6 Easy Email Marketing Strategies to Use for Your Restaurant

With all of the ways you can  promote your restaurant nowadays, email marketing may seem archaic. However, email is still one of the best ways to reach your customers and market your business; you just have to know how to use it. Thankfully, there are some super easy email marketing tactics and strategies you can utilize that will not only reach your audience, but also get customers excited to visit your establishment. Here are some easy email marketing tactics and strategies you can incorporate into your next email marketing campaign.

Create a Marketing Plan

Before getting started, it’s always a good idea to come up with a plan that coincides with popular holidays, upcoming promotions, and any news you want to include in an email campaign. The more prepared you are, the better you’ll be ready to inform your customers of what’s going on. This is also a great time to think of any promotions you may want to implement for new subscribers and loyal recipients.

Once you know when to send out a marketing email, it’ll be that much easier to draft it and have it ready to send out on the appropriate day. Plus, you won’t be left scrambling when you want to advertise a major promotion or sale, or a big event.

Keep It Simple

When creating a marketing email, it’s important to keep it simple, yet eye-catching. Easy-to-read emails let you to relay important information to your customers clearly. Use a layout that allows for the text to flow nicely, incorporate short paragraphs and bullet points and incorporate relevant link when needed. Additionally, a simple format is less overwhelming for your customers; if your email makes it difficult to glean any information from, your customers will be less likely to open any future emails.

Not only should your email be easy-to-read, but your subject line should also be simple and catchy. As a rule of thumb, try to keep subject lines between 60-70 characters long. This limit will ensure that you keep the subject line concise and to-the-point.

With a simple email, it also allows you the freedom to add any branding, just so long as it doesn’t interfere with the core message you’re trying to relay. You can utilize pre-made email templates from email marketing services like MailChimp or Bronto, which allow you to plug in the content you want where you want and incorporate branding.

Offer Incentives to New Subscribers

Who doesn’t love a little freebie? Especially for just signing up to an emailing list. Offering a coupon or freebie to a new email subscriber incentivizes them to come visit, adding to the positive customer experience you’ve fostered in your establishment. You can even deploy the same tactic for inactive subscribers to drum up some business, and take it a step further by incentivizing follows and likes on your restaurant’s social media pages

Power to the People

Since so many people receive tons of blast emails each day, it’s a well-advised tip to allow your email subscribers to opt-in for certain communications. Giving your customers the freedom to choose lets them decide what’s important to them, so they’ll know exactly what to look for, and they’ll actually read your emails. For example: if you have a new email subscriber, and you run a cafe, they can opt to receive promotions, updates and specials on drinks.

By allowing your customers to decide what they want to see, you’ll also know what’s important to your clientele, and you’ll be able to craft special campaigns based off of that information.

Timing is Everything

Once you have your email drafted and ready to go, it’s time to fire it off, right? Well, not quite yet. With marketing emails, timing is everything; you want to ensure that you send out your communication at a time when you’re certain a majority of your customers will open it, and with enough leeway before a big event or sale.

Think about when you check your email, or when your normal clientele might check theirs. This may require a bit of testing, but generally the best times to send out any communication will be during lunch hours (around 12 p.m.) and after working hours (between 8 p.m.-11 p.m.). These are great time frames to test out the first few campaigns, but depending on your customers, this may vary, so keep an eye on when to best send out your emails.

When informing your audience of an upcoming event or promotion, make sure that you allow enough time between the email and the event so that your customers can plan accordingly. In this instance, you can also send out reminder emails leading up to the event, but do so in a way that isn’t overwhelming for your recipients. For example: if you’re hosting a Mother’s Day brunch and have a special going on for that day, you could send an email out at the beginning of May, with a follow-up the following week, and then another the day before.

Make It Personal

Adding a little personal touch to an email can make the whole communication feel more special. While addressing the recipient by name is a nice touch, you can kick it up a notch by offering exclusive offers and deals based on their favorite dishes or sending out a birthday coupon. It’s better to cater to their interests rather than sticking to a general email, especially if it’s for a loyal customer or subscriber. It’ll make them feel more included and valued if you make the email worth their while. You can also organize your subscribers accordingly so that those who are dedicated get specialized emails.

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