Do's and Don'ts of E-mail Marketing For Restaurants

Your most powerful marketing tool may be sitting by the cash register. That's right, your trusty business card collecting fishbowl can be the center of your restaurants digital marketing campaign.  Is your restaurant taking full advantage of your fishbowl's marketing potential?

E-mail is cheap, fast, and it's easy. And when done right, it's very lucrative. Follow these simple guidelines when dropping your message into their digital inbox.

The Do's

Do e-mail valuable coupons/specials.Your customers don't care that your restaurant's four and half year anniversary is coming up. What's in it for them?

Do allow them to remove their name from your list.If you don't your e-mail will be considered spam, and the only thing people like less than spam is people who send them spam.

Do allow customers to sign up in multiple ways.  Aside from that fishbowl, your POS system, website, and online ordering system should all be able to collect e-mail addresses and customer information.

The Don'ts

Don't send a plain text e-mail. Unless your sign reads, Cousin Vinny's Pizza and Bait Shop, a boring text only e-mail will not cut it for your customers. Setup a branded template and use colorful graphics where possible. Frankly, even Cousin Vinny's customers deserve better.

Don't e-mail too often or not often enough. It's like phone calls while dating. Call too often and you sound desperate. Too infrequently, and you seem disinterested. Pick a campaign schedule and stick to it or your customers will cheat on you with that sexy new restaurant down the street.

Don't send it at the wrong times. Studies show that the best time to send that kind of e-mail is right before lunch. We also recommend avoiding Mondays since that's when most people clean their inbox then from the weekend overflow.