Stay in contact with your customers through our restaurant email marketing solution just for restaurant owners!
In the restaurant business, there are two important kinds of customers: new customers and returning customers. You have a special goal with each customer. You want to turn new customers into returning customers by impressing them on their first visit and giving them reasons to return; you want to keep impressing your returning customers so that they keep coming back. Restaurant email marketing is a powerful tool to help you accomplish those two tasks. Most people check their email more than they check their voice mail or house mail. Email is a valuable way to put your restaurant marketing ideas into play.
Restaurant Email Marketing: Building a Connection
People react different ways to email marketing campaign. Some people will sign up for anything that even remote sounds like discount. Others guard their email addresses like their social security numbers because of acute spamophobia. This second group presents a challenge in starting up an email connection. There are some ways to overcome their fear and bring them into your restaurant email marketing circle.
- Make it simple. Whether you use a paper form or electronic sign-up (or both!), remove distractions like long forms, detailed personal information requests, and multi-step processes.
- Make it fun. Don’t offer them “email marketing” – offer a “diner’s club,” a “foodie network,” or an “elite membership” at your restaurant.
- Make it worthwhile. Offer a free appetizer or dessert just for signing up and joining your club.
Restaurant Email Marketing: Maintaining the Relationship
Once you’ve made the connection, you need to work to keep it. This is where the first group – the “sign me up for anything” folks – presents a challenge. You need to make your email marketing interesting to them, or you’ll get lost in the deluge of marketing emails they receive every day. Sending your messages to their Trash folder doesn’t do any good. Here are some tips for keeping your customers’ interest in your emails:
- Make it simple. One image, one headline, one offer, one coupon – don’t confuse them with a full website’s worth of information in a single email.
- Make it fun. Keep the design consistent, attractive, and appropriate for your restaurant. Give them an email they like to look at, not a dull plain text message.
- Make it worthwhile. Keep giving them something they want: reward points for frequent visits, free desserts or appetizers, or news about upcoming specials and discounts.
Getting new customers and keeping old ones – these actions present unique challenges to restaurant owners. Restaurant email marketing is a great way to meet those challenges.