Creating a World-Beating Guest Newsletter

A customer newsletter is the perfect way to stay in touch with your guests. Whether monthly, quarterly, or whenever you are able - a good newsletter helps establish your brand and connect with your guests. They give you a chance to promote your business in a subtle and informative way. It’s a gentle reminder to your guests that your business is here and you can show off some of the values that make your business and your properties unique. A well-timed, well-crafted newsletter email marketing campaign can really help to secure additional bookings and breathe new life into lapsed leads.

But how do you create a newsletter that your guests want to click? We’re going to explain the ways you can design and fill a world-beating guest newsletter.

The first step in designing your newsletter is to make it clear, clean and open. You don’t need to cram every bit of information into your email, great newsletters are divided into stories or sections with an engaging title. You invite your readers to click and find out more on your website rather than expecting them to read all the information from your email.

The best newsletter designs act as a window, guests see the information they want to read about and follow it through to your site. Let them through, rather than blocking them with too much information to process.

When it comes to the design, blocks of color help to break up the content and keep the design interesting. You can separate each section into an easy to understand block. A good newsletter doesn’t bombard readers with a wall of dense information. Create sections, give them titles and separate them. Your readers can then scan your newsletter and then head straight to the most appealing part for them.

You can see in the example below how they use color to divide their three subjects, give each one a clear title and a small image to draw the viewer in.

As well as colour, images will help to attract readers and break up your page. Your guests should see the majority of the information without having to scroll down. As soon as they open the email, they should see images and links that just invite them to click. Below is a perfect example of how to use an image and how to separate your newsletter into manageable sections.

The links and title are clear, there are clear points to click and the image is one you can’t help but notice. The principles of an effective newsletter are clarity, colour and composition. It can be basic but if you get these key points right you will be well on your way to having a customer newsletter that is going to work.

Once you have decided on a design and a theme, you then need to fill your newsletter. One of the first tips for creating content to fill your newsletter is to write a personal introduction. Your writing and your newsletter are going to connect with more people if you can add a personal story. If your business is growing and you no longer have that face to face interaction with your customers it’s an easy way to reclaim some of the personality behind your brand. Let your guests know what interests you about the content you’re sending them, why you chose to feature this property. If you can show your passion for what you’re sending, your guests are going to be far me receptive to it and in turn, more likely to click, read and eventually book.

A great tip to generate more interesting content is Invite other people to contribute. Do you run a tour or work with any local business to give your guests experiences? If so, why not speak to these people and get them to explain a little bit about what they do. You give your guests interesting content, promote your partner businesses and get people excited about returning to your area and properties. It’s a simple way to add value to your business in a way that your guests will enjoy.

Testimonials or reviews from guests are also great for a vacation rental newsletter and will add some human interest. Guests treat reviews and stories from other guests very seriously when choosing a property. An interesting and well-written review will be interesting and gives your business some gentle promotion. You want to avoid being too flashy or over promotional - a newsletter is to share things you think your guests will want to hear about rather than just links to booking your properties. Your first goal should be to inform and entertain rather than to sell. Seeing more bookings is just a natural by-product of a first class newsletter.

Once you have your content, special offers will secure subscribers to your newsletter. Something small like a discount on their next booking will help to get people to sign up and will be an incentive to book with your business. For your guests, it gives value to your newsletter that makes them want to subscribe, for you, it is another chance to guide people through to your site and to see the properties that they can’t help but book.