand to say, “Yes, I want to hear from you.”
• Shared: Use your social channels to encourage email sign-ups, or extend stories, announcements and other content from your emails onto social media.
• Earned: Share media coverage through your emails to extend the life of those placements and bring an outside voice into your communications to help tell your story.

For a deeper dive, or if PESO is a new concept to you, check out our blog post on the PESO model.

Every Piece of the Email Has a Job

In today’s world, we’re all inundated with messages from every device, every inbox and every screen. Seriously. Think about the emails, social media content, ads, texts and everything else competing for our attention.

That’s one reason why putting intentional effort behind your email messages is so important – and why every part of the email matters. From the sender and subject line to the imagery, text, personalization and hyperlinks within the message, all of these components contribute to whether someone notices your email, decides to open it, engages with it and ultimately takes action.

Think about how you engage with email messages in your own life:

• The sender: Who’s sending the message can influence whether you open it immediately, save it for later or overlook it entirely.
• The subject line: You have just a few words to communicate what you’re offering and give recipients a reason to open your email.
• Imagery: High-quality, engaging visuals can help capture attention, reinforce your message and keep readers interested.
• The copy within: Whether you’re using bite-sized snippets, bullet points or creative storytelling, make sure your words matter while staying true to your brand’s voice.
• Links and CTAs: Be strategic about where you’re directing recipients, encouraging them to take meaningful action and continue engaging with your other channels.

(And if this section whet your whistle, you’re in luck! The next post in our series will dig into the anatomy of an email, with tips for making each component work harder for your messaging.)

A Quick Takeaway Before You Hit Send

Before you hit send, ask: Who is this email for, what do we want them to do, and how does the message help them? For tourism marketers, those answers should connect the audience, the traveler journey and the goal behind each email.

We’ve only just scratched the surface of email marketing for tourism, and there’s plenty more to explore! As we move through the Hit Send series, we’ll share practical tips, insights and ideas you can put to work in your own email marketing efforts. This will include ways to connect with travelers, inspire visitation and keep your destination or product top of mind.

Be sure to bookmark these posts so you can come back to them as the series grows.

See you in the next one!