Winning the Customer Game: Email Marketing Tactics to Boost Your Restaurant's Reach

Attracting and retaining customers can really feel like a lottery sometimes, especially for restaurant owners. You can never predict when your regulars will suddenly move away, become too busy to dine out, or develop an allergy to a key ingredient at your business.

When you face these uncertainties, the best thing to do is focus on the things you cancontrol.

This is where robust email marketing tactics come in handy. They help you take back control of the customer game, turning occasional visitors into regulars and helping enjoyers of your cuisine connect with your restaurant.

Read on to learn how to harness the power of email marketing to reach more people meaningfully.

The impact of email marketing on restaurants

If you live in a very small village where you’re the only restaurant for miles, you may be able to get by without actively marketing your services. But that very specific situation isn’t the reality for most restaurants--which is why it’s so important to make sure that as many people as possible hear about your wonderful restaurant.

More specifically, your customers (and leads) should know all about you long before they set foot in your restaurant, and you can make this happen using email marketing tactics.

Your emails have the power to influence people’s opinions. They can be used to offer special deals or discounts to loyal subscribers; they can help you get the word out when you add a new dish to your menu; they can create a sense of exclusivity and privilege for those who read them.

In short, email marketing can help you build your brand and expand your customer base.

Email marketing tactics to boost your restaurant's reach

In much the same way that using call center outsourcing to let your business help more customers each day can transform your brand reputation for the better, deploying the right email marketing tactics lets you massively expand your restaurant’s reach.

In order to start you off on the right foot, we’ll walk you through some of the most notable tactics and show you how you can make them work for your company. 

Segment your email list to send personalized campaigns

Email marketing does not follow a one-size-fits-all principle. Instead of sending generic emails to all your customers, consider splitting your email list into distinct categories, each of which influences the kinds of messages you send out.

For example, you might segment your list by location. This would let you approach customers in area code 747 differently from those in other areas, such as by commenting on recent weather patterns or offering tailored suggestions and deals.

The means by which you split up your email list needs to work for your specific restaurant. Maybe you’d like to have separate campaigns for people who regularly visit versus rarely, for example, or you’d like to segment by eating preferences (vegetarians vs. vegans vs. omnivores). 

Send a warm welcome email to new subscribers

Customers love to feel like they’re being valued as individuals and like they’re more to you than a number on a list. You can add this personal touch by means of a warm welcome email.

Any customer who’s new to your email list should always feel like you’ve gone out of your way to express your gratitude and/or excitement to them. While something very simple like ‘welcome to this email list’ lets you acknowledge them, it doesn’t warmly welcomethem, and that makes all the difference.

A well-crafted warm welcome email needs to take the place of a big smile and friendly handshake, so to speak. Something heartfelt, like ‘we’re so excited to have you here,’ goes a long way towards making customers happy and humanizing your business.

Craft eye-catching visuals and compelling subject lines

Imagine this: you get two emails from restaurants near you. One has a subject line that reads ‘special deals for you: delicious new meals for less!’, while the other’s subject line says ‘new deals available.’ Which would you be more likely to click?

If you said the first one, you wouldn’t be alone. A compelling subject line can go a long way toward getting your emails seen by more people, which in turn expands your reach.

Once your customers open your emails, you want them to keep reading. Great visuals are crucial here; a generic drawing of someone eating a nondescript meal isn’t enough. You must appeal to customers’ sense of aesthetics to keep their attention.

Showcase seasonal menus or limited-time dishes

Customers love a special opportunity that won’t be around forever. Seasonal and limited-time dishes help create a sense of urgency, which drives customers to book a table sooner rather than later.

Your time-sensitive offers also need to connect with what customers are looking for. Winter holiday dishes, for example, are unlikely to be popular before Halloween but are highly sought-after once the colder weather hits.

Provide exclusive offers and loyalty programs

Being on your email list needs to offer customers some form of unique advantage, as this serves as an incentive for subscribers to stay subscribed. One great example of these advantages includes special offers and loyalty programs.

These offers reward people for eating at your restaurant more often in the case of loyalty programs. As for exclusive offers, these are like treats only available to people who both subscribe to and, crucially, read your emails.

It’s also important to note that the offers you extend should get better for longer-term customers, as this encourages customers to keep coming by. It also shows you care for the people who stick around, as you directly reward them for their patronage.

Send targeted emails at optimal times

Broadly speaking, there are optimal times when people are more likely to check and read their emails, just as there are low times when emails will get ignored.

You’ll want to attune your strategy to these times so that your emails do more than sit in people’s inboxes. Moreover, your targeted emails should be sent at times that specifically suit your targets and their schedules. 

Optimize emails for various screen sizes and devices

Not everyone always has a laptop available, and not every mobile device has a screen of the same size. You’ve got to bear this in mind as you approach email marketing.

Your emails should be comfortable to look at regardless of the device that’s being used to access them. This means optimizing them in different ways so everyone gets an equally good experience and no one feels left out or frustrated.

Cross-promote your email campaigns on social media

Never underestimate the power of social media and its associated food influencers. A well-placed promotional post on an influencer’s Instagram page can help you reach tons of new customers, particularly when they’ve already encountered similar content in your email campaigns.

Your promotions should be cross-platform efforts. This helps you include and reach more people while ensuring you can drive more traffic to your restaurant. Plus, if your social media posts encourage people to sign up for your email list, you can expand your reach this way.

Encourage customer feedback with enticing incentives

Few kinds of data are more important than customer feedback--this is why any good contact call center provides plenty of avenues for customers to leave it. Taking customer suggestions on board helps you show that you’re listening while also letting you tailor your approach to the literal, stated wishes of the people you’re trying to draw in.

Your emails are a great place to collect and encourage customer feedback. By offering rewards like discounts and special promotions to anyone who responds to an email with feedback, you can help prompt your customers to tell you what they think and how they feel about you.

Use analytics tools to track and measure key metrics

One of the most useful technology for your restaurant lies in analytics tools. These help you gather and process data, which lets you track your performance in a very literal and informative sense.

First, you’ll want to establish which metrics you’re interested in tracking. Do you want to know when your customers read their emails? Or which emails are the most successful? Or maybe what sort of customers respond best to which email marketing tactics?

Be sure to choose analytics tools that can effectively target the metrics you’re after, so you can gauge your performance in the ways that matter most to you.

Key takeaways

Email marketing helps you reach more customers and create regulars who can’t get enough of your restaurant. The tactics we’ve covered above let you achieve these results, securing success for your restaurant and allowing you to delight customers at every turn.

One important fact to highlight is that quality continues to be more important than quantity, even where reach is concerned. It’s better to, for example, use email marketing tactics to reach 15 new people who absolutely love your restaurant than to send emails to 150 people who are neutral at best.

So, in other words, prioritize the customers who engage with and enjoy your content and your cooking. Analytics tools help you do this effectively, ensuring you continue to draw in new leads without losing the customers who already love you.