No marketing strategy would be complete without the right restaurant email marketing software.
Emailing is a powerful marketing channel for any restaurant business. It lets you connect with new and existing customers, improve retention, grow a powerful brand, and generate more sales. When you use the best email marketing platform, it's easier to achieve your marketing goals and create a greater impact with email.
Many different email marketing solutions exist, which can make it tricky to find the best option for your business.
In this guide, we break down everything you need to know about restaurant email marketing software, including the best email marketing tools for restaurant owners.
What is Restaurant Email Marketing Software
Email marketing software enables you to create and send emails to a list of subscribers, and manage email marketing campaigns.
Unlike a regular email platform for personal use, email marketing services are designed for managing bulk sends.
Restaurant email marketing software should integrate with any marketing and sales tools your restaurant uses. This helps you create personalized, targeted campaigns to send out to your existing customers and prospects.
Email marketing software for restaurants should generally include a range of different features and abilities. This typically includes:
- Detailed email marketing metrics to help you understand the impact of your email marketing campaigns
- Lead management tools to help you create different mailing lists and manage subscribers
- Automation abilities to help you set up automated workflows and email campaigns
- A template-based, drag-and-drop editor which makes it easy to set up your email messages
- Email signup forms that you can embed on your website to capture new email subscribers
Restaurant email marketing software tools offer a variety of features and functions, so it’s important to choose a platform that matches your email marketing needs.
The software could also integrate with other tools your restaurant uses. This helps you share important customer data between the platforms, making it easier to send more targeted and effective email marketing campaigns.
Benefits of Email Marketing Software
Email is one of the most reliable marketing channels any kind of business can use. The right email marketing strategy helps your restaurant reach customers directly, where you can offer all kinds of promotions and updates. These restaurant email campaigns can help you maintain customer loyalty and retention, boost repeat visits, and build stronger brand awareness.
Of course, none of this is possible without the right restaurant email marketing software. Here are some of the main benefits of using the right restaurant email marketing platform.
Delivers a High ROI
One of the main reasons emailing has remained such a popular marketing tactic is because it delivers an excellent ROI.
Email marketing services are very affordable, and they provide one of the most cost-effective ways of reaching your customers directly. Some email marketing services are even free.
When used properly, email marketing can deliver an ROI of 4400%! That means you can see a return of $44 for every $1 you spend on email. Pretty impressive.
When you compare this kind of return to paid advertising, it becomes clear that using good email marketing software for your restaurant is highly valuable.
Displays Clear Analytics
Email marketing software platforms display great metrics to help you monitor and assess the impact of your email campaigns. These should typically include:
- Your open rate
- Click-through rate
- Unsubscribe rate
- Metrics about your email list growth
- Email send metrics
Some email marketing services provide even more detailed analytics. This helps you understand exactly what your email campaigns are achieving and who you are reaching, which is important for measuring the direct impact of each campaign.
Having accessible email marketing metrics also makes it easier to optimize your campaigns for continually better results.
Allows for Personalization
The more you can customize and personalize your email marketing efforts, the more engagement you’ll be able to generate from your campaigns. Using the right email marketing service should offer plenty of good personalization options.
This will typically involve creating different email marketing lists and segmenting your subscribers into different lists based on their activity. Doing this lets you send more relevant, targeted email messages to each list, which will boost your open and click rates.
If you send bulk email blasts to one big list, your messages could very likely get ignored or marked as spam. But, by personalizing each email based on your subscriber’s interests and behavior, you’ll be able to get much better results from email marketing efforts.
Again, having access to the right metrics will help you monitor the impact of this.
Easily Creates Email Campaigns
Restaurant email marketing software typically includes a drag-and-drop editor which makes it easy to set up and edit your messages.
This is often template-based, which means you can select the exact message format and design that matches the campaign you’re sending.
There’s no need to understand any kind of coding or have impressive graphic design skills. Instead, the straightforward email editor should let you set up your messages without any effort.
Adds Different Elements to Your Emails
The best email marketing services include a wide range of functions that you can include in your emails.
When you create an email, you’re not restricted to simple text-based emails like you use on your personal email account. Email marketing software platforms let you incorporate a variety of different elements into your emails, such as buttons, various visual elements, videos, and more. This helps make your emails stand out and makes them more engaging.
The more features your email marketing software includes, the more you can achieve with your email campaigns.
Includes Lead Generation Tools
Email marketing software doesn’t only let you create and send emails. You can also use these tools to build your email marketing list and capture the information of email subscribers. This often involves features like a landing page builder and online forms to embed on your website.
When it comes to lead generation, email marketing software also provides tools to manage these leads. This is done via some kind of leads database, where you can access each subscriber’s information, view their behavior and history with your business, and add them to different lists.
This means email marketing tools can help you gain valuable insights into your audience and their behavior.
Easy to Implement
When it comes to marketing software for restaurants, email is one of the most straightforward to implement. Everyone knows how to create and send emails, and the right email software lets you do this efficiently.
You can also use this software to set up a wide range of email campaigns that achieve different functions. This makes email marketing software a convenient solution for achieving fast marketing results.
Top Restaurant Email Marketing Software Options
Your email platform is one of the most important restaurant marketing software tools you’ll use. The best option should provide a range of valuable features, and easily fit into your existing restaurant management software solutions.
To help you choose the right platform, here is our list of the best email marketing software for restaurants.
1. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing software tools for any industry. It’s also one of the most extensive email marketing solutions for restaurants.
Because of Mailchimp’s popularity, the platform can easily integrate with most other software platforms. This makes it easy to fit into your restaurant’s existing software stack.
Mailchimp offers a wide range of tools and possibilities. This includes tools for:
- Audience management
- Creative tools
- Marketing automation tools
- Insights and analytics tools
Within these different modules, there are many individual solutions, such as a detailed CRM, segmentation tools, a creative assistant, and more. This means Mailchimp offers every possibility you’d want from an email marketing service.
It’s also possible to get started with a basic Mailchimp plan for free, which you can always upgrade if your restaurant needs more features and functionality.
Main Features
- Marketing CRM
- Audience segmentation
- Marketing automation
- Creative tools
- Detailed insights and reports
2. ConvertKit
ConvertKit is another popular email marketing platform with a fairly wide range of features. Restaurants can use ConvertKit to easily grow their audience, connect with customers, and automate their email marketing.
The platform includes all of the features you’d want from an email marketing solution. This includes tools to generate leads (landing pages and forms), tools to create powerful email campaigns with good deliverability, and tools to automate your email marketing strategy.
ConvertKit is also straightforward to use and offers a long list of integrations.
Main Features
- Landing page and email capture form builder
- Email designer
- Email automation
- Creative network
- eCommerce tools
3. Benchmark
Benchmark offers robust restaurant email marketing software. The platform covers every step of the email marketing journey, from lead generation to marketing automation. This means it has a solid range of tools, including a landing page builder, a marketing CRM, automated workflows, detailed insights, and more.
Benchmark also offers a Smart Content tool that uses the power of AI to create original email copy. This can make it a lot faster and easier to implement your email marketing strategies.
Like any good email marketing tool, Benchmark includes a wide range of templates that you can choose from when creating your email campaigns. These are easy to edit, which makes putting together your restaurant’s campaigns a breeze.
Main Features
- Email marketing automation
- Email template library
- Landing page builder
- Marketing CRM
- Detailed reporting
4. GetResponse
GetResponse offers an extensive marketing platform. While the main focus of GetResponse is its email marketing service, the platform also includes a website builder, SMS marketing, paid ads tools, live chats, and much more. So if you’re looking for extensive marketing software for restaurants, then GetResponse is a good option.
The platform’s email marketing software includes all the features you’d want. There are tools for segmentation, lead generation, marketing automation, and even a helpful autoresponder feature. You can also build conversion funnels with GetResponse, which will help you create a more strategic email marketing journey.
If your restaurant is looking for a more advanced email service provider and marketing solution, then GetResponse is a platform to consider.
Main Features
- Robust email marketing platform
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Marketing automation
- Landing pages and website builder
- Segmentation
5. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign offers popular and powerful marketing software for restaurants. You can use ActiveCampaign for managing your marketing and sales processes, boosting lead generation, and automating your email marketing.
While it’s not the most extensive marketing solution, the software is intuitive and offers excellent functionality. You can use ActiveCampaign to create personalized email campaigns, create landing pages and signup forms, access a CRM, and automate your email marketing process.
Main Features
- Marketing automation
- Easy email marketing campaign creation
- CRM
- Site tracking
- Landing pages and sign-up forms
6. AWeber
AWeber is one of the best email marketing software tools for small businesses. While it’s not the most advanced email platform, it’s straightforward and offers everything you need to grow a mailing list and create marketing emails. This is all most restaurants need.
You can use AWeber to generate leads, create visually-appealing emails, automate your marketing, and monitor your metrics. There are many email templates to choose from, and monitoring automated emails is straightforward for restaurant owners. Overall, this is a simple but effective email marketing platform.
Main Features
- Professionally designed email templates
- Pre-built autoresponders
- Sign-up forms and landing pages
- Automation tools
- List segmentation
Conclusion
Your email marketing possibilities come down to the software you use. Some platforms are simple, providing an easy way to build a mailing list and send out emails. Other platforms offer more advanced functions, including automation, AI-powered tools, and more.
Check to see if your website provider offers email marketing tools, as this might make integrating these tools into your existing platforms easier. If you have Squarespace, BentoBox, or Hubspot, you’re in luck!
Whatever platform you choose, make sure it fits into your restaurant’s existing workflows and includes the features you need to achieve your marketing goals.
If your restaurant also runs events, you must use the right event management platform to improve your operations even further. Try Perfect Venue for free to see just how it can benefit your event operations!
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