Restaurant Email Marketing Guide
What do independently-owned restaurants and giant corporate chains have in common in their marketing methods? Many restaurants in either category use email marketing for their business. Despite the popularity of social media, email marketing is still one of the most reliable methods for growing your business. Once your business and website are up and running, it's time to start email marketing.
Why Use Email Marketing for Your Restaurant?
Market in a Cost-Effective Way
Email marketing helps you engage with customers, advertise your restaurant's offers, and cultivate your existing customer base. It's also an affordable marketing method that you can implement almost immediately. Statistics show that it's easier to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones. Email marketing is a way to reach out to your customers, letting them know you value their business, and give them reasons to come back again and again. It's 50% cheaper to sell to your existing customers, according to Marketing Metrics, and the Gartner Group found that 80% of your business' future revenue comes from 20% of your existing customers. If you want to focus a good deal of your time and money on marketing, it's better to consider retaining your current customers than attracting new ones. This is why email is such a popular and powerful marketing tool. All your customers have to do is give you an email address, and you'll do the rest with updates, offers, and more.
Advertise Yourself Consistently
Email marketing for your restaurant is also a great way to advertise your restaurant consistently, by featuring updates on your restaurant. Customers can be informed of the new or seasonal dishes you're offering, so they're enticed to try something different. You may also offer email-only coupons for a discount or Buy Get 1 Get Free offer.
Offer a Personalized Approach
Email marketing lets you take a personalized approach, speaking directly to your customer. Social media marketing targets everyone but email marketing lets you target customers who have been in your restaurant before. You're able to send emails that remind your customers of your brand and your brand personality repeatedly, but also offer them a bonus, such as a discount or news about a promotion. You can establish a more personalized relationship with birthday coupons and other details that reveal a personal touch.
How to Launch an Effective Email Marketing Campaign
Don't Become Spam
When marketing your restaurant, you need to keep a few things in mind. While email is effective, too many emails aren't effective at all. Your customers won't want to receive an email daily, no matter how great your specials may be! Do this, and you risked being flagged as “spam.”
Considering an Email Campaign Service
There are several email marketing services available including Aweber, ConstantContact and Mailchimp. However, you may come across other small businesses using an Outlook or Apple Mail account to just BCC a large number of subscribers at once. This practice is never recommended for restaurants, because not only isn't it professional, but it also doesn't offer many benefits to the business.
If you opt to use a service, you'll be able to use tools that help you schedule emails and measure the effectiveness of your campaign. With these services, you can study analytics to see when an email was opened and whether any links were clicked. You'll also be able to use templates, instead of creating your own emails from scratch; the templates let you include images, links, headings, and more, which makes your messages more attractive to your clients. To decide which service you need, investigate the cost, features, and limits for each.
Your restaurant may engage in multiple options including social media, commercials, print marketing and more, but you shouldn't forget to market to the customers you already have. Email marketing lets you do this and so much more.
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