Boosting Customer Loyalty by Collecting Emails
Boosting Customer Loyalty by Collecting Emails
Restaurants that use email marketing can improve customer retention and improve sentiment regarding their restaurant. These benefits not only result in boosted sales, but an improved reputation that can translate to a higher volume of positive reviews in the right circumstances.
The key is having a winning email capture and email marketing strategy that keeps the needs of your unique customer base in mind. By investing in great email marketing tools and strategies through loans for restaurants, your business can earn better relationships and better revenues from your most important clientele.
To help you find success in email marketing, consider the following strategies for collecting email addresses and creating effective email campaigns:
Offer a Perk for Signing up to Your Email List
The simplest and most direct way to encourage email signups is with a strong incentive. For instance, many establishments offer birthday discounts or free birthday treats to diners, but the only way to access the related offer is by signing up for email.
Other restaurants create contests that require email signups in order to be eligible for entry. Still others promise regular coupons, discounts or access to specials exclusively through email.
Remember that the quickest way to get someone to do something for you is to offer something in return, so consider what would motivate you to part with your email when devising capture strategies.
Reveal Exclusive Events Only to Email Subscribers
Perhaps the only stronger motivator than discounts and free stuff to restaurant patrons is FOMO, or “fear of missing out.” If they see that signing up for emails is the only way for them to hear about can’t miss events at your restaurant, they will strongly consider submitting.
Just imagine throwing an exclusive salsa night, ramen night, or cocktail lunch that no one other than your email subscribers knew about. Broadcasting the event after-the-fact on social media using tailored hashtags can amp up the jealousy among those who missed out further and convince them to join your subscriber list.
Offer Paperless Receipts Through Your POS
According to a recent study, 36% of diners would prefer to receive a copy of their receipt through email. Having receipts emailed is convenient, reduces environmental waste, and helps people track spending digitally. As an added bonus for your restaurant, it also gives you another opportunity to capture a diner’s email.
Just remember to allow them to opt in to marketing messages rather than selecting it as the default. Otherwise, you could cause their opinion of your business to sour.
Be Relevant, Considerate, and Dynamic with Your Emails
The only thing more important for email marketing than capturing emails is following best practices. If you ignore the wants, needs, and expectations of your mailing list, then you could find your account marked as a known sender of spam, meaning very few people will ever actually see your emails.
Prevent this from happening by using an email monitoring service like Constant Contact or MailChimp. These can tell you the number of emails opened as well as the number of emails delivered to ineligible recipients. The latter statistic is known as a “hard bounce,” and email service providers use it to flag known spammers. Your open rate also tells you how interested people are in your emails, so optimize your headlines and overall content to be as appealing and valuable to your recipients as possible.
Improve Your Email Marketing Strategies Through Loans for Restaurants
Restaurants interested in adding to their available working capital or expanding their marketing practices can look to loans for restaurants to help them raise funds. ARF Financial can help you determine the best-fit financing and loan products for your needs and unique situation.
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