Restaurant Email Marketing Strategies to Win More Customers

Restaurant email marketing is an ongoing phenomenon that constantly requires improvements. Those businesses that rely on traditional online marketing methods don’t see rapid improvements. Over time, such businesses either fade away to a blip or completely shut down because of a lack of customers, acquisitions, and vice versa. 

That being said, the purpose of this write-up is to highlight a handful of restaurant email marketing tips that you can integrate into your ongoing business. We know that you are well aware of how email marketing works, and the general steps on how to get more customers through restaurant email marketing, but it’s the tiny little details that matter the most.

Surprisingly, many food business operators are focused on running paid ad campaigns or collaborating with social influencers, instead of bundling the former two with email marketing processes. Paid advertisement or joining hands with someone for a sponsored brand promotion program is not a bad idea, but it comes at a hefty price.

Depending on the influencer and the sponsor that you’re looking to get onboard, restaurant email marketing won’t cost you as much. However, we’ll get to those details later. For now, let’s see why is it important to have an email marketing strategy in the first place.

Why Is Restaurant Email Marketing Important?

As we mentioned earlier that there’s a common notion about restaurant email marketing that suggests that it’s an outdated or dead process. Surprisingly, you are not alone in believing so. But, here’s a question: when was the last time you checked email marketing statistics?

We’re here to tell you that if you check your email at least once a day, there are over 280 billion users, just like you, who do the same thing. It means that for every restaurant business owner, there are 280 billion opportunities to connect with his/her customers without doing anything other than hitting the “Send” button or scheduling the email for delivery at a specific time of the day.

Check Out: 19 Fascinating Facts About Email Marketing

By the year 2022, it is expected that the average volume of sent emails on a daily basis will be 333 billion. As a marketer, what do those 333 billion emails signify to you? Of course, a lot of those emails will not be read, opened, or clicked through, but there’s still a large chunk of information that will convert.

You need to create your email content and renew your restaurant email marketing strategy in such a way, that it is harder for your end-point customer to pass up on anything you have to offer.

To make your email content sound more personalized and engaging, try using an AI email assistant.

Here’s to exploring some of the trendiest restaurant email marketing strategies to use in 2021 and beyond.

Read on…

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1. Use the Right Restaurant Email Marketing Tool

By having the “right” tool, you are looking to grow your list faster – and that too, with a higher degree of success.

There are tools, like MailChimp, SendGrid, and OptinMonster that have fantastic lead generation features to help restaurateurs with restaurant email marketing strategies. Specifically, if we were to talk about OptinMonster, you can create your email popups, floating bars, and other visuals that your customers will eventually see on their side whenever they’ll open the email.

Secondly, SendGrid and MailChimp have integrated HTML functionality where you can literally customize your restaurant emails to create a kickass newsletter. You can add an intuitive call-to-action buttons to get your customers to click or sign up for additional services by voluntarily going through a specific funnel created for such purpose.

2. Learn to Retain Your Customers Data

If you are collaborating with social media influencers, you will get an onslaught of online referral traffic to your food ordering app, or to your website. Either way, the best way to make sure that these customers become repeat patrons is by having some sort of system to get their email addresses.

We recommend running some kind of limited-time offer through a bold strapline on your food ordering website. Alternatively, if you are using a food ordering app, you can add CTAs for customers to share their email address through some kind of in-app popup.

Either way, you will end up with a handful of newly acquired email addresses sooner or later. The next step is to connect with these potential repeat customers by sending them customized emails as part of your restaurant email marketing strategy.

While you are engaged in creating killer content for your emails, make sure that you send those emails at the appropriate time of the day. According to the marketing experts at Co-Schedule, the best time to send emails is after 10:00 AM and before 8:00 PM. A lot of people do not read emails until a few hours later when they’re in the office, or they have started their work.

Likewise, your average food order customer reportedly checks his/her email one last time before going to bed. You need to seize at least one of these timeslots to make sure that your message is received and read.

3. Creating an Awesome Lead Magnet

As part of different restaurant email marketing strategies, lead magnets come in various shapes. The idea is to retain customers’ contact information the best way possible.

Some of the examples of lead magnets are, but are certainly not limited to:

• Free recipe books
• Discount coupons for drinks and appetizers
• How to Eat XYZ food guides
• Limited time discounts for chef’s specials

Depending on the lead magnet you go for, it is important to create a custom email with a compelling subject line to entice your customers. For instance, a subject line that says, ‘Hey John Doe, Your Special Discount Code To Our Chef Online Food Order Is XYZ’ is much better than something that sounds inauthentic and robotic.

Create different lead magnets and center your restaurant email marketing strategy around them to see which one brings in the most conversions.

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4. Supplement Your Restaurant Email Marketing Strategy With Other Marketing Channels

Any restaurant email marketing strategy works best when it is combined with a bunch of different marketing tactics.

For instance, we recommend collaborating with micro-influencers on social media to run different campaigns and acquire incoming referral traffic’s email information. Likewise, you can get a tracking code, which Facebook likes to call: “Pixel” from your paid ad campaigns and embed it into your restaurant’s outgoing email.

The pixel will pinpoint the exact number of customers that convert after going through that email. Meanwhile, if a customer places an online food order through your email, Facebook will show users targeted ads, based on the buying preference of users who are ordering in a specific manner through your email drip campaign software. It allows businesses to track the success of their campaigns in real-time.

It’s a win-win situation for both sides.

5 Restaurant Email Marketing Examples for List-Building 

If you’re considering restaurant email marketing, determine how you’ll generate leads to grow your list.

By greater email list, we imply more potential clients who’d visit your restaurant.

Want a bigger email list? Here are 6 restaurant email list-building tips.

1. Create a contact form

The reservation page on your restaurant’s website serves as a central center for generating new customer leads.

Maintain a positive relationship with customers who make reservations via your website.

After thanking them for their reservation, send them an invitation to one of your special events or a newsletter featuring your restaurant’s best offerings.

2. Add popups to your website

Popups that appear the second you land on a website are the worst.

But. According to SumoMe, popups have an average conversion rate of 9.28% when deployed correctly.

Website popups like the restaurant e-mail marketing examples can help your restaurant get more email addresses:

• Make sure your popup is consistent with your website’s overall design and brand identity.
• Consider offering discounts or other special deals.
• Set your popup to appear after at least 5 seconds or when +40% of the website has been scrolled.
• Activating the exit popups should be a priority.
• Activate popups at least twice for each unique visitor to the website.
• Popups should have an obvious X button to close them.
• Last but not least, make sure it’s easy to use.

3. Ask customers to join your email list

Printing out menus, credit card receipts, and inviting clients to join your email list are all great restaurant email marketing examples to promote your website.

Email marketing is an excellent technique to educate your clients about how they can receive discounts and other deals from you.

To get their email addresses, you can simply ask them to do so and then add them to your email database later on.

Other than menus and receipts, you may create a QR code that takes scanners to a landing page where they can subscribe and receive a special offer only available to those who scan the code.

4. Promote email-only offers

The opt-in form for a restaurant is one of our favorite examples of this type. The warm, positive sentiments conveyed by the simple black graphic serve to highlight the benefit that the user will enjoy after subscribing.

It’s an appealing and engrossing pairing. The restaurant’s VIP club gives customers a sense of exclusivity.

Exclusive offers will only be provided to VIP club members via email in the popup’s title.

5. Make a referral campaign

Some people prefer not to eat alone, and this is quite understandable. An enjoyable group of companions would enhance the experience.

Make use of a referral link in the emails you send to customers to encourage them to forward your message to others.

Offer a reward to your subscribers who refer new customers.

Free desserts, coupons, and discounts are all possibilities for the gift.

The Takeaway

Restaurant marketing is a suite of different marketing strategies, where email marketing plays an integral role. If you are looking to get professional help on setting up your own online food ordering website, or a digital food app, sign up for a vendor account at BlinkCo.io.

We’ll not only hook you up with the best food ordering services portal, but we’ll also have a bunch of marketing tools that will help you to scale your business at an accelerated pace.