How travel brands can use real-time updates in email

A key part of building trust with your customers is through communication. Often, the more information you can provide, the better. And that goes for brick and mortar retailers, eCommerce shops, and yes even travel brands. 

One way to make sure you stay in touch with your customers and give them the most up-to-date information out there is through real-time updates in your emails. 

Curious how it works. Keep reading. We’ll highlight a few different ways travel brands can embrace real-time updates, all while offering personalization and building trust at the same time.

Give your customers updates on alerts

When your customers are traveling, and things change, time is of the essence. We all saw examples of this throughout 2020 when the pandemic halted and reversed travel guidelines on a dime. 

Trying to alert a bunch of people about a news update in real-time is hard. You need to give them a heads up across a variety of channels, and a banner on your website isn’t always going to cut it. 

With real-time updates in email, you can add notifications to every email you send. If you have a sudden news alert you had to get out, such as a delay, cancellation, or change in guidelines, it’s easy to let customers know. You can also do the same for price alerts, changes, and updates too. 

Build some FOMO

There’s another way you can use real-time updates and notification bars, to build a little bit of FOMO (fear of missing out) in your customer’s minds. 

We’ve all been there. We sort of want to take a vacation or go away for a weekend, but we’re on the fence. It would be great to get away, but is it worth it? 

Well, what about creating a little bit of urgency in your emails. Flash sales and specials with countdown timers and limited inventory are great motivators to get customers off the fence and buying. With the Zembula platform, travel and hospitality brands can create live image content blocks that let your readers know when a special deal is on and counts down in real-time. 

Highlight the weather

Speaking of FOMO, have you ever looked out your window on another long cold winter day and thought I’d give anything to be on a beach right now? 

Chances are, if you’ve thought that (or anything weather-related), your customers have too. So why not highlight that in your emails too? You can with live content blocks. Use the weather in your reader’s location and tie it into special events and sales in other locations.

For example, take the flip side. Maybe you have some customers who live in the Southwest and would love to go on a ski retreat during the shoulder season. Pull in weather data to sweeten the pot. 

When you know where your customers live, you can create emails around it. It’s an amazing way to make your emails more personalized in real-time. 

Celebrate your customer’s loyalty

Lots of travel brands have loyalty programs. These programs are a huge pull for customers because you can snag some pretty big rewards from most of them, making participating in the program worth it. 

But many brands focus way too much time on getting new customers and not enough on keeping their most loyal ones engaged. You don’t want to make the same mistake. So use your emails to give your loyalty program members real-time updates on their activity and points. 

What’s more, you can tie these award update emails to specific specials or deals that you’re running in real-time. If your customer is suddenly eligible for a discount on a trip or an upgrade because they made a purchase, let them know! They’ll love opening an email with personalized loyalty information and what they can do with their points. It can help motivate them to keep shopping with you and continue to rack up more points.

There are plenty of possibilities to explore for adding more real-time updates to your emails. Travel brands shouldn’t miss out.