The Restaurant’s Guide to Email Marketing
Welcome to your guide to email marketing
Consistently communicating with guests is key to repeat business. One easy way to do that? Email marketing.
Now, we know what you might be thinking, with all the flashy marketing channels available (i.e., TikTok, Instagram, etc.) email might seem a little too simple—but, sometimes the best dishes are made with the simplest ingredients, right? In fact, email marketing remains one of the top ways to connect with and market to consumers…and just like crafting the perfect dish, there is an art to it! In this guide, we cover the basics of creating a content calendar, writing tasty subject lines and craveable content, measuring marketing success—and how technology can help with all of it.
So, whether your goals are to attract new guests, grow sales, cultivate more guest loyalty, or just share what’s new on your menu, we’ve got all the email tips you need to entice guests through the front door.
Sending emails to guests is one of the fastest, easiest, and most effective ways to grow revenue. Yet, 1 in 3 restaurants never send them.
First things first, email works…and guests are hungry for it!
of guests said they are likely to join a mailing list to receive email/text offers from restaurants they like
said they want to hear from their favorite restaurants at least once a week
The proof is in the…pizza
The potential value of a single guest
In 18 months, GIOIA sent 49 emails (39 sent automatically) to one guest, resulting in 101 orders and $5,700+ in revenue.
With the help of email, GIOIA earned $897,000 in commission-free online ordering revenue in 2022.
Getting started
Capture the most important ingredient…
The number one thing you need to build a successful email campaign is, well, a guest’s email.
Now, you can automatically capture (and store) email addresses and other contact info from guests straight from your website.
There are a number of ways you can easily capture critical info:
Encourage guests to submit a review for a chance to win $500. When they leave a review, they leave their email too!
Similar to reviews, capture guest info when they like an individual dish or place an online order.
Exclusivity goes a long way…entice guests into becoming a VIP follower to receive special offers, secret menus, and more.
PopTip!
Capturing guest order history and preferences on top of email not only enables you to stay in contact with emails, announcements and promotions, it also allows you to get more personalized with what you’re sending. Shameless plug: Popmenu does this automatically and makes it easy!
Putting it into action
Plan your communications
Once you have a guest’s email, how often should you reach out? For email marketing the rule of thumb is sending 2-4 emails per month, depending on the quality and relevance of content you’re sharing.
What do we mean by relevant, quality content?
Offers, new menu changes, upcoming events, live music schedules, and anything else you think guests will love! We’ll talk more about the specifics of content creation in a few pages…
PopTip!
The number one reason why people unsubscribe from emails is due to receiving too many from one sender too often.
Plan your communications
Creating an email content calendar
Planning a content calendar might sound a bit daunting but it’s actually pretty simple:
Start by looking at a calendar. Then, drop in key dates and recurring theme nights (like wine dinners, half-priced appetizer night, etc.), offers you’re running, and any operational changes you might have coming up (like holiday hours).
Once your calendar is planned out from an operations standpoint, you can layer your communications on top of it. Have a wine pairing dinner planned for Thursday, why not send an email to promote on that Tuesday? Got a great live music lineup for the weekend? Share the schedule and invite guests in!
Plan your content with Artificial Intelligence
As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow across industries, so do automation capabilities. In fact, AI can actually help you build and plan marketing content—saving time and helping to hit revenue goals without increasing manual efforts.
Product peek: Popmenu’s new AI Marketing product automatically plans your content calendar, suggesting and creating emails, texts, and social media posts based on guest behavior, new reviews, upcoming events, new menu items, etc.—all that’s left to do is edit (if you want) and approve.
Time for the creative
Create quality content
Being creative in the kitchen is tough enough, so when it comes to being creative with marketing…Imagine you’re standing at a table, what would highlight for your dining guests?
Guests want to hear information that serves them in some way.
What do guests want to see in restaurant emails?
New and exciting offerings
Special events
Unique menus or menu items
Holiday specials
Discounts/promos
Updates to operations
The anatomy of a quality email.
Eye-catching header
Appetizing image
Hook
Body text
Body CTA
Button
Pro Tip! Include offers whenever possible
Libby’s Neighborhood Brasserie identified Monday and Tuesday as slow ordering days, so they instituted a 35% off discount deal for Monday and Tuesday for the summer.
The offer earned them nearly $20,000 in revenue in just one month. Bonus: Monday and Tuesday are now their busiest ordering days.
Make marketing smarter
Automate whenever and wherever you can
How do you know what to send? Or when to send it? How do we catch a guest’s attention at the right time? Well…automation helps.
Think about what happens after you make a purchase online—a “thank you” email lands in your inbox right? Then two days later, you get another one gently encouraging you toward another purchase. These emails are automatically triggered to send based on your browsing and purchase behavior. Guess what, the same can work for restaurants!
Automate Emails
Your automated email marketing tools use info like new VIP signups, dish likes, and past online orders to send personalized emails automatically—so every new VIP follower gets a proper greeting, every order they place is followed by a reminder to leave a review, loyal guests earn rewards, and a previous guest receives a special offer inviting them back to dine at your restaurant again.
Ocean State Sandwich company uses automated emails to welcome new VIP followers, celebrate birthdays, encourage new reviews, and inform guests of restaurant happenings.
The restaurant has netted nearly $48,000 in online ordering from their marketing efforts, with $17,000 of that being driven by automated emails.
That’s $17,000 in revenue without lifting a finger.
Measure success
Track what’s working
While the term "data" may seem as dry as an overcooked Thanksgiving turkey, it's actually the secret ingredient that adds flavor to your marketing efforts. It holds the answer to the burning question: "Is what I'm doing actually working?"
When we look at data holistically, we can better track how every touchpoint and guest interaction translates to orders placed and revenue earned. Does a 5% offer on a slow day drive more orders? What about an email inviting guests to make a reservation for happy hour? When we can better answer questions like these, we can replicate what’s working and iterate on what isn’t.
Get started with tracking
Email marketing metrics.
Taking a closer look at email marketing, there are three standard benchmarks you can track:
- Open rate: how many people opened the email.
- Click-through rate: how many people clicked on the email and took the desired action (e.g., placed an order, made a reservation, etc.).
- Unsubscribe rate: how many people opted out of receiving future communication from you.
Going deeper with data
Questions to ask your data:
First, ask: Do I know how much of my revenue can be attributed to marketing?
Then: If not, what tools do you need to start connecting marketing activities to revenue?
First, ask: How does marketing influence online ordering?
Then: Identify what made those messages stand out and experiment with future efforts.
Put it into practice
Start looking for patterns in the data. Do you have a day of the week with an ordering slump? Try creating an offer or setting a campaign to entice guests to order during that off day and turn your least profitable day into your most profitable!
