Restaurants require their own marketing strategies-like sending Gmail mass email campaigns with personalization and segmentation.
In the last few years, restaurants have had to overcome a mountain of obstacles to stay in business. From mandatory lockdowns to social distancing protocols, the world hasn’t been kind to the restaurant industry in the last few years.
In order to make up for the road bumps that momentarily slowed down the industry, many restaurants have come to rely on marketing strategies to get the word out about their business.
One of these key strategies-and the main subject of our article for today-is email marketing. Over the last few years, email marketing has been especially beneficial for restaurants looking to encourage repeat customers to visit or to garner new customers.
We’re going to be breaking down why email marketing is so effective for restaurants and we’ll be sharing a few of the best email marketing strategies for restaurants. We’re going over all of the steps including how to find the right mass email software to send your messages and how you should design your first campaign. If you are ready to get started growing your restaurant business using email marketing, keep reading!
Why Do Restaurants Use Mass Email Marketing?
There are so many reasons why restaurants are taking advantage of Gmail mass email marketing.
Marketing is important to attract customers back to your restaurant.
Email marketing is an excellent strategy for growing your restaurant business for a number of reasons. The first-and most important reason-that email marketing is effective is because it is inexpensive and creates a high ROI.
Since small businesses are growing at a rapid rate post-COVID, it is important to have a marketing strategy that won’t break the bank but will still give you an edge over the competition. Even with a minimal marketing budget, you can create real results by sending Gmail mass emails.
Using mass email, you can reach a far wider audience and for a lower price than you can using traditional mailers. Traditional mailers can be effective-for those who still check every piece of mail-but they are high in material and printing costs. Email marketing is not only more attention grabbing than regular mailers, it is also far lower cost.
Email marketing also allows you to use any current contacts you have to build your campaign. If you ever ran a promotional campaign or a contest where your customers entered their email address, you can use those addresses to get started on your first campaign. Since the recipients have already likely visited your restaurant, they will be well primed for an email from you in their inbox.
For these reasons, and a few more that we don’t have time to discuss, Gmail mass emailing is a great way to grow your reach and enhance your branding. Next up, we’re discussing how you can get started sending mass emails as part of your restaurant marketing plan.
What Are The First Steps of Email Marketing?
If you decide to pursue email marketing, the first steps are to choose a gmail mass email tool and get started on your address list.
Owning a restaurant is challenging, but email marketing doesn’t have to be.
Before you can start finalizing your strategy and designing your messages, there are a few steps every restaurant needs to take to get started with email marketing. First up, you need to start building your address list. In email marketing, you need to hire excel experts because your address list is your most valuable asset.
An address list is a spreadsheet of all of the addresses and other personal information you have collected as part of your campaign. However, if this is your first time email marketing, you’ll have to start gathering as many addresses as possible to get started.
One of the best ways to collect addresses is by creating a pop-up on your website. Creating a pop-up for your website should be relatively simple, depending on how your website was designed. Your pop-up should offer some incentive like “Get the latest updates” or “Sign up to enter a giveaway.”
Then, your popup should have information fields for an email address, first name, last name, and any other fields you think are relevant to your campaign. Once you have collected enough information from your customer base and organized the information in a spreadsheet, you are ready to move on to the next step.
In order to send out effective mass email campaigns, you are going to need Gmail mass email tool. These tools are designed to make the process of sending out mass emails easy and intuitive for both experts and beginners alike.
Using a mass email tool, you can design your message, test your messages, create a sending schedule, execute a mail merge and more! This may sound overwhelming if you are just getting started with sending emails. Trust us, it will all come in handy in the future.
These services are generally inexpensive and are easy to master. The average Gmail mass email tool will cost anywhere from $10 to $40 per month. If you try to send out mass emails without the help of this tool, you will likely run into many issues. To avoid problems with your first campaign, a mass email tool is a necessity.
Now that we know why mass emailing is so effective and how you can get started, it’s time to take a look at some of the key strategies that will make or break your future campaigns.
Strategy #1: Personalization & Segmentation
By segmenting your address list and adding personalization elements to your messages, you’ll see impressive campaign metrics.
A personalized message helps you build trust with your customers.
If you own a restaurant, you probably have a good understanding of why people visit your restaurant. People may come for dates, birthday parties, family reunions, and a whole host of other special occasions. Because of this, not every customer will respond the same way to your email messages.
Thus, it is important to segment and personalize your campaigns for each member of your audience. You can segment your address however you would like. An easy suggestion is to segment your list into new customers and returning customers.
Once your list is segmented, you can tweak your campaign to better appeal to each group of customers. For example, first time customers may respond better to a message that has your menu included along with an offer.
For returning customers, you can probably skip including the menu and get straight to the incentive since they have already tried your food. You should also alter the body copy to address the different groups you are targeting.
In addition to list segmentation, you need to include personalization elements so that the recipient knows the message is intended for them. At minimum, you should include a first name in the subject line and the email body. If you don’t use personalization elements, it is highly likely that your messages will be reported as spam.
Think about it, If you receive an email and the message looks like it was sent at random, you are going to flag that message as spam. This is why personalization elements are so important. Consumers are far more savvy when it comes to mass emails and will no longer interact with messages that do not use personalization.
Strategy #2: Offer Incentives to Your Website Visitors
Customers respond well to personalized incentives in their inbox.
Incentives are key to keeping your audience engaged.
We touched on this briefly before, but it is important to talk a little bit more about offering value to previous customers and site visitors. Instead of sending out a newsletter or an update about your menu, offer something of real value to your target audience. Whether that be a coupon, a merchandise giveaway, or a recipe to recreate one of your signature dishes.
No matter what your incentive is, make sure that it is appealing to your segmented audience and is something you are ready to provide. Offering value to your customers is an excellent way to boost your open rate and encourage in-person visits to your restaurant.
If you do a lot of delivery or mobile orders, you can offer specialized incentives for those customers. As you run more mass email marketing campaigns, you will get a better idea of the types of incentives that appeal to your target audience.
Strategy #3: Create a Loyalty Program
Keep your customers engaged with a loyalty program and compelling targeted emails.
Reward your customers for their loyalty.
For customers who have visited your website or your brick and mortar location more than once, it is an excellent strategy to provide a reward for being a loyal customer. A loyalty program keeps customers engaged with the promise of special incentives down the line.
Most importantly, it keeps your customers engaged with your emails and your website. As customers reorder or re-visit your restaurant, they can add up points or some other type of measurement in the same way an old-fashioned punch card works. As they accumulate more points, they can unlock exclusive rewards that they can redeem at your restaurant in the future.
By combining your loyalty rewards with your mass emails, you can encourage both impressive campaign metrics and real-life conversions at the same time. Not to mention, if your rewards are enticing enough, your loyal customers may even encourage others to join the program.
These are just a few of the many restaurant-specific email marketing strategies that can be implemented to grow your business. You can try introducing these strategies one at a time once you have completed your address list and chosen your Gmail mass email tool.
From there, it is up to you to design your message and structure your full campaign. With the right tactics and help from your mass email tool, you can start seeing excellent results from your mass email campaigns.
