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Email Marketing: Tips for Getting It Right

Martin | 28th February 2020

When restaurants get started with digital marketing, often the first thing they tend to look at is advertising on social media and large search platforms such as Google AdWords and Bing. Email marketing is often overlooked, even though it is a vital part of a restaurant’s overall marketing activity.

Here’s why:

  1. Gives a much more personal approach to communication with your audience than ads
  2. It is less expensive than paid campaigns on AdWords, Bing, or Social Media
  3. You can target people who have either dined at your restaurant or, have shown interest in your business
  4. It’s a valuable tool for your order direct strategy

Restaurant email marketing campaigns are intended to engage at multiple touch points throughout a diner’s journey, from targeted ordering offers and pre-order promotions, to post-dining experience email surveys and requests for restaurant reviews.

At the initial stages of creating your Email campaign ask yourself: Which emails will convert into real orders and build long-term diner relationships?

How do you measure the success of your email marketing campaigns?

There is a chain of events and steps that make your email marketing successful.

  • Ideally, your email should be opened by a large number of recipients.

Your goal here: A high open rate!

The easiest way to ensure this is to build a strong and healthy email database. You can do this by offering a discount for those who subscribe on your website – this means they’ve already been interested in your restaurant as they were on your website, and they are actively “opting in” to receive your emails.

  • Next, most recipients should click through to your link.

Your goal for this step: A high click-through rate!

The best way to ensure this is to have a clear call-to-action (Order Now-Button) – this gives the reader a clear “next step” that you want them to take, whether that’s to order online or reserve a table at your restaurant. 

  • Finally, most recipients should order from your restaurant. 

Your goal here: High Revenue!

Make it easy for your recipients to order. Always link your audience to a landing page promoting the offers in the online ordering engine that you would like to sell to them. It’s key to fulfill the promise you made in the email – don’t promote a special offer and then link to the home page where the offer isn’t visible, make the ordering process as simple as possible.

How indicative is the conversion rate of the success of your email marketing campaign?

Various factors must be taken into consideration here. The email conversion rate is relative to the number of email addresses as well as the quality of your database.

Example 1: 20 emails were sent out and 1 order  was made: Conversion rate is: 5%

Example 2: 5,000 emails were sent out and 100 orders  were made: the conversion rate is still at 2%.

The difference in both examples is most likely the conversion value you gained from the email campaign (100 orders  vs. 1).

Conclusion

Email marketing is a great way to engage with your audience and you can get your restaurant in front of them at any point of the day, anywhere. The key is to grab their attention as they’re often not focusing solely on your email.