Five Action Ideas To Improve Your Restaurant Email List
For restaurants, the battle for customers is no longer restricted to whoever serves the bigger meatball on top of their spaghetti platter. The war first and foremost takes place online. As a restaurant owner, you ought to be concerned about growing your list of emails as much as what’s the daily special for next Tuesday.
But sometimes no matter how hard you work on your online marketing, all you get are low conversion rates. That’s the hard truth about online restaurant marketing.
So without further ado, here are five things to consider when growing your restaurant email list.
1. The sign-up form should be easy to find
I see too many “free newsletter” sign-up icons tucked away in some obscure section of the webpage—at the bottom of the page, or else mixed in with a lot of text and images that makes it hard to see for anyone who isn’t looking for it.
Thing is a simple email could easily turn a one-time visitor into a loyal patron.
Make sure your forms are strategically placed in easy-to-spot locations on the webpage, and on as many pages as possible where the form is relevant. Forget buttons. Take note every page on your website is a potential landing page, especially if the visitor was directed by a search engine.
2. Be specific and tell them what they’re getting
I’ve seen too many “Sign up for our free newsletter” ads on too many websites trying to grow their list of customer emails. Most of the time it does the trick. The sad part is, what if it doesn’t?
There’s always room for concern whenever some anonymous website asks for your email address. So what you should do is provide convincing proof that the user’s inbox won’t be bombarded by email spam as soon as he or she signs up. Give them specifics of what they will and won’t be receiving.
Experiment on what works best for you and your website visitors.
3. Don’t press them for too much details
When you ask visitors to sign up, the purpose is for them to receive your newsletter, and for you to get their email address. So stop asking them to fill out forms that look like they are at the doctor’s getting ready to be checked up for sexually-transmitted diseases.
Keep it simple. Most of the time the visitor’s name and email address are all you really need.
4. Say “Thank You” and mean it
You got their email address. Are we done?
You’re done if you are only concerned about getting their email addresses for your list. But for some of us who wish to express our gratitude and, hopefully, keep the visitors interested to come back a second time, you should construct a simple but effective “Thank You” page that tells visitors what they can expect to receive in their inbox and when.
Use this opportunity to explain what visitors can do with your emails. Don’t just link back to the homepage.
5. Think hard on why old-timers are leaving
Like I said before, it’s impossible to fill a bucket with water if there’s a gaping hole at the bottom of the container. A leaky bucket.
Don’t panic. Instead, think. Take time to understand why old-timers and subscribers are leaving in the first place. Most online restaurant marketing campaigns prompt subscribers on their way out to complete a feedback form on why they’re leaving. I suggest you take these messages to heart. They might provide valuable input on how you could improve your online restaurant marketing service.
The thing to understand is that there is always room for improvement. When subscribers are leaving one after the other, take a long hard look at your marketing campaign and try to pinpoint the root of the problem. There is always room for improvement.
Get these five points right and you should see a healthy spike in your email list growth in no time.
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