{"id":31646,"date":"2022-05-13T19:18:23","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T13:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/email.uplers.com\/blog\/?p=31646"},"modified":"2024-03-04T14:10:01","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T08:40:01","slug":"leverage-email-marketing-with-sfmc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/email.uplers.com\/blog\/leverage-email-marketing-with-sfmc\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Ways to Leverage Salesforce Marketing Cloud to Impress Customers in a New Age of Travel and Leisure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The travel and hospitality sectors experienced major disruptions following COVID-19. Now, after a two-year slump, the industry is finally starting to pick up steam. In the coming years, hotels, airlines, restaurants, tour operators, casinos, and other organizations have many opportunities to transform customer experiences and drive greater revenues via email marketing. And for this, a platform like Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) is worth its weight in gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the coming sections, we will unveil three powerful ways hospitality and travel companies can leverage SFMC to capture customer data, create customer journeys, offer personalized experiences, and ultimately, inspire more bookings and get more revenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tip #1: Create AUTOMATED EMAIL JOURNEYS to Stand Out in Customers\u2019 Inboxes<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Knowledge workers spend on average 3.1 hours<\/a> per day \u2013 that\u2019s 15.5 hours per week and a staggering 20 weeks in a year \u2013 checking emails. The average worker also sends and receives  124 emails every day<\/a>. Simply put, email remains a popular communication medium. If your leisure or travel brand can deliver the right email to the right person at just the right time, you can grab their attention, which can translate into more inquiries, more reservations, and even more referrals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Air
Image Source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This message combines an upfront discount and a sense of urgency to encourage the recipient to complete their booking.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, creating amazing, stand-out email messages starts with creating customer journeys. Every person is unique because they come from a different background, have different purchase histories, and expect different things from you. That\u2019s why you need to build personalized customer journeys to understand them and provide them with timely information that\u2019s relevant to them<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SFMC\u2019s powerful Journey Builder<\/strong> tool can help you create customer journey maps across different stages of the customer lifecycle. With Journey Builder, you will understand your customers better so you can engage with them across the entire journey with relevant, personalized email messages. You can create multiple email journeys in Journey Builder and even automate them to reduce the need for manual work and ensure that users get the right information based on some action that they<\/em> took. Automation boosts customer satisfaction and creates upsell\/cross-sell opportunities. Win-win! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make sure to build all these journeys in SFMC Journey Builder for your travel or hospitality business:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome journey<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make a great first impression and start building a strong relationship with a warm welcome email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booking confirmation journey<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep customers updated about their bookings with content that\u2019s useful and personalized rather than generic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pre-arrival journey<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engage with travelers early to get them excited about their trip and keep building trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abandoned cart journey<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Create abandoned cart journeys to engage with hesitant customers and encourage them to complete their payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feedback and referral journeys<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating feedback and referral journeys is a great way to show your guests that you value them and their opinions and recommendations. Use this information to improve their experiences in the future and also to improve your offerings for new guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tip #2: Perform LEAD SCORING with SFMC Process Builder and Marketing Cloud Connect<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A lead that\u2019s interested in the services of your car rental<\/a> company or travel agency may not always convert into a paying customer. However, by scoring each lead, you can<\/em> increase your conversion rates. Simply put, more leads can become more customers with lead scoring<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lead scoring is the process of scoring each captured lead by assigning a numerical value to them when they take some action in the sales funnel. When a lead crosses a certain number of points, you can mark them a \u201chot\u201d prospect, i.e., a prospect that\u2019s most likely to convert. Such a data-driven method will help inform your email marketing strategy<\/a> so you can reach out to them with messaging that resonates with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suppose a prospect browses your hotel\u2019s website but doesn\u2019t complete a booking, you assign them 5 points. If they fill out a form on your website, you give them another 5 points, and if they call your inbound contact center<\/a> to inquire about booking a room at your hotel in Cancun, you add another 10 points. Then, if they add the room to their cart \u2013 but you find that they have not yet paid for it and the reservation date is just 2 days away \u2013 you add 20 points to their total.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By now, the lead has scored 40 points and is now considered a hot prospect since they have crossed your threshold of 30 points. At this stage, you can email them with a personalized message encouraging them to complete their booking and make their payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One way to implement custom lead scoring in SFMC is via Journey Builder<\/strong>. When a subscriber opens one of your emails, you can initiate a journey in Journey Builder. Then use \u201cYour Journey\u201d to set a custom field to store a lead\u2019s score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Image Source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you redirect traffic from emails to customized landing pages with forms, you can test your call to action (CTA) text to optimize conversions. Plus, whenever a subscriber submits the form, a journey will be triggered and the subscriber\u2019s profile and lead score will get updated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another lead scoring method is with SFMC Process Builder<\/strong> and Email Studio<\/strong>. First, create three fields on your lead and contact object called Email Opened, Email Clicked, and Score. In Process Builder, set up the criteria and immediate actions for each field. Next, create data extensions in Email Studio, and queries to find the leads that have opened and clicked on your emails. Also, schedule your queries and automate them in Automation Studio<\/strong>. Create a journey that\u2019s triggered by this automation and finally, activate and test your setup.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Our<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tip #3: Leverage 360-DEGREE CUSTOMER VIEWS to Offer Personalized Engagement and Unique Experiences<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s travel and hospitality customers are not satisfied with generic products and services. They don\u2019t appreciate generic, spray-and-pray-type emails that are not specifically directed at them or at their unique needs and pain points. If anything, your customers demand personalized interactions, easy experiences, and tailored offers every time they interact with your brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Air
Image Source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This AirBnB email is perfectly designed for someone thinking of traveling to Lisbon but is still unsure.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With email marketing and SFMC, you can meet all these demands and deliver transformative experiences tailored to each individual traveler. These experiences will garner their loyalty and keep them coming back to your hotel, airline, or airport car rental agency. But to deliver these experiences, you need to understand customers better. Here\u2019s where you need data \u2013 and SFMC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SFMC gives you a 360-degree view of every customer. Tap into this goldmine of actionable information to know them and create personalized and relevant email campaigns that appeal to their hearts and minds, and encourage them to click on that \u201cBook Now\u201d button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what you can do with SFMC\u2019s 360-degree customer views and first-party data:<\/p>\n\n\n\n