In a recent email marketing statistics report by Statista, the global number of email users in 2022 reached 4.26 billion and is projected to grow by 4.73 billion in 2026.
This only means that sending consistent restaurant newsletters is set to be one of the most effective promotional ways to drive business sales to new heights.
This digital tool guarantees a direct connection to your customers, builds trust and loyalty to your restaurant, and drives traffic both offline and online.
By sending out valuable information on your menu updates, promotions, and other changes, such as adapting technologies like a QR code menu software, fostering a sense of community and affinity towards your business is assured.
In this article, we shall delve more into this marketing tool and how you’ll be able to make an effective one for your restaurant.
What’s a restaurant newsletter?
Newsletters are periodically sent out email communications that a restaurant forwards to its subscribers or anyone who wants to receive updates from the business.
These serve as a marketing tool to keep your target audience informed about the latest news, events, promotions, offerings, and restaurant technology additions.
These may also include a variety of content that engages the readers to take action, driving traffic and ultimately increasing sales.
5 striking benefits of a restaurant newsletter
Having direct communication with your customers
One notable benefit of having a newsletter is it serves as your direct line of communication between your restaurant and customers.
Unlike traditional marketing, such as giving custom flyers, brochures, and other printed promotional materials that can be easily forgotten or thrown away, your newsletter sits directly in your patrons’ inboxes, ensuring that your message receives attention.
You can keep your business top-of-mind with your guests by consistently providing them with interesting material, such as updates on your menu specials, upcoming events, or exclusive discounts.
Building customer loyalty
Consistency in communication with your customers through newsletters is essential to cultivating a sense of community and loyalty among them.
You can create a personal connection with your target audience by sharing behind-the-scenes stories, interviews with your chefs, recipes, or cooking tutorials.
This makes them feel engaged and valued as you display an effort to inform them about the changes you make—how small these may seem.
It will eventually grow a loyal customer base that can serve as advocates for your restaurant.
Showcasing special offers and promotions
Your newsletter is the ideal platform to highlight your special offers and promotions.
Whether it’s a limited-time menu item, a happy hour deal, or holiday-themed promos, it can guarantee an immediate sale for your restaurant.
By creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity, you can encourage your subscribers to act quickly, making it possible to have high foot traffic and higher sales during the promotional period.
Collecting valuable data from your restaurant newsletter
With your well-designed newsletter, you can get informed insights about your customers’ preferences and behavior.
You can track metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and redemption rates for offers, gaining feedback on what resonates most with your audience.
This data can help you upgrade your marketing strategies, align messaging, and offer better to meet your patron needs.
Driving traffic to your online platforms
In addition to driving foot traffic in your physical store, this can also help you boost engagement on your social media for restaurants and website platforms.
All you need to do is include the links to your web page, online ordering platforms, and social media pages within your newsletters.
This makes them visible to subscribers so they can engage with your brand across multiple channels.
This will not only increase your online visibility but also give you additional opportunities to interact with your audience in a meaningful way.
List of key components of a successful restaurant email newsletter
Eye-catching subject lines
The subject line is the first thing recipients see, so it has to catch their attention while being relevant to the content of your newsletter.
In recent statistics by Finances Online—a review platform for B2B, SaaS, and financial solutions—it was revealed that 47% of email recipients decide to open emails based on their subject lines.
This percentage supports the importance of crafting your subject line meticulously.
Here are a few things to remember :
- It should be relevant to your content
Make sure that your subject line is coherent with the information you want to convey to your audience.
This can give them an idea of what the whole message is about.
- Put a personalized touch to it
Using the recipient’s name or adding their past interactions with your restaurant can make the subject line feel more personal and can potentially increase the likelihood of engagement.
- Make clear and concise messaging
Keep your subject line clear, concise, and direct to the point.
Avoid using long or vague sentences that leave recipients guessing about the content of the email.
Clearly communicate the value of opening the email, whether a special offer or a menu update.
Compelling content
According to the 2022 Content Marketing Institute, 81% of B2B marketers used email newsletters for their content marketing.
This indicates its effectiveness as a marketing tool, reaching the targeted audience effortlessly.
But in order to maximize its potential, you have to consider that the main body of your newsletter includes content that is informative, entertaining, and valuable to your readers.
Keep in mind it should resonate with your audience’s interests and preferences so that you can foster a stronger connection with them.
It should not only entertain and inform them but also motivate your readers to take action; may it be making reservations, trying out a new menu item, or attending an event, it should inspire them to engage with your business.
For instance, you can share updates about your restaurant, such as behind-the-scenes stories, updates on your restaurant, recipes, exclusive offers and promotions, etc.
By incorporating these, you can create a compelling communication channel that can ultimately boost sales for your restaurant.
Visually appealing design and layout
Accomodate to the sensory experience of your target audience.
Incorporating images, graphics, and even videos can enhance the visual appeal of your newsletter and make it more engaging for your readers.
Make sure that your visual elements complement your content, which can help you convey your restaurant branding effectively.
Mobile responsive restaurant newsletter
With over 1 billion mobile email users as of 2023, it’s just essential to ensure that your newsletter is optimized for mobile viewing.
This means you have to have a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes and that the buttons and links are easily clickable on touchscreens.
Clear call to action (CTA)
Every newsletter should include a clear call to action, prompting readers to take the desired next step.
Whether it’s prompting them to make a reservation, place an online order, redeem a special offer, or connect with your restaurant on social media, a well-crafted CTA can urge them to take action.
To ensure its effectiveness, it should be prominently displayed, using compelling language that communicates the value or benefit of the phrase.
Additionally, your CTA should be easy to act upon and can direct users to the desired destination.
Integration with social media and website
This is one of the effective restaurant marketing tools that will allow you to leverage multiple channels to reach a broader audience.
By encouraging newsletter subscribers to follow your restaurant on social media and visit your website, you can extend your engagement with potential customers from various platforms.
Aside from that, integrating social media and websites sets an avenue for cross-promotion of anything about your restaurant, which guarantees to drive sign-ups and expand your subscriber base.
5 best practices for distributing the newsletter effectively
Choose a reliable email marketing platform
Having reliable email marketing platforms like Hubspot and Mailchimp takes the hassle out of distributing your newsletters.
These platforms ensure that your emails will reach the inboxes of your subscribers with their expertise in navigating spam filters.
Additionally, these offer drag-and-drop and pre-designed templates to build professional-looking newsletters effortlessly, saving you time and effort.
They can also handle subscriber signups, list segmentation, and unsubscribe requests efficiently, keeping your data organized.
Maintain a consistent sending schedule
It’s critical to stick to a regular email distribution schedule if you want to make sure that your newsletter is engaging your audience and generating results for your business.
Consistency creates anticipation, fosters confidence, and keeps your brand at the forefront of subscribers’ minds.
You can expedite the process and guarantee a continuous flow of communication by establishing a frequency of sending emails that correspond with your content calendar and audience preferences.
Monitor open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics
This is a great practice to evaluate the effectiveness of your newsletter campaigns and make data-driven decisions to optimize performance.
Open rates provide you with a percentage of recipients who opened your email, while click-through rates show how engaged and interested they were in your content.
Other metrics, such as bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, and conversion rates, give you valuable insights into the overall health and performance of your email campaigns.
Regularly monitoring these rates and analyzing trends can identify areas for improvement, refine your content strategy, and align your sending schedule to maximize engagement and drive results for your restaurant.
Regularly update your subscriber list
Over time, your subscribers may change their email addresses, unsubscribe, or become inactive.
So, it’s important that you update your subscriber list to make sure that you have accurate and up-to-date contact information for your audience,
This aims to improve the deliverability of your emails.
Comply with data protection regulations
Only send newsletters to individuals who have explicitly opted in to receive communications from your business.
Remember to use clear language to obtain consent and provide options for your subscribers to manage their preferences easily.
Don’t forget to respect their privacy rights under the data protection regulations, including the right to access, correct, or delete their personal information.
Provide direct instructions for them to exercise these rights and promptly respond to any requests in accordance with the applicable laws.
Common mistakes to watch out for in making the best restaurant newsletter deployment effective
Overwhelming subscribers with too many emails
Subscribers with too many emails can have negative consequences for the overall engagement of your restaurant review newsletter.
This can lead to subscriber fatigue where recipients become disengaged from your content. Gradually, it can result in lower open rates, click-through rates, and overall engagement metrics.
Also, when they feel overwhelmed with emails, they may potentially choose to unsubscribe from your newsletter or mark your emails as spam.
It will not only reduce your subscriber base but also harm your sender’s reputation.
Neglecting to personalize content
If you happen to skip this part in your process, it will decrease the relevance and miss opportunities to connect with your target audience on a deeper level.
Personalized content resonates more strongly with recipients because it speaks directly to their needs, interests, and choices.
By aligning your content to individual subscriber profiles, you’ll be able to deliver information that is highly relevant and useful to them.
Failing to optimize for mobile devices
If you don’t optimize your newsletter for mobile devices, it can result in a poor user experience.
Since mobile devices account for the majority of email opens, optimization of your marketing materials must be given top priority if you want to reach your audience effectively.
Ignoring the presence of mobile users can potentially cut down a significant portion of your subscriber base and diminish the impact of your newsletter campaigns.
Ignoring analytics and feedback
This can lead to a missed opportunity for you to understand the impact of your email marketing efforts and to improve the overall performance of your campaigns.
You see, analytics can provide you with valuable quantitative insights into how your newsletters are performing. If you disregard this data, there’s a risk of continuing with strategies that may not be resonating with your readers or driving the desired actions.
Similarly, ignoring feedback from your customers deprives you of acquiring qualitative information that contains their pain points and other interests.
You may not be able to create content that speaks to them.
How to use your QR code menu software to generate an email list
Who would not want software that not only streamlines your operations but can also become an assistant in email marketing?
That’s what QR code menu software, like MENU TIGER, offers to the restaurant industry. It’s an all-around technology that helps you achieve excellent service and effective promotion.
So, to effortlessly make an email list for your patrons, here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can use this:
Visit the MENU TIGER website
If you don’t have an account yet, here’s what you’re going to do:
- Add your active email and phone number
- Input your food items by choosing MENU on the left side of the dashboard
- Explore other tools on the left side of the panel for its other features.
Select the Website section on the left side menu of the dashboard
Create, edit, and design your website according to your restaurant’s branding.
With this feature, you can easily personalize your virtual menu without the need to go through complex coding.
All you have to do is put the information about your restaurant that is valuable to your customers, and it automatically generates your own webpage.
Choose the Newsletter option
Customize the heading and description of your newsletter as well as the language you’re going to use.
This will automatically reflect on your digital menu.
Click the mobile icon located at the upper right corner
Click the mobile icon to check its preview on phones or tablets.
You’ll get access to your website and be able to assess how it looks on your customers’ devices.
As you scroll down, there’s a section dedicated to their email addresses, phone numbers, and other information if they want to get updated with the changes you make in your business or just to get to know more about it.
This is one of the notable benefits of QR code menu software that makes marketing initiatives easier.
MENU TIGER: Leverage this QR code menu software to boost your marketing efforts
Having an all-around platform where you can effectively distribute your restaurant newsletter is a huge help to decongest your heavy schedule.
Furthermore, there’s no need for you to worry if you’re still exploring your way into this because MENU TIGER digital menu QR code software is designed to help you out.
With its user-friendly interface, it’s the best way to start.
Let’s boost your sales by creating a newsletter that piques the interest of your target audience.
