Yesterday I talked about email and how it continues to be a workhorse for resort marketers all over the world.

The ROI, the automation, the insight…they’re tough to beat.

But for many among the new generation of resort marketers, email isn’t the thing that’s inspired them as marketers or even as consumers. I encouraged you to embrace email, but here’s a more detailed overview of what I meant.

Embracing Email

When you dig into email you probably draw inspiration from great emails, subscribe to other resorts’ emails, or analyze the numbers more than you would have. But let me propose five more things you can do to better embrace email as a channel and not just do email, but do it right.

Everyone can send emails, but making it a consistent, reliable channel take a little more effort. Effort around things like these.

#1 Dig into the Idea of Database Health
First, dig into the value of having a healthy CRM database and why that’s more important than having a large database. Ideally, these things are not mutually exclusive, but study the reasons why health may be more important than size.

#2 Learn to Appreciate the Value of an Opt-Out
Once you grasp that concept, you’ll want to study opt-outs and how they can be a good thing. If you’re scared of opt-outs, try your best to minimize them, and can’t see the upside? You’ve got to shift both your understanding of CRM database health and the mindset you’re taking with email.

#3 Study How Deliverability Works
This all ties in to deliverability. Take the time to understand deliverability. How it works in 2022, what role you play, things that put you at risk, things that decrease your risk, etc. Deliverability is a huge part of email, you can’t do email right without dissecting this piece.

#4 Wrap Your Head Around Deliverability Consequences
Even more, study what happens when you have poor deliverability. Again, if you don’t understand what a blacklist is and the consequences of getting on one, the timeline and steps for getting off, etc. you’re missing a huge part of what it takes to do email well.

#5 Teach the Rest of Your Team
Finally, once you have a deeper understand of keeping a clean CRM database and maintaining deliverability, teach your team. Unless they can understand or appreciate what you do, you won’t have the data and support you need to, say, push back when someone above you insists you “just email the whole database” (again).

Value Beyond Now

For a couple decades now email has been the workhorse of the digital marketing world. This channel isn’t going anywhere.

When you embrace email, you not only have a skill that can serve your resort incredibly well when goals need to be met and revenue is on the line, but you’ll have a skill that is extremely valuable in the marketing career space.

Absolutely invest and put time and effort toward other channels, but don’t make the mistake of sleeping on email.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.