Tourism Awards: Email Marketing Wins in 2026

Winning a tourism award can be a huge boost for your business’s profile, and your email marketing is what really turns that recognition into results. Just submitting an entry isn’t the whole game. You need a communication plan to rally votes, keep your partners informed, and make a lot of noise when you win. So, how do you take a nomination and turn it into an email campaign that gets people to vote, book, and talk about you?

1. Segment Your Audience with Precision

Before you write a single word, you have to know exactly who you’re talking to. Sending a generic blast to your entire list is a waste of a good opportunity and a fast track to getting unsubscribes. You have to get more granular. For any tourism award, your audience naturally breaks down into groups like past guests, potential future travelers, local community partners, travel agents, media contacts, and even your own employees.

Get into your email service provider (ESP), whether it’s Mailchimp or Constant Contact, and start building custom segments. You can slice and dice your audience based on booking history, where they live, how often they open your emails, or even answers from a survey. For example, if you’re running a boutique hotel in Savannah, Georgia, that just got nominated for “Best Historic Stay,” it makes sense to create a segment of past guests who you know booked historic tours, separating them from those who only cared about the beach. That’s how you send a message that really connects.

Pro Tip: Use CRM Data

This gets even better when you connect your ESP to your customer relationship management (CRM) system. Suddenly you have a much deeper pool of data to work with. Let’s say your CRM tracks how guests first heard about you. If someone discovered your business through a specific travel publication, you can target them with a perfectly timed email about your new award nomination in that exact same publication. According to HubSpot’s 2024 marketing statistics, that kind of personalization can generate 50% higher open rates, which is a massive difference.

2. Craft Irresistible Subject Lines and Preheaders

Your subject line is the gatekeeper. It determines whether your email gets opened or ignored. When you’re talking about an award, you need clarity and excitement. Be direct and compelling, not vague or too salesy.

Some subject lines that just work:

• We’re Nominated! Vote for [Your Business Name] for [Award Name]!
• Breaking News: [Your Business Name] Wins [Award Name]!
• Thank You for Your Support: [Your Business Name] Honored with [Award Name]
• Help Us Win: Just 3 Days Left to Vote for [Award Name]!

And don’t waste the preheader text, which is that short line of text that shows up right after the subject line in most inboxes. Think of it as your subject line’s wingman. Use it to add context or a quick call to action. If you’re running a voting campaign, a preheader like “Click here to cast your vote and help us celebrate our amazing team!” or “Your support helps us continue offering unforgettable experiences” can make all the difference.

Common Mistake: Overuse of Emojis

Emojis can work for some audiences, but go easy. Using too many, or the wrong ones, can make your email look unprofessional and trigger spam filters. The best approach is to A/B test them in your ESP. A single, well-placed trophy 🏆 or star ⭐ emoji might give you a little lift, but a long string of them is just distracting.

3. Design Engaging Email Templates

How your email looks is just as important as what it says. You need to use clean, mobile-responsive templates that match your brand’s style. Most ESPs have drag-and-drop editors that let you build professional-looking emails without touching a line of code. The key is to organize the information clearly so people can scan it.

Here are the key design pieces:

• Prominent Header: Your logo needs to be up top, along with the award’s logo (if they let you use it and you have a high-res version).
• Eye-Catching Imagery: Use great photos of your property, your team, or the award itself. A good picture gets the message across much faster than a block of text.
• Clear Call-to-Action (CTA) Buttons: Don’t use text links for your main action. Use big, bold buttons with contrasting colors and clear text like “Vote Now,” “Read the Announcement,” or “Book Your Award-Winning Stay.” Buttons just convert better.
• Concise Copy: Be direct. People scan emails, they don’t read them word-for-word.
• Social Sharing Buttons: Make it easy for people to share your big news on their own social media feeds.

When you’re announcing the win, the template should put the award front and center. A big banner image with the award logo and “WE WON!” text, followed by a short, celebratory message and a link to the full press release on your site, is a formula that works incredibly well. The goal is simple: make the achievement impossible to miss the second they open the email.

4. Develop a Multi-Stage Campaign Strategy

Award recognition requires a campaign, not just a single email. You should plan a sequence of emails that are timed to the different stages of the award’s lifecycle.

1. Nomination Announcement (Initial Excitement): Send this out the moment you get the nomination. Express your gratitude, explain what the nomination means for your business, and hit them with a strong CTA to vote if it’s a public award.
2. Voting Reminders (If Applicable): For any award that needs public votes, you’ll need to schedule several reminders. Don’t send the same email over and over, change up the messaging to keep it fresh. One email can create urgency about the deadline, another can feature a customer testimonial, and a third can talk about what their vote helps you achieve.
3. Winner Announcement (Celebration): This is the big one. Send a dedicated email to announce the win. You have to thank your supporters, talk about what makes your business special, and include links to your press release, social media posts, and a way for them to come experience your award-winning service.
4. Post-Win Impact/Follow-Up: A few weeks after the big announcement, send another email that details the positive impact of the award. Maybe you’ve seen an increase in bookings, gotten some great community feedback, or launched new projects because of the win. This kind of follow-up builds a ton of brand loyalty.

Pro Tip: Use Scarcity and Social Proof

For voting campaigns, a little urgency works wonders. Language like “Voting closes in 48 hours!” gets people to act. For your winner announcement, bring in social proof. Quote a glowing review that lines up with the award category or even mention how many people voted for you. This helps validate the win and shows it’s not just you who thinks you’re great.

5. Integrate Clear Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

Every single email in your campaign must have a clear, compelling CTA. If you don’t tell your subscribers what you want them to do, they will do nothing. Make your CTAs stand out and, importantly, stick to one main action per email. Don’t clutter the message by asking them to do three different things at once.

CTAs that get the job done:

• Vote for Us Now! (Goes right to the voting page)
• Read the Full Story (Links to your blog post or press release)
• Book Your Award-Winning Experience (Takes them to your booking engine)
• Share Our Excitement (Links to pre-written social media posts)
• Learn More About [Award Category] (Sends them to a relevant page on your site)

From what I’ve seen, the best CTAs are simple verbs that tell someone what to do, paired with a clear benefit. For instance, “Vote to support local tourism” is going to perform better than a button that just says “Vote.”

6. Monitor and Analyze Performance

Your job isn’t over when you hit “send.” You need to be watching your campaign’s performance metrics to see what’s working and what’s falling flat. The main things to track are:

• Open Rate: The percentage of people who actually opened your email.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage who clicked a link inside. This is especially important for CTAs like “Vote Now.”
• Conversion Rate: If your CTA was a booking, track how many people actually completed it.
• Unsubscribe Rate: A few people leaving is normal, but a sudden spike is a red flag that your content or frequency is off.
• Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails that failed to deliver. A high bounce rate means it’s time to clean your email list.

Use the analytics dashboards inside your ESP. A platform like Salesforce Marketing Cloud can give you extremely detailed reports on how individual emails are doing and how the campaign is performing as a whole. You should be looking at which subject lines drove the most opens and which CTA buttons got the most clicks. That data is your playbook for future award campaigns and all your other email marketing efforts.

Common Mistake: Ignoring A/B Testing

Never assume you know what will work best. You have to A/B test different parts of your emails, subject lines, CTA button colors, photos, and even what time you send it. For your winner announcement, for example, you could test two different subject lines to see which one gets a higher open rate. It’s an iterative process, but over time it will make a huge difference in your email marketing effectiveness.

When you execute it thoughtfully, email marketing turns an award from a simple plaque on the wall into a real tool for driving engagement and business. By segmenting your audience properly, writing compelling messages, and paying close attention to performance, you can make sure your hard-earned awards deliver real benefits, strengthening your brand’s authority in the competitive tourism market. Focusing on your local brand can make these wins even more powerful.