5 Tips to Grow Your Email List Quickly

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Hi and welcome back to the Get Fully Booked podcast, the show that helps you master your marketing so you can get more direct bookings and stop giving away those chunky commissions to the OTAs. If you are new to the show, don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss a new episode. It's great to have you here today.

I'm your host, Sarah Orchard, and today we're diving into one of my favourite and most powerful marketing tactics that you can deploy in your business, which is email marketing.

Specifically, I'm going to look at how you grow your email list more quickly, because let's face it, an email list is one of those most valuable marketing assets that you'll ever own. You're not reliant on the pesky algorithms, having to second guess what's going to work. No social media hamster wheel burnout, we've all been there, and just a direct line straight to your ideal guests. Now, if you don't believe me about the value of email marketing for your business, it's not just me saying this.

There's been hosts of gurus and experts that have done lots of studies and the data doesn't lie. So according to HubSpot, email marketing delivers an average return on investment of £36 for every pound you spend.

Now, when we compare that to social media, I think it was about $2.80 for every $36 to $42 that you spend. So that's right, £36 for every pound. Yet I find that most glamping and short term rental businesses barely use email marketing. And why is that?

Because growing that list feels slow, awkward, or possibly just a bit too techy and you don't think you're going to be able to master it. You're just too busy to get around to sending regular email campaigns and it's easier to get sucked into the social media merry-go -round.

But today I'm going to make it super simple and I'm going to share with you five practical, tried and tested ways to grow your list fast without any sleazy tactics that make you feel like you're doing something that's going to annoy people and you don't need expensive software. So first of all, I think we have to focus on why would someone want to give you their email address in the first place.

And this is probably the biggest stumbling block that I see with people is that they don't tell people what's in it for them. Instead, it says, sign up to our newsletter. Now, I don't know about you. I get a lot of emails.

I don't mind getting those emails because I've subscribed to them. They are not spam. I have actively asked for people to send me those emails, so I can't complain about that.

As long as they give me the option to unsubscribe at any time, I'm a happy camper. But calling it a newsletter is something that's going to make me not want to sign up to something. So I want you to banish the words newsletter.

It isn't about your news, it isn't about you sharing stories of what you've been up to. You have got to tell the audience what's in it for them. Why would I give you my email address?

We all know how valuable email addresses are and we know what's going to happen when we do put our email address into that box. So it's super important for us to give people a compelling reason.

But I think if you offer an incentive to join, that definitely helps. So think about maybe, I've got a few tips for you here. Think about a value add.

So something that you normally like, an extra that you would normally charge for, like a hot tub preheat, a barbecue kit, a breakfast hamper, taking a dog. They could all be offered as a freebie on their first day.

Now, with any of these offers, I'll caveat with the fact that you need to put some terms and conditions in place.

And one of the best things, or one of the most critical things that you need to put is that this does not apply to existing bookings in the terms and conditions because you don't want to launch this sort of offer and then have everyone who's booked a year out asking for the offer. It's on new bookings and you've got to be quite firm with that. We have a romance package that we sell for £75.

It's upgraded, fizz, some chocolates, some rose petals, twinkly LED candles and a greetings card, branded greetings card. And we charge £75 for that. Now I'm offering that as a sign up incentive at the moment. It's been working super well for us.

So it's actually a very small cost to me to get a booking that ranges from about £900 to £1,600.

So if you do the maths, it's actually a really good investment to get those people onto my list and I know what their potential lifetime value is, might be for our business. You could give money off a first stay. And this is where we got to think a bit like retailers. That's what they do.

You know, if you go to any of the high street retailers that have an online presence or any sort of online retailer, they often will say, sign up and get 10% off or £50 off, depending on how much you spend on your first purchase. And that works really well because everyone knows what £25, £40, £50, convert that in dollars if you're in another country.

Or euros, you know, people know what that buys, they know what they can spend that money on. It might cover their fuel to get to your location or their electric if they're driving an E vehicle, it will pay for a pub lunch or some activities with the kids. So it can be a really powerful saving.

And actually what I found from talking to my members and my clients is often the actual incentive that you give with the money off. They actually end up spending that on extras because they're like, well, we've saved that, so now we're going to spend a bit more money on our stay.

So I definitely think that you shouldn't see that as a potential, like giving away money. Third idea is that you could gift a gift card or give a gift card.

So if you sign up, you get a gift card worth X amount and they can either use that themselves or they could gift it to someone else to use on a stay. Obviously they've got to stay and it's on their first day.

You could do a monthly draw to win a gift voucher of a certain amount, or you could do an annual free prize draw to win a stay. So you could put a much juicier prize on offer. They can be quite effective.

But I generally find that the most effective incentives are the ones where someone gets an immediate reward because obviously entering into a free price draw to win a stay is lovely, but you've got everyone works out, a bit like with the lottery, that you actually only have certain odds of winning. Whereas when you get a value add or money off or a gift card, you're getting something immediately that you can actually use.

Now, I often hear suggested that you should create a free guide. It's often called a lead magnet. And I'm actually going to say I don't think these work very well.

I know these don't work very well because I've seen my members implement them based on other people's advice, which I think was incorrect. And they actually, and generally, I know for a fact they just don't work.

And the reason they don't work is because of the stage that the customer is at in their journey for their trip. So if you think about it, when they found their accommodation.

So if you think about what people go through in terms of planning a trip, they'll think about, we're going to a particular area of a country, it's either a country or a particular area of a country or a particular specific location because they want to either visit a certain attraction. I mean, obviously people come to our treehouse, it's a bit of a destination in its own right.

So they sort of decide that they're coming here and they're not actually at that stage planning the in depth trip. So they're not planning all of the extra things they're going to do once they actually get to that location.

So offering them a lead magnet, a guide that's going to tell them all this information, it's a bit like, I don't want that information at this stage. So actually I think it's the wrong point to give them that information.

And what actually happens is that you potentially are going to get a much lower conversion rate. Yes, it'll appeal to some people, but I think giving them something that's directly linked to their stay is far more effective.

Okay, so my second point that I want to talk to you about today is about making it super easy to join. Now, I know that sounds obvious, but actually it's amazing the number of websites I go to that don't actually even have an email signup form.

So you have all these people coming to your website, you know you're busy on social media, you might have done your search engine optimisation, you've got all this traffic and yet when they reach your website, you let them look around, if they don't book, they disappear and you never get in contact with them again, you have no idea who they are. So actually just not having that sign up form on your website is a major hurdle. So if you haven't got one on your website now, go and do it today.

Once you've got your sign up form on your website, the next step is to put it everywhere because you know, people can't sign up if you don't make it easy for them and if they can't find it, they won't join.

So a few key spots to add your sign up box too so that they can get onto your list not for your newsletter but for your campaigns that you're going to send them. So your website homepage, ideally, you know, above the fold, have it in a, something that stands out on the page.

I love putting it like an image or something behind it, you know, make it disruptive in terms of, or as a banner, you know, where someone's actually going to sign up. Don't hide it at the bottom. It's amazing how many of them are like tiny little boxes in the footer.

It's like, I'm embarrassed to have you here so I've put you at the bottom so no one will feel offended that I've got an email signup form on my website. It's like put it out there big and bold. Put it on your booking confirmation page.

So even when someone has made a booking, there probably will be a sort of an opt in, but why not when they've booked, send them back to a page where it's like follow us on social media so you can get excited about your stay.

And if you want to sort of get access to, you know, priority access in the future for new availability or next availability or you want to get some partner offers and promotions, sign up here. Do use your social profiles to promote it particularly.

Or if you're on Instagram, your Instagram bio and think about using something like linktr.ee or a similar linking system where you can have multiple links that visually present it. We have a, a link to our website but we do promote the, the free romance package as a little sign up button on our link tree.

That's working really well.

If you've got a digital guest guide, something like Touch Stay or similar, even the old fashioned, you know, welcome pack or a guest information folder, you know, have a section that says enjoyed your stay, get 10% off your next visit when you join our VIP list. And even when people are in your accommodation, you know, at the end of the day, that's when they're having an amazing time.

So that would be a really good opportunity to put maybe something like a QR code, you know, make it easy, have a QR code, maybe incentivise it with a monthly or an annual prize draw to win a stay and get them to sign up while they're in the actual property. So you can make this look attractive. You can put it in a nice little frame. You could even make it fun and a bit cryptic like scan this.

It's a bit like you could do like a bit Alice in Wonderland. It's like scan this to find out X, Y and Z. You know, you could, you can be creative and make it sure it fits with your brand.

Consider using something like a popup on your website to aid conversion and accelerate your growth. We're finding that we implemented the pop up with the incentive and that's working really well to really grow our list.

It's trebled in the time that we've had that in place.

And if you've got a larger group accommodation where you've got maybe the email address for the lead guest but you haven't got everyone else that's in the party, maybe think about something like gated WI-FI, which can be love it or hate it, it can be quite effective. So think about using that.

That's when you use a system like StayFi where you basically they have to like give their email address to log on and people feel a bit icky about that. But if you think about it, I've been in so many places recently, like I went to a concert and that had gated WIFI services do it on the motorways.

It's like hotels do it. There's so many that if you go in and you want to use their WIFI, they're paying for it at the end of the day they expect you to hand over your email address and they're going to hopefully handle that in a responsible way and send you nice, nice things going forward.

So if you're finding that like listening to this, that email marketing just feels a bit overwhelming, or you just seem like it's too big a hurdle to get started, do check out my marketing club membership, The Fully Booked Business Club where you get instant access to. I have four step by step email marketing training courses to get you started using a system called Mailchimp with your email marketing.

And I also do a weekly live Q and A session. So if you do get stuck, I'm there to get you unstuck and moving forward quickly again.

Okay, my last points are around promoting the fact that you actually have an email list for people to sign up to. So social media is an amazing traffic driver for your list. It's not a replacement for it.

So if you think about it, social media is very much the first step in being discovered. It's the awareness step. So you need your fans to take action.

It's fine that they're following you and they think you look great, but you want them to visit your website and join your list. But a word of caution, and again, this is where I see people going wrong.

If you put everything out on social media or why would anyone join your email list? Do hold back perks, exclusive offers, partner promos, you know, priority access for your email subscribers.

We have a Lux list for the Hideout and they get priority access. They get first dibs on our cancellations and when new dates open up, we also do partner promos. We do competitions.

We treat them special, we treat them like VIPs, we treat them as valuable as they are to our business. So you definitely, if you put everything out on social, why would I join? So I see this again, everyone just puts everything out on social media.

Bear in mind only about 2% of your followers are actually seeing it. And everyone just goes, oh, well, I put it on social and it's like, well, not everyone's seeing it.

Whereas my open rates on my email campaigns range between 45 and 60% and they're consistently over 50%.

So I know that thousands of people are seeing my message, not just a handful because I've got a much bigger following on Instagram, it's over 20,000, but I know that only about 2% are seeing that. So it's still a small number.

And it's much easier to get people to take action from an email than it is on social media because the social media platforms want to keep people the platform. They want them to stay there, they want them to be entertained and to click on all the ads because that's how they make money. So do use your social media to funnel people to your website and to give those subscribers some special perks.

Okay, so I hope you found this episode interesting. I'm going to do a quick recap of the five ways to grow your list quickly.

First of all, create a reason for them to join. A newsletter is not one of them. Number two, incentivise with the sign up. Give them a thank you for joining.

Number three, make it dead simple to find and sign up. And I know that sounds obvious, but you'll be surprised. Number four, add opt in points across your entire guest journey.

So that's before they've actually booked with you during and after their stay. And lastly, number five, use social media to drive sign ups, not just likes.

And remember, your email list isn't about building numbers for the sake of having large numbers.

Like we all get sucked into the vanity metrics on socials about how big our followings are, but actually most find it very hard to turn that into actual bookings. It is about building long term relationships.

Your first email campaigns that you send and I'm going to give you a reality check that won't fill out your entire calendar for the year. But constant consistent email campaigns are like that marketing dripping tap. It constantly fills the bucket.

So if you only do one thing from today's episode, let it be this. The bigger your email list, the less you have to rely on the likes of Airbnb and the other OTAs start today.

Even if you just create that one simple signup form with a reward for people joining, it will make a huge difference. If you found this episode helpful, share it with another host who could use a little marketing mojo boost today.

Until next time, go get those inboxes growing and get fully booked. Thanks for tuning in today. I'll be back next week with a guest episode. It's an interesting look at appealing to the couples and family audiences with some really great insights shared. So do come and tune in for that episode next week.

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review. You know how much us hosts love those five star reviews. See you next week. Thank you for listening to Get Fully Booked with Sarah Orchard.

If you want to see if you are ready to ditch the likes of Airbnb and grow your direct bookings, put your business to the test with my free Direct booking Roadmap quiz. Head to my website www.get-fully-booked.com/ quiz and let's get you more direct bookings and more profit in your pocket.