As their customers get more comfortable online, restaurants have to find new ways to reach them. Email marketing has become an invaluable tool for businesses. Building a listserv to send out digital newsletters enables you to put targeted campaigns directly in your best customers’ inboxes. Done right, they’re guaranteed to view and buy what you have to offer.
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Exemplify your brand in every email marketing campaign you send out. When you create outstanding newsletters. Whether you’re offering excluding discounts and deals, or giving them sneak previews into and input on new menu items, email marketing takes your restaurant to the next level.
An Introduction to Email Marketing
You can’t send these offers out to just anyone. First, find your specific target audience—the demographic who will be most interested in what you have to say. Refer to your Point of Sale data and analytics to see who your best customers are: Families with young kids? College students between classes? Twenty-somethings on date night? With this information, you can create content honed to their interests so views are more likely to convert to sales. You can’t gain mass appeal, but you can become hugely popular amongst regulars.
Modern technology even lets you automate when the newsletters go out, saving time and labor, especially if you’re usually busy when it’s to run campaigns. You may have to experiment to find when you get the most clicks and conversions. Regardless, you can’t stop some people from unsubscribing but that also doesn’t necessarily mean losing a customer. They may just want to clean out their inbox, but still come by regularly when they’re craving the house special.
Segmenting Your Audience
Maybe you don’t have just one demographic to pare down to. Perhaps you see an influx of kids after their Saturday baseball practice, but during the week you’re favored by senior citizens for your early bird specials. You may want to create two separate email marketing campaigns: A monthly newsletter for the baseball teams that offer big savings on pizza, and a weekly one for your more regular crowd advertising endless pasta on Wednesday nights.
It all comes back to what your guests want. Mockup different buyer personas that encompass the core characteristics of your different audience segments. Then you can imagine catering to the interests of that “buyer” when making your campaigns. Give them exactly what they want, and you’ll see loyalty and follower count increase. Even automate the emails to go out at different times depending on which segment they’re intended for, since the optimal time for busy soccer moms to click coupons may not be when your more senior guests check email.
Thankfully, once you have a template for how you want your marketing emails to look, it’s a faster process to just fill in the blank spaces with relevant, timely content whenever you’re ready to send another newsletter.
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Use Your Point of Sale for Email Marketing
Consequently, for the most successful email marketing, upgrade to a smarter Point of Sale like the one powered by eatOS. For example, you can connect their customer profiles to their emails on the listserv so their discounts and rewards points automatically apply the next time they order. When you fill your restaurant with smart technology, your efficiency increases—and so does your customer satisfaction and profitability.
eatOS offers an all-in-one cloud-based eco-system exclusively for restaurants. From Point of Sale to Contactless Ordering, Pay & Order at Table, Kitchen Display System, Customer Facing Display, Online Ordering APP / Website and Workforce Management there is everything to help a restaurant succeed no matter the size. Click Here to Schedule a demo to learn more about how your restaurant can make a smooth transition into the world of restaurant technology made simple.
