Lip smacking delicacies, excellent service and out of the world ambience may no longer be enough to attract footfalls at your restaurant. It’s high time that you focus on e-mail marketing so that your brand name lingers in the minds of consumers. It prompts your customers to make repeated visits at your restaurant. As per the study conducted by Mckinsey, E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined.
The highlight of e-mail marketing is that it’s quite cost effective. Irrespective of whether your restaurant is a high end or a medium sized one, you can still afford to do e-mail marketing.
6 key aspects of e-mail marketing
Build an e-mail marketing list of your own
Don’t waste your money by buying generic e-mail databases. It’s always recommended to create a list from the customers who visit your restaurant.
With the help of India’s leading digital restaurant management platforms such as inresto POS, now it’s quite easy. It offers services such as advance reservation and feedback management for customers. In the process, it collects the e-mail id of your diners. The other methods to collect e-mail id is by placing a sign-up form on your social media pages, blogs, mobile app and website. Offer incentives to diners such as 20% off on their next meal for providing their e-mail ids. Some customers may find it quite annoying to receive e-mails. Hence always tell your customers how they can opt out from the service.
Make the subject line a click bait
Keep in mind the below two points before framing the subject line of the e-mail.
i)Specify the main point of the message
ii) Establish a personal connection with the reader.
As per the survey conducted by Business 2 Community, personalised subject lines are 22.2% more likely to be opened. Keep the subject line short and original, stick to the point and keep the number of characters below 50. Use your restaurant’s official e-mail id so that diners can identify it easily.
Personalise your message
Any customer would feel more valued when you address them by your names. Hence, instead of using “Hello Sir/madam”, mention their names in the e-mail. Stick to one message per e-mail. If it’s a limited period offer, mention the expiry date as well.
If you are sending out a newsletter, mention about your signature dishes, new additions to your menu, share a recipe or a chance to meet the chef. With the help of restaurant management system’s data, track the birthdays of diners. Send an e-mail with a special discount offer, a free meal or a gift card. It helps to foster loyalty among customers.
E-mail frequency and timing is of prime importance
Never bombard your customers with frequent e-mails. The ideal number would be once or twice a week or a month at an optimal day and time.
Prune your subscriber list
Keep a track of those subscribers who don’t respond to your e-mails. Remove them from the subscribers list. However, before ending the subscription, send an e-mail and clarify the reason. Also mention the procedure for re-joining the subscriber list.
Evaluate the impact of e-mail marketing campaign
Track important metrics such as open rate and click rate of e-mails. Always keep a CTA (Click to Action) in your e-mails. Explain in simple steps how customers can act on your e-mails. For example, if your objective is to make the diner avail a deal, the mail must end with a CTA.
Parting Words
Restaurants are struggling with the challenges caused by Covid-19. Customers have become too hygiene conscious and they hesitate to visit restaurants. In this scenario, there should be some strong reasons for customers to come back to your enterprise. E-mail marketing can help you enormously in this regard and boost sales at your restaurants.
