Email Marketing for Restaurants

One of the simplest ways to advertise your restaurant and attract new clients while proving your superiority over the competition is through restaurant email marketing.
In this article, you will learn how to create an email list for your restaurant and 8 Email Marketing Strategies for Restaurant. So, let’s start.

Creating an email list for your restaurant?

If you intend to do email marketing for a restaurant, you must consider how you will generate consistent leads to build a larger email list. And by larger email list, I mean a larger audience of potential customers who would book a table at your restaurant and visit you.

Do you want to learn how to grow your email list? Here are 4 ways for growing your restaurant’s email list:

1. Make a contact form.

Your reservation page is your lead generation hub as a restaurant. Maintain an ongoing positive customer relationship with those who reserve a table through your website.
You should thank them for their reservation before inviting them to your special events or sending them your best restaurant newsletters.

2. Present eye-catching popups on your website.

Nothing is more irritating than when a popup window pops right away when you visit a website. But, according to SumoMe, popups have an average conversion rate of 9.28% while increasing engagement when used properly.
Use website popups like the following to generate more email addresses for your restaurant:

• Match your popup to the design and branding of your website.
• Offer discounts or special deals.
• Set your popup to appear after 5 seconds or +40% of the website’s scroll.
• Exit popups should be triggered.
• Popups should only appear twice for each unique website visitor.
• To close the popup, provide a clear X button.
• Finally, make it user-friendly.

3. Invite customers to subscribe to your email list

Printed menus, credit card receipts, and invitations to customers to sign up for your email list can all contain links to your website.
Your clients will be informed of the possibility of receiving discounts and exclusive offers in their email inboxes in this manner. Alternately, just request their email addresses so you can add them to your email database later.
In addition to printed menus and receipts, you can include a QR code that takes scanners to a landing page where they may subscribe and receive a special discount.

4. Set up a referral program

Some folks prefer not to eat alone. It would be more enjoyable and enjoyable with nice company. Incorporate a referral link into your restaurant newsletters to encourage contacts to forward your email to their friends, coworkers, and so on.
Offer a reward back to encourage your subscribers to suggest a friend. A discount, a certificate, or a free dessert could be the gift.

8 Email Marketing Strategies for Restaurant

The following email marketing strategies will help you promote your restaurant more effectively:

Celebrate the birthdays of customers

A “happy birthday” greeting is another typical email format that consistently works. Sending them a congrats email and a wonderful gift will be a welcome surprise, assuming you have enough information about your clients to know their birthday.

On their birthday, you may extend an invitation to dine at your restaurant and offer champagne and/or dessert for free. You may even provide them with a discount code they can enter at the time of online checkout to receive the same benefits while remaining in the comfort of their own home.

Send an email to welcome customers

Most businesses follow the standard practice of sending welcome emails since it’s a quick and easy approach to getting to know your clients and getting off to a good start. As a thank, you for their business, this “welcome to our restaurant” email should ideally also include some sort of special offer.
It’s crucial to establish your preferred tone of voice and the overall vibe of your business because this will be your first email to them.

Segmentation to personalize marketing

Pizza vendors utilize email marketing most simply to advertise specials, much like they would on a postcard.
One of the best methods for disseminating offers and promotions is through an email list. Verify that individuals are using the most recent menus and encourage them to join your mailing list by making them privy to specials that go beyond the pizza discounts that are advertised to the general public.
Customers will respond favorably to any promotions you run, and they might even come in on that particular day to take advantage of your deals.

It’s encouraging to know that you can still employ an email marketing campaign as part of your restaurant marketing strategies in a time when everything is becoming more and more expensive, even on Facebook.
A radio or television ad may cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars, but sending an email is free and requires little more effort than following a well-thought-out plan. Personalization and segmentation are the foundations of successful email marketing.

Website Visitors Retargeting

Are you able to effectively reengage first-time visitors to your restaurant’s website, or do you simply let them leave and click somewhere else? Given that you have already spent money on paid or organic promotion to promote the restaurant website, it makes sense to increase your profits.
Possessing authority over your website It’s simple to influence visitors’ browsing behavior if you can grab and maintain their attention. Keep them interested in your website and encourage them to opt-in with an embedded form or a popup after a predetermined interval.

The greatest strategy is to use a “lead magnet” to encourage them by giving them something of value. Value can include the assurance of discounts and exclusive offers in return for their email address.
Offering them a gift that they can download right away in exchange for their email address serves as an additional incentive. This freebie could include a recipe, a discount, cooking advice, or a straightforward checklist.

Maintain Loyal Customers

If your restaurant has a customer loyalty program or is thinking about starting one, an email list is essential to the program’s success.
Many customers will choose to dine at a restaurant that caters to their individual needs, provides excellent service, and remembers who they are when they return. A loyalty program accomplishes all of this and more, while also allowing you to add another email address to your growing list.
When sending out loyalty program updates, make sure to highlight your monthly deals and future events. It’s a simple way to get your regulars to come in more often.
The takeaway from restaurant email marketing: Combine the customer loyalty program and email marketing to create an effective marketing campaign.

Promote your restaurant’s events and parties.

Are you planning a karaoke party? Are you throwing a masquerade party for Halloween? Send a celebration email to your consumers and build enthusiasm by providing a preview of what they may expect.

Include information about your unique menu items, such as ghost cookies and eyeball spaghetti, in the email, along with a representative photo. Don’t forget to include exclusive promotions such as “Everyone who signs up at Karaoke Night receives a free drink!”

Highlight fresh menu items

Imagine you’ve recently added a new menu item, updated your menu to reflect a certain season, or even added a menu item that is only available for a limited time. Your customers will be interested to learn more if that is the case. If there are several items, list them all concisely and include a picture of each.
For a single menu item spotlight, you may afford to go into greater detail, including the history of the item, its ingredients, several camera angles, and more. Customers should be made to crave your product so desperately that they come to your restaurant or place an order right away.

Customer feedback for online ordering

You probably already have the client email addresses from orders that were placed through your restaurant’s online ordering system. If not, find a mechanism to collect the email address at the end of the online order checkout that complies with GDPR.
With the help of this segmentation technique, you can quickly expand your email list and engage customers in a variety of ways.
The initial step is to get in touch with the online shopper as soon as the order has been delivered to inquire about their experience. Within the email auto-responder system of your online ordering system, this is possible.
To address any issues and guarantee customer satisfaction, the restaurant greatly benefits from receiving active client input. As a result, there is repeat business as well as positive reviews and feedback.

Final Thoughts on Email Marketing for Restaurants:

In conclusion, email marketing offers a very efficient channel for marketing and supports other marketing initiatives to boost marketing results.
Email marketing is essentially the second component (website being the first) to employ in the restaurant marketing strategy when considering having a successful digital marketing plan. To get the most out of your marketing spend, email should be the cornerstone of every channel you use for marketing.

Frequently Asked Questions