When it comes to being an inspirational and aspirational brand, tourism and special districts have built-in content to work with. People subscribe to your e-newsletter (and social channels, too, for that matter) because they want information about you to improve their lives, give them information, and sometimes even to realize their dreams. So let’s keep it real. And relevant.
Great e-Newsletters Start Here
- Highlight Demand-driver Events
Sharing details about special events is a great way to entice your audiences to sign up for events, classes, or visit a destination. This can include opportunities for self improvement, developing a new skill, relaxation, or exploring a new place.
- Highlight Your Pillars
The purpose of pillars is to support your brand messaging. If you haven’t developed pillars, consider creating them to inform messaging in all of your channels — owned, earned and paid. This will help you more easily develop relevant content, while showing how your brand is unique. An example of pillars for a destination could be culinary, craft brew scene, family activities, or outdoor adventures. An example of pillars for a recreation district could be life-long learning, social activities and health & wellness.
- Don’t Tell Me, Show Me
Imagery has become a vital tool in communications to attract and engage your audiences. Connecting them with your brand, using visuals that elicit emotion, can be a deciding factor if they will take action to visit or support you. Always have someone taking photos at events, activities and when you go to special places so you can collect assets that show all you have to offer. Audit what your fans are posting as well. Asking their permission to share their photos and videos gives you authentic user generated content and can make them a fan through collaborating with you.
- Keep It Exciting
Today’s content is often short, snappy and visual. People want to be entertained, and this can be your first opportunity to show them what your brand is all about. Keeping content concise and engaging makes people want to scroll and click further! A good e-newsletter always includes catchy headers and aesthetic designs, while being fun and informative.
- Show Them What’s Next
Once you whet your audience’s appetite about your destination or district, lead them by clicks to find out more information and make it easy to book, order or download. To boost engagement and interaction, leverage your reach by including social media links in your e-newsletters so your fans can follow your content in multiple ways and easily get more information.
Creating the perfect e-newsletter on a monthly basis can be challenging– especially when you have so many other channels to focus on! Look for opportunities to leverage this content you’ve worked so hard to create on your other channels. This will reinforce your messages and remind your followers and fans all the wonderful things that await them from your district.
Our Approach at Verdin
Our team is experienced in developing, executing and leveraging the success of e-newsletters. Here’s how:
- We carefully choose deployment days and times based on monitoring and statistics to optimize open and click rates.
- We maintain a consistent tone and vocabulary for the content so that it rings true to our client’s brand personality and connects with their audiences.
- We incorporate all the essential links to land visitors to your brand’s website, partner websites, and social media pages to optimize your audience’s engagement with your brand.
- We constantly measure the open rate, click-thru rate, and total clicks to compare to industry standards and report out on a monthly basis with recommendations, to ensure that your KPIs are being met.
For more information, email Mary at [email protected].