Short message service (SMS) marketing can bring a strong return on investment, with a 98 percent open rate. For hoteliers, it’s easier than ever with specialized messaging software integrated through your property management system (PMS). You can send notifications, responses, upsells, and more to the right guests at the right time. Read on for tips and tricks to jumpstart your property’s SMS marketing initiatives with strategies guests respond to.  

Opt-in

There are privacy laws and regulations you need to adhere to when communicating with guests by SMS, just like there are with email. Ask for guests’ mobile numbers when they book and include an opt-in to receive marketing messages. Your online booking engine should allow you to collect this information.

Instructions for unsubscribing should be clear, simple to follow, and included in each message. Knowing they can end the conversation whenever they’d like makes customers more comfortable. (And look at it this way, there isn’t much point sending marketing texts to someone who doesn’t want to receive them.) 

Identify yourself to customers immediately so that they don’t mark your messages as spam…or a scam. Responding to an unknown number is a risk these days. 

Consistency

Almost half of consumers prefer to receive texts from businesses every other week, and another 36 percent prefer once a week. The goal is to text often enough that they remember you, but not so often that they get tired of you. 

Consider who your audience is before deciding on a time frame. You may want to try A/B testing as well; put a sample of your contacts on two different schedules and see which works best. It’s also important to take into account where the guest is along their travel journey. Are they checking in tomorrow, or is it still six months out? Note: This matters not only for how often you send but what you send. People need different content at different times.

Guest messaging software enables you to automate your messages based on reservation information such as check-in and check-out dates so you don’t have to remember when to send each one. And it’s even easier when your guest messaging software is integrated with your PMS so that you don’t have to update reservation information in your guest messaging platform manually.

Call to Action

A text message isn’t the place for a novel. State your brand and what you offer, include a call to action, and get out. Your call to action indicates what the guest should do after they read your text. You don’t want to entice them with a great promotion and then leave them hanging. Show them how to claim it, whether it’s by clicking a link or texting you back. (Sixty percent of consumers appreciate being able to text you back.)

Responses

If your customers text you back, you must respond. SMS software makes this easy by providing automated responses to routine inquiries so that you don’t have to type out the same basic information over and over. These ready-made responses also help your brand voice stay consistent. 

Though consistency is important, so is personalization. Software such as Akia and Duve allows you to adjust your responses depending on specific guest characteristics. Duve uses AI to analyze guest sentiment and profile data and tailors your communication appropriately. 

If you have many international guests, it’s also good to choose a system like Canary that translates message content in the guest’s own language.  

Welcome Messages

Go ahead and send your guest a welcome message either when they first book or when they opt-in to texting. It’s quick, easy, and makes the guest feel acknowledged. Think of it as the digital equivalent of a hello when they walk in the door. 

Note: You should still send a booking confirmation email as well. You can include more detail there, and guests expect it.

Urgent Messages

Anything time sensitive is a good candidate for an SMS message. For instance, you could send out reminders for your Black Friday promotion. Eighty-one percent of consumers look at their notifications within five minutes after a text comes in, so they will most likely see your offer in time to act. A hard deadline also adds urgency to your call to action. If the potential guest doesn’t act now, the opportunity will be gone. 

However, it’s still important to pay attention to your timing. No message is urgent at 3AM or even at 8PM when parents are trying to put their kids to bed. Stick to business hours. 

Review Requests

A text message with a link to your preferred review site is an excellent way to ask for feedback. This isn’t an imposition; it’s perfectly normal. Fifty-three percent of consumers are likely to review a company when asked via text or email. 

The more reviews you have, the more credible you appear online. Potential guests won’t trust a five-star rating with fewer reviewers than stars. Your reviews also have to be recent, or they’ll wonder if anything has changed in the meantime. Therefore, you need to ask for feedback on an ongoing basis. 

You could even build your own survey and reach out for a private review before the guest checks out. This gives you another opportunity to rectify any issues before a guest takes those issues online. 

Mobile-friendly Website

To use SMS messaging effectively, your website should be mobile friendly. If the guest clicks on any links in your messages, the landing page must be easy for them to navigate on their phone. You don’t want to send them to a booking engine that doesn’t work quite right on mobile. 

If you haven’t already, invest in a responsive website that automatically adapts your content to the user’s device so that it’s user friendly on both mobile and desktop. 

Analytics

As with any other type of marketing, it’s crucial to understand how well your messaging performs. Software like Revinate Ivy and Kipsu comes with comprehensive analytics to track metrics like engagement rate, staff response times, number of guests reached, and more.  

You can combine this information with the reports in your property management system. WebRezPro includes a customizable booking report as well as a products and services report that can help gauge which upsells and offers were most popular and how many customers actually converted.

SMS communications are in demand and effective. Use these SMS-specific marketing tips to boost bookings, upsells, and revenue.