How to Create an Email That Gets Your Restaurant Noticed

Have you checked your email inbox today? I can guarantee that it’s not empty. 205 billion emails are sent every day from friends, family, co-workers, and businesses all trying to get your attention.

With that said, how can your restaurant or venue make the promotional emails you’re sending to event planners stand out in their inboxes? Try these 6 tips:

1. Start using an email service provider

Sending marketing emails from Outlook or Gmail isn’t going to cut it. Event planners expect to see professional-looking messages. Try one of these email marketing solutions – they have pre-designed templates that you can edit to look like your branding by adding your logo and colors. You’ll also have access to list management tools, reports, and automation features.

2. Use your branding

Every message you send should represent the branding from your website, menus, social media, and all of the other marketing you produce. Being visually consistent gives your business a look and feel that your email recipients will recognize right away, because visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text alone. Not sure what your exact branding colors are? Try Color Cop for PCs and the Digital Color Meter for Macs to scan your logo or website and show you the correct color codes you need for design.

3. Be mobile friendly

There’s a very good chance that a majority of your recipients are viewing your messages on their mobile phones. More than half of email users view their messages on a smartphone. Choose one-column templates for optimal viewing because multiple columns may shrink to fit on a mobile device, and no one wants to read tiny text on their phone.

If you’re using links in your email, make sure the websites you’re linking to are mobile friendly. Mobile readers don’t have the patience to wait for the site to load or zoom in on text that’s not adapting to the mobile screen. They may abandon your site or – even worse – share the experience with peers. 57% of users won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site.

4. Write a great subject line

It’s always a good idea to keep your subject line short in case it’s cut off by a smartphone. Stick to less than 40 characters and about five to seven words and make sure you get straight to the point. Subject lines that attract attention use questions or commands, tease the content or offer in the email, reference a deadline, use techniques like rhyming, allusions, or alliteration. Catch your readers’ attention by using emojis in your subject lines. 56% of marketers who used emojis reported higher open rates.

5. Keep your content short

The key to good email content is focus. Don’t overwhelm your audience with too many articles, photos, and links in your emails. Event planners are as busy as you are, and they’re not going to have time to read every new piece of information or offers that were created since your last email. Stick to a few important pieces of content and leave it at that. Constant Contact recommends no more than 20 lines of text, three or fewer images, and five to seven links to get the best click-through rates.

6. Segment your lists

Your audience isn’t “one size fits all,” and your email marketing shouldn’t be either. Do you think event planners are interested in your weekly special or offer email? Probably not, if it won’t give them the information they need to book an event. Segment your email lists so you can provide the right content to the right people. Create separate lists for your regular customers, wedding event planners, corporate event planners, and any other specific group you work with. Send your weekly email to your customers, but craft a different email about menu changes or event ideas for the people who book events with your restaurant or venue. Segmenting your messages will get you better results. Businesses that personalize their emails get 27% higher unique clicks and 11% higher open rates.

Start sending better emails

Bad email marketing could be standing in the way of your restaurant and new event leads. If you follow these tips, your messages will be sure to stand out in the inboxes of the event planners you want to reach. Keep the communication going by integrating your email service provider with Tripleseat.