Invest in Email Marketing for Your Restaurant
An effective restaurant marketing strategy is essential for the success of a restaurant. A well-strategized marketing effort will help you attract new customers, increase your guest relationships, and overall excel the success of your business! Within the restaurant industry, people are always looking for new ways to market their business, although one of the best techniques might not be so new after all.
Why invest in restaurant email marketing?
If you’re looking for a restaurant marketing strategy that will provide a large return on investment (ROI), look no further! The average ROI for email marketing is $42 for every $1 spent. Although to achieve these results, you’ll have to know how to create an eye-catching email campaign. The secret to achieving those results is by providing value to your guests through your emails!
Your guests will likely have other business emails in their inboxes alongside yours. This makes it even more important to deliver content that will benefit the customer and make them want to open your emails. About 81% of small to mid-sized businesses use email as their main channel for acquiring new customers, and 80% use email marketing for customer retention. When executed effectively, email marketing can be used as a cost-effective customer acquisition and return customer strategy!
When you start sending valuable information to your guests and use strategic messaging, you’ll begin to learn more about your audience and be able to tailor the emails toward their liking. The customer data you discover will help you determine which part of the guest journey each recipient is on. With that, you’ll be able to better target your audience and further understand your guests. The best part is that email campaigns can be managed without much experience! There is a large variety of software available to help you start email marketing today!
2022 Email Marketing Statistics
- There are 4 billion daily email users. (Source)
- Almost 6 in 10 consumers (59%) report that emails affect their purchasing decisions. (Source)
- Marketers who used segmented campaigns noted as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (Source)
- 35% of marketers send their customers 3-5 emails per week. (Source)
- 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months. (Source)
- 4 out of 5 marketers said they’d rather give up social media than email marketing. (Source)
- More than 40% of marketers saw budget cuts to email since the pandemic. (Source)
- Nearly 22% of all email campaigns are opened within the first hour of sending. (Source)
Restaurant Email Marketing Strategies
The easiest way to get started producing a successful email marketing strategy is, to begin with, the basics! To reach maximum potential with your email marketing, you’ll need to create a solid plan. What will you include in your emails? When will you send them? How will you measure your success? These are all questions you’re probably wondering if you’re thinking about using email as a form of marketing. Here are some of the best strategies to implement when creating an email campaign:
Know the Benchmarks
If you’re new to the email marketing game you’ll likely want to do some experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t. This may look like testing out different subject lines, figuring out when the best time to email is, and many other experiments. With all of that, it’s also important to have a baseline of what a successful email campaign looks like! Here are a few examples of email engagement averages in the restaurant industry for the year 2022 to help you analyze your results.
Get Creative
Your customers will only see your emails if they decide to open them. That means the subject line you choose needs to hook the reader and make them want to read more! Be creative when writing your subject line and make sure it stands out from the rest! Make sure to incorporate your brand voice into the email you write, and make it fun!
Send Personalized Messages
Including personalized messages in your marketing emails will add a friendly touch and help build a trusting relationship with your guests! This can be as simple as including the recipient’s name within the email or even in the subject line. That will grab their attention! Prioritizing segmentation and personalization will produce better overall engagement rates.
Be Intentional
Email marketing is no secret in the restaurant industry. Be intentional about what you send and when you send it to avoid flooding your guests’ inboxes. Along with that. Make sure you are maximizing the potential of email marketing by using it to interact with your guests and learn more about how to properly reach them. Use the results of your email campaign to make your next one better. By determining what parts of your campaign needs improvements, you’ll be setting yourself up for success!
Be Strategic
Successful email marketing comes from providing your guests with value! Once you start producing emails, you’ll begin to understand your audience better and give them content they want to see. Use your emails to give the guest what they want while sharing important information at the same time. Here are a few tips you can use to be strategic with your email marketing:
- Boost your open rates by including offers and promotions in your subject line.
- Use the recipient’s first name in the subject line for a higher click-through rate.
- Include a variety of emails in your marketing campaign to boost engagement and customer interest. Some examples would be welcome emails, discounts, promotions, anniversaries, menu changes, and seasonal changes.
- Boost relevancy by incorporating holidays and current events into your emails.
- Share important updates and changes happening in your restaurant.
The price of investment in email marketing is very low, but the return is huge! When you start to incorporate emails into your marketing strategy you’ll see elevated results and be building an effective marketing channel that augments your other marketing efforts! If you haven’t started yet, now's the time!
