Automated email marketing for restaurants

Benefits of email marketing campaigns for restaurants

2023/05/11

By Nadine Hashem

With thousands of restaurants, standing out among competitors is not easy and takes lots of effort even if you own one of the biggest chains.

Luckily, you have various ways of marketing that you can use and reach out to your customers on different occasions and for different reasons.

Email marketing might be a bit left out among other marketing tools, especially after social media pages and the interactions that occur on restaurants’ pages.

Professionals may have announced the death of email marketing due to social media marketing. This is applicable if the content of automated email marketing lacks relevance to the subscribers.

If the automated email campaigns contain interesting content, it is up to 40 times more effective than social media, according to a study done by McKinsey & Company that also shows that the buying process occurs 3 times faster than in social media.

What are automated email campaigns?

Automated emails are set up to be sent regularly to subscribers and particular individuals on specific events such as their birthdays or their reward program.

It takes place when an email service provider automatically sends emails to customers and prospects depending on certain criteria and behaviors or as a response to a specific trigger.

Sending welcome emails to new subscribers occurs when you set up an automatic email to new sign-ups with a specific message and a link to a discount or welcome coupon or any helpful links.

What are the benefits of restaurant marketing automation?

Drive more traffic to your website

When email campaigns have intriguing subject lines and an effective call for action with a direct link to your website, subscribers are more likely to visit your website without performing a Google search and before you even attempt to pay to be listed on Google. Don’t use more than 12 words in your subject line to increase your open rates. Words like free delivery, free, limited offer for instance increase open rates.

Pizza Hut once used the subject line to market their item: Crispy, dip-able and stacked with flavor!

The subject line is short, attractive, and straightforward.

Improve customer experience and strengthen customer loyalty

Whether it’s a welcome email or a secret ingredient for a popular recipe or tips on how to benefit the maximum of their points, automated emails boost customer experience and increase their satisfaction.

Keeping a bond with your customers and sending them customized emails on their birthday enhance their loyalty especially when you encourage them to sign up for reward programs and include a small free coupon as they first sign up.

Generate more revenues

Reminding subscribers of your restaurant keeps you on their mind whenever they’re looking for a restaurant which increases their chance to visit you.

Sending automated emails to redeem the points, get a free dessert, or enjoy a 15% discount, for instance, enables you to grasp more sales opportunities that might be forgotten without the emails.

A study shows that email marketing has an average return on investment (ROI) of 122% and an average click-through rate of 3.71%, proving that email marketing is a powerful tool that increases your sales.

Establish your restaurant branding

Automated emails offer you the chance to introduce yourself to your prospects and targeted audience. They help you communicate your culture, mission, and values to your audience so they can find common values with your business in a way that brings them closer to your restaurant.

Segmenting your audience is a critical part of choosing your audience so you can create a bigger chance of targeting people who are interested in your offerings and concept.

Eliminate manual processes

You can send emails to thousands of people with automated email campaigns without any effort of setting up information manually.

It’s a more effective and efficient way to handle email marketing since you’re eliminating the human intervention that might result in more human errors.

With set-up templates and content for different feeds, it becomes easier to customize emails to the needs of each customer to improve their engagement.

Important tips to remember when starting email campaigns

Leave a first positive impression

After finding the marketing tool that is tailored to your marketing needs and segmenting your audience, make sure your first email leaves a positive impression with a professional email design that encourages prospects to read the email and subscribe or act upon your call-to-action instructions.

Don’t complicate the subscription process

You aim to increase your mailing list to increase the chances of people visiting your restaurant, so asking for too much information or making it hard to find your subscription info or link will lessen your opportunities of growing your list and reaching more people.

Test your emails

You don’t want your emails to end up in the junk folder!

Test your emails before sending them to increase your open rates and keep customers engaged. Businesses that test their emails receive a 28% higher ROI.

Email marketing campaigns are a very cost-effective way of increasing your brand awareness and growing your market if used effectively.

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