Email Marketing for Restaurants: A Beginner’s Guide

Running a restaurant is more than just serving great food – it’s about building relationships that turn first-time guests into regulars. One of the easiest (and most cost-effective) ways to stay on your diners’ radar? Email marketing. A well-timed newsletter can bring customers back through your doors, fill your dining room, and keep the buzz alive around your specials and events.

Crafting a great restaurant newsletter takes more time than just announcing the specials of the day – you need mouthwatering food photos, strategic promotions, and compelling calls to action.

Keep reading for tips on how to get started with email marketing so that your restaurant gets diners coming back again and again.

Build Your Email List & Keep It Updated

Before you can send out newsletters, you need to have an email contact list. Encourage signups through your website and social media, and provide them with extra incentive to sign up if you can.

Offer a discount on their next meal, an exclusive promotion, or a free dessert in exchange for signing up. You can do this through a QR code on your menu or receipt – you may already have a similar system in place for loyalty rewards!

If your restaurant hosts events like trivia nights or live music shows, promote your email list during the event, and encourage people to sign up to stay updated on future happenings.

Your email list should be regularly cleaned to remove inactive subscribers – you do not want to be sending newsletters to people who do not wish to receive it! The newsletter platform you choose should include a way to remove subscribers that have not engaged with your emails within a certain timeframe.

Choose Your Newsletter Platform

If you’ve never done email marketing before, MailChimp is considered to be reputable and user-friendly, but there are many options out there. Here’s an overview of some of them:

MailChimp

• Best for small to mid-sized businesses
• Easy to use, with drag-and-drop functionality and various templates
• Helpful articles, guides, tutorials, and FAQs
• A free plan available under a certain number of subscribers, with the price increasing as your list grows

Constant Contact

• Best for small businesses and event marketing
• Easy to use, with drag-and-drop functionality and various templates
• Great customer support
• No free plan, but they offer a free trial

ActiveCampaign

• Best for marketers and CRM needs*
• Good for email automation (like automatically sending a special offer to email contacts on their birthdays)
• Not as user-friendly for beginners, more of a learning curve
• No free plan, but they offer a free trial

*CRM refers to Customer Relationship Management, and involves tracking and managing interactions with customers to improve relationships. If you plan to segment your audience based on behaviors or practices (for instance, VIP customers, those with special diet needs, etc.), ActiveCampaign is good for this.

Klaviyo

• Best for e-commerce businesses (like if you sell merchandise or food items on your website)
• Good for email automation, SMS marketing (text messages), and segmentation
• Not as user-friendly for beginners, more of a learning curve
• Free plan under a certain number of contacts, with the price increasing as your list grows

VerticalResponse

• Best for budget-conscious businesses
• Very simple email marketing
• Limited advanced features
• Free plan up to a certain number of subscribers; their paid plans charge based on the number of email contacts you have and the volume of emails sent in a pay-as-you-go structure

It’s All About the Food Photos

Once you have your email list and have picked your newsletter platform and pricing plan if applicable, you’re ready to get started on newsletters. Before we dive into topics, let’s talk about the importance of food photos.

Let’s be honest – people eat with their eyes first. A mouthwatering photo of your signature pasta dish or perfectly seared steak might just be the reason someone clicks “Reserve a Table” instead of scrolling past. In fact, great food photos often outperform even your CTA buttons when it comes to getting clicks.

Mixing the photos up with interior shots, exterior photos, special features like a fireplace or patio dining, are great, but you need to have the food photos.

Try to avoid graphics with text, like menu specials. Readers are more engaged, and it’s more accessible, to have a photo of what the special is, and then to list out the specials or details in the text.

Quality food photos, and photos in general, do not necessarily need to be professional photos. In fact, sometimes professional photos can look *too* good, like they’re stock photos, and not pictures of your actual food. Camera phones work just fine! Think about it: would you rather see a real photo of the sizzling burger a friend just ordered or a generic stock image?

Bonus tip: The food photos are vital on social media as well as in newsletters. Don’t just post text explaining what the specials are, or photos of your grandkid (as cute as they are!). Diners need to see the food!

Choosing Your Newsletter Topics

We recommend picking between 1 and 3 topics per newsletter. Got something fresh out of the oven? A new menu item, limited-time offer, or upcoming event like Trivia Night is the perfect reason to pop into someone’s inbox. When diners know your emails deliver tasty news, they’ll keep opening.

If you do not have something specific to offer, or new to report, there are many ways to get creative so you can provide valuable content to your audience. Here are some newsletter topic ideas to get you started:

Food Holidays

Capitalize on food holidays that could tie into your restaurant – there are many: National Maple Syrup Day, National Gluten Free Day, National Chicken Month, National Sandwich Month, etc.

Recent Reviews

Highlight recent good reviews, so people can see what diners are saying about your restaurant. Keep it to no more than three in one newsletter.

Spotlight on Menu Items

Pick a menu item, maybe tie into a food holiday, and showcase why this item is so great and diners should try it on their next visit.

Nearby Events Happening

Show that your restaurant is tied into the local community, and position it so that you are close to all of the exciting things happening. For example, “The Saratoga Book Festival is taking place right down the street from our restaurant this weekend – here are the authors participating, and make sure to grab a bite to eat with us after!”

Other Local Activity

Building off of events happening close by, what else could be going on? Are you near a shopping mall where people might be back-to-school shopping or Christmas shopping? Is the weather warming up and you’re near a park?

Remind people who might be in the area for any reason that you’re right there with delicious food, and they need to eat.

Private Events

Do you have an event space for private parties? Do you offer catering? Make sure to periodically remind people through your newsletter, particularly when they might be planning a graduation party, holiday work party, and so forth.

Know What the Desired Action Is

You should always know the goal of sending this newsletter, and what action you want the readers to take.

Do you want them to download your app? Peruse the menu? Make a reservation? Sign up for a rewards program? Follow you on social media?

Thoughtfully Choose a CTA Button Color

Encourage readers to take the desired action through the CTA or call-to-action buttons. Think of your CTA button as the star of the show – it should pop! Choose a color that stands out against your brand palette. If your logo leans toward earthy tones, a bold red or vibrant blue button might just be the eye-catcher you need.

Blue, green, and red CTA colors have been proven by studies to have the highest conversion rates. Experiment with different shades to see what looks best for your newsletter.

Write a Compelling Subject Line & Preheader Text

Make sure to mention what you’re offering in the content, in the subject line, or they won’t read it! Any time you can offer the reader a deal or new information, such as a new menu item, they’ll be more enticed to open the email.

• Include specifics when you can. For example, “See What’s New at the Restaurant” is too vague. “Open for St. Patrick’s Day Specials,” with a preheader text of, “Corned beef and cabbage and Irish soda bread, anyone?” is specific.
• Create a sense of urgency when you can: “Last Chance to Enjoy Our Spring Menu!” “Reservations Are Filling Up Fast for Mother’s Day!”
• Use an emoji or two (just don’t go crazy with them!) – they help the newsletter stand out amongst the other emails in the inbox.
• Keep the subject line short and engaging. Aim for 6 to 8 words, under 50 characters.
• ChatGPT is great for brainstorming subject lines and preheader texts!

When to Send Out the Newsletters

The general rule of thumb for when to send out a newsletter is between Tuesday and Thursday, mid-morning to early afternoon.

However, feel free to experiment and monitor the stats afterwards to see what works well. If you have a special running on Mondays, you might send a Sunday afternoon newsletter to remind your contacts. If you’re promoting a weekend event at the restaurant, perhaps try sending the newsletter Friday morning, as people may be planning their weekends.

Other times to test out might be between 12pm and 1pm, or between 4pm and 6pm. These are times when people are often lunching or winding down from the work day, respectively, and are not as tied up with work or meetings.

How Often to Send Out the Newsletters

Once a week or once or twice a month is good for a restaurant newsletter, but the idea is to keep it consistent once you’ve got a plan in place.

Consistency will help build relationships and support ongoing engagement, reminding your customers that you are there and have delicious food to offer them.

Monitor the Stats

Tracking open rates, click through rates, and unsubscribe rates will help gauge if you’re sending too often or not often enough. Open rates will help you know if your subject lines are working or not, while click through rates will provide information on what type of content works best.

Make images clickable, and see if people are more likely to click on photos of gorgeous food, or your CTA button.

See what trends you can find over time to be able to adjust your strategy. Are people more likely to not open, or to unsubscribe if you send at a particular time of day?

Optimize for Both Mobile & Desktop

About half of emails are opened on cell phones. Always make sure you see how your newsletter looks on mobile as well as desktop. People read newsletters on both!

Look At What Other Restaurants Are Doing

Wondering about the actual layout of the newsletter? Should you have two photos, or three? Two images side by side? Long or short paragraphs? (Shorter is better.)

Subscribe to other restaurant newsletters and see what they’re doing. They can be your competitors, other eateries in the area, or even non-local restaurants.

Pay attention to what you like or dislike about the newsletters, and if you see any trends that several of them are doing. Do most use emojis in subject lines? Personalize the email to the recipient’s first name? Use a lot of bullet points? Single-column layout? Gifs?

Go Forth Into the Email Marketing World

You’ve got your email list, you’ve signed up for your newsletter platform, and you have some ideas for topics, subject lines, and how to construct your newsletter. Now you’re ready to roll up your sleeves, craft that first newsletter, and start turning hungry inboxes into happy diners. Don’t overthink it – just hit “send” and start making those connections one click at a time.

When you’re ready to take email marketing to the next level, you can explore A/B testing, automation, segmentation, and other advanced strategies to fine-tune your approach and maximize results. Happy emailing!

Want to chat about how Mannix Marketing can leverage your email marketing to the next level? Book a time to talk >>