Did you know that in a year, on average, 22.5% of your database will be out of date? In other words, unsubscribers, ceased mailboxes, spammed mails, and subscribers who have lost interest make up nearly a quarter of your email list.

This is one of the reasons why you should pay particular attention to constantly updating your email list. 

Another reason is the high return on email marketing. According to Hubspot’s survey, the return on investment (ROI) for emails is on average 38 times higher, which means that each Euro you invest is reimbursed 38 times.

The third, and perhaps most important, argument for hotels to collect subscribers effectively is to establish a direct guest relationship. You can provide a unique guest experience and attract returning guests by reaching your audience at any time with personalized messages, offers, or asking for their opinion about your service.  

Over the past few years, we have collected hundreds of thousands of subscribers for our hotel partners. Based on these experiences, we have selected the 5 popup solutions that have proven to be the most effective for collecting hotel sign-ups from small apartment hotels to hotel chains:

Boost your newsletter sign-up

Have you ever had a guest call in or ask colleagues at the reception to sign them up for your newsletter because they couldn’t find out where they could sign up on the website?

We tend to believe that just because we think that newsletter subscriptions are very visible on the website, guests can easily find it.

The real question, however, is whether guests are even looking for newsletter sign-ups on your website. Let’s be honest, most visitors don’t even think about it.

Therefore, you can already significantly increase your email list by highlighting this option to them in a visible way on your website by using a popup window.

The great advantage of smart popup is that wherever the visitor is on your page, whichever landing page they arrive on, you can reach them with your message everywhere.

In addition, you don’t have to offer the opportunity to all your visitors indiscriminately. You should only target the most committed people who have been browsing the portal for more than 2 minutes, who have already viewed 3-4 pages, or who are returning visitors.

It’s a good idea to offer them a subscription when they’re about to leave your page, so they won’t be distracted by the popup.

With this method, you can expect an average sign-up rate of 2-3%.

2. Free booklets and testimonials 

We can further increase their willingness to subscribe by offering them a free map, a program guide, a tour or a free visit to a local attraction in exchange for their email address.

These are all gifts that are powerful tools for list building. Valuable and relevant content is always welcomed by visitors, so they don’t mind giving their email address in return.

With this method, we have already achieved a subscription rate of around 5%.

For example, the Bükkös Hotel & Spa offers subscribers a free downloadable program booklet and a map of the 40 most popular attractions of Szentendre. With this, the small 16-room hotel has collected nearly 470 new newsletter subscribers in one year.

3. Prize draw and interactive games

Everyone likes to win – especially when the prize is valuable. This way you can win a lot of new subscribers.

With these playful popups, you can provide your visitors with a fun and interactive experience while easily accessing their email address.

With these games you can achieve quite serious results. A 15% subscription rate is common with this method.

The success of interactive sweepstakes is demonstrated by nothing better than the Royal Club Hotel Visegrad. At the time of Covid, the closed hotel had collected more than 1,000 new subscribers in just a few weeks with our wheel of fortune popup.

Read the full case study of the Royal Club Hotel Visegrad here>

4. Discount in exit intent

This method solves two things at once. On the one hand, it helps to reduce the number of people leaving without a reservation. On the other hand, by providing an instant discount or a coupon code, you can collect email addresses even more efficiently.

Although discounts are primarily aimed at price-sensitive guests, everyone is happy to book cheaper, so there will be a greater willingness to provide an email address.

Aquaworld Resort has collected 8,500 new subscribers in less than a year with this HotelHood solution. 

The 10% sign-up rate they have achieved is the average for this campaign.  
 

5. Secret rate promotion

The secret rate promotion, like the previous solution, offers a discount in exchange for providing an email address, but the difference lies in the perfect timing.

The Secret Rate popup is encountered by the visitor when they click the Rates or Book Now button, i.e. when they are most likely at the stage of comparing your prices with the prices available on other intermediary sites.

If you then offer them a “mysterious” discount, they will not only be willing to give their email address in return, but you have greatly improved the chances of them booking directly with you. So, you also saved yourself a commission besides acquiring their email address.

That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

Especially if you include the fact that the Secret Rate popup typically has a sign-up rate of between 20 and 30%.

Needless to say, this is the way to build not only the largest email list, but also the most valuable one, because here you will reach subscribers who already expressed their intention to book.

Thanks to this HotelHood solution, Danubius Hotels, one of the largest Hungarian hotel chains, has achieved great results. Not only has the chain increased its commission-free bookings by 42%, but has also collected nearly 20,000 valuable subscribers so far.

Read the full case study of the Danubius Hotels here>

The beauty of the latter two solutions, in addition to their efficiency, is that they are 100% rate parity proof. In other words, you can offer your guests a discount without going against any OTA parity, since it is a closed-circuit offer subject to the provision of an email address.

Have you tested these solutions yet?

If you haven’t already, this is your chance to try these proven HotelHood solutions as part of our 30-day free trial to get not only a bigger but a better database.

Write to us or request for free consultation here:

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