Email marketing and website conversion – closing the loop to get diners back
Facebook and Twitter might be the trendy tools stealing all the limelight, but the fact is that email continues to be the old, reliable workhorse that can drives most of your restaurant marketing activity. Emails can be used to maintain contact with customers, to send special offers and, most importantly, to persuade people to visit your website and book a table.
We’ve posted some tips on writing restaurant marketing emails previously, but what’s also worth mentioning is the importance of closing the loop between emails and your website so they work together to increase bookings.
Emails build interest, websites take bookings
Short, punchy emails can be great at building interest, but ultimately it’s your website you need to get people to in order to fill your tables. So it’s best practice to end emails with a ‘call to action’ which is a closing sentence that tells your customers what to do next. For example, a simple call to action could be ‘Book your table now’ with a link back to your website.
Once your email has achieved its job of building interest your website then has to close the deal of persuading people to book a table. You’ll find some tips on improving your website’s conversion rate in this post.
The main thing to bear in mind is that your website has to make a good impression, with plenty of enticing snapshots and descriptive text, and make it easy for people to book. As well as featuring your contact details prominently, an online booking system (like ours!) makes it quick and easy to make a reservation.
Restaurant marketing always works best when the different elements work together. So remember to include plenty of calls to action in your emails and make sure your website entices people in and makes it easy to book a table.
Useful links
Tips on writing restaurant marketing emails
Designing a website that pulls in diners
-
Nathan
