The path to purchase is no longer a linear, one-way journey. Whether guests are off-site or on-site, hoteliers need to proactively pursue the highest-value visitors at every opportunity to ensure they book direct and are not lured in by other channels. This means that, while your own direct website may once have served as the final piece of the puzzle in convincing a guest, this is no longer the case. Your hotel website must serve a secondary, yet equally important purpose - it must sow the seeds for getting the guest back to your direct channel after they’ve departed.

To help with this goal, we’re delighted to announce the release of Email Capture Messages within the Targeted Messages section of the Triptease platform. Through easy-to-implement, unobtrusive pop-up messages, you can give a guest an incentive to sign-up for a special offer or benefit. Email Capture Messages then provide you with the guest’s email address, so you can contact them directly if they weren’t ready to book on their first visit to your website.

The ability to create Email Capture messages has been one of the most highly-requested product features on our Triptease Feature Requests hub - and by looking at the historical success of email as a conversion tool, it’s no surprise why. As it’s an inexpensive yet incredibly effective way to reach thousands of users at once with uniquely personalized messages, email marketing has an ROI of 40:1 according to the Direct Marketing Association. By working in tandem with any existing Nudge Messages and Notifications that you may have already implemented on your website, you'll also be able to follow up with a personal, laser-focused email message. This is arguably a level of service that - owing to their sheer scale - an OTA would never be able to effectively pull off.

We’ve previously discussed in detail how modern consumers require more than just one exposure to a brand, concept or an idea to be convinced that it’s worth investing into. With over 90% of visitors having no intention of making a purchase on their first visit to any eCommerce website - let alone a premium, luxury commodity like a hotel room - your direct channel must have the ability to reach out to guests after they have left. There are two incredibly effective ways of doing this - either by reminding them why they should stay with you through powerful, data-driven retargeting, or by appealing to the guest directly via email. With 92% of adults using email - 61% using it on a daily basis - email capture should be a permanent part of your hotel’s conversion arsenal.

We’re confident that Email Capture Messages will provide hotels with the tools to convince even more users return to their website to book direct - but we’re not done yet. Keep a close eye on the Triptease Content Hub over the next few weeks to see what exciting product innovations we have in store, as we continue to help hotels make their acquisition and conversion strategies work smarter together.