“Email is a push channel, so we need to push it to work harder.”
– Kath Pay, CEO of Holistic Email Marketing
Introduction
Businesses must use multiple promotional methods to keep ahead in the fast-paced restaurant industry. However, email marketing strategies are no longer the only option. The integration of social media and online reviews into your email marketing can elevate your restaurant to new heights. Why restaurant owners, managers, and marketers should care about this potent mix and how to maximize its potential will be discussed in this essay.
The Power of Social Media and Online Reviews
Given that there will be over 3.8 billion active users across all platforms by 2021, social media is an essential aspect of modern advertising. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great for instantaneous two-way communication with consumers, product promotion, and problem solving.
In contrast, internet reviews are a sort of digital word-of-mouth marketing that is increasingly influential in consumers’ final purchasing decisions. A study by BrightLocal revealed that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, making them an essential tool in the restaurant industry.
Why Should Restaurateurs Consider Using Social Media For Their Email Campaigns in the Digital Age?
In the digital age, restaurateurs must adapt and utilize every tool available to them to stay competitive. Integrating email campaigns with social media and online reviews can significantly amplify a restaurant’s reach and engagement. Here’s why:
1. Increased Visibility and Reach
Today, billions of people use social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Social media integration allows you to reach a wider audience than just your email subscribers. You can share snippets of your email content on social media, enticing followers to subscribe to your mailing list, or vice versa.
For example, you could tease your upcoming monthly newsletter on your social media pages, giving your followers a sneak peek and a reason to sign up.
2. Customer Engagement and Relationship Building
Social media lets you build real-time relationships with your target audience. Use these channels to keep your consumers updated, respond to their questions, and create meaningful relationships with them.
Online reviews also play a crucial role here. You may show that you care about your consumers’ opinions and are willing to make changes by responding to internet reviews, both positive and negative. These interactions can be highlighted in your email campaigns to show your dedication to customer satisfaction.
3. Trust and Social Proof
Online reviews are a form of social proof. People often look at reviews and ratings when deciding where to eat. According to a survey by BrightLocal, 82% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses. Email marketing efforts that prominently feature customer evaluations and ratings are more likely to elicit a positive response from recipients.
For instance, you could include a section in your email newsletter that highlights a positive review from a satisfied customer. Post this newsletter on social media to promote your restaurant’s exceptional service and wonderful food.
4. Cost-Effective Marketing
Integrating your email campaigns with social media and online reviews is a cost-effective marketing strategy. When executed properly, digital marketing strategies like email and social media advertising can outperform more expensive channels like TV and print commercials.
5. Personalization and Targeted Marketing
Both email marketing and social media platforms offer advanced targeting capabilities. You can segment your email list and social media followers based on various criteria like location, dining preferences, or past purchasing behavior and tailor your content accordingly.
For example, customers who have shown interest in vegan options can be targeted via email and social media posts advertising a new vegan cuisine.
In the digital age, integrating email campaigns with social media and online reviews can result in increased reach, enhanced customer engagement, higher trust, more cost-effective marketing, and better targeting. It’s a strategy that no restaurateur should overlook.
Case Study: Buffalo Wild Wings
One company that has effectively integrated social media and online reviews into its email marketing campaigns is Buffalo Wild Wings, a chain of popular American sports bars and restaurants. Here are five ways they have done this:
- Social Media Integration: Buffalo Wild Wings includes social media icons in its email campaigns, encouraging subscribers to follow and engage with the brand on various platforms.
- User-Generated Content: The brand has leveraged user-generated content (UGC) from social media in its email campaigns, showcasing customers’ photos and experiences with their products.
- Promoting Email Sign-ups: Buffalo Wild Wings promotes its email newsletter through its social media channels, driving sign-ups and expanding its reach.
- Featuring Customer Reviews: The brand features customer reviews in its email campaigns, which helps build credibility and trust with subscribers.
- Encouraging Reviews: Buffalo Wild Wings uses email marketing to encourage customers to leave reviews, offering incentives like coupons or discounts in exchange.
Benefits of Integrating Social Media and Online Reviews on Email Campaigns
You can increase your restaurant’s patronage by taking advantage of social media and internet reviews by incorporating them into your email marketing efforts.
- Increased Engagement: More subscribers will engage with your content and be more likely to buy from you if you integrate social networking, online reviews, and email marketing.
- Greater Reach: By promoting your email newsletter on social media and featuring user-generated content in your emails, you can increase your reach and attract new subscribers.
- Enhanced Credibility: Showcasing customer reviews in your emails helps build trust and credibility, making subscribers more likely to visit your restaurant.
- Better SEO: Increased visibility in search engines means more potential diners will be able to find your restaurant via the web.
- Higher ROI: McKinsey & Company found that email marketing has a 40-fold higher ROI than social media marketing. Integrating the two can further increase your ROI and drive more revenue.
15 Best Email Campaign Social Media Integration Strategies for Restaurants
1. Leverage User-Generated Content
Get your customers talking about their experiences at your eatery on social media by providing them with a unique hashtag to use when posting about your establishment. You can then include these posts in your email campaigns. For instance, if a customer shares a photo of their meal, you can feature this in your newsletter. This not only provides fresh, authentic content but also builds credibility and encourages more user-generated content.
2. Cross-Promote on All Platforms
All your online platforms—email, social media, and review sites—should work together. For example, include social media icons in your email newsletters, and in turn, promote your email sign-up on your social media platforms. This creates a network of interlinked platforms, each boosting the visibility of the others.
3. Run Contests and Giveaways
Run a photo contest on Instagram where customers post a picture at your restaurant and tag you. The entry requirement could be signing up to your email list. Promote the contest via email and social media, helping to grow your email list and social media followers.
4. Highlight Positive Reviews
If you receive a glowing review on Yelp or Google, share it in your email newsletters. Customers’ faith in you can grow as a result, and they may feel more inclined to post evaluations of their own. For example, a dedicated section in your newsletter could be “Review of the Month”.
5. Respond to Reviews
Respond to both positive and negative reviews. This demonstrates that you value customer feedback. Share some of these interactions (especially where you’ve turned a negative experience into a positive one) in your email newsletters to highlight your dedication to customer service.
6. Personalize Emails Based on Social Media Interactions
If a customer often engages with posts about your vegetarian options on social media, use this information to personalize their email content, such as including more vegetarian special offers or news.
7. Incentivize Social Sharing
Offer a discount or a free appetizer for customers who share their positive experience at your restaurant on social media. This can encourage more user-generated content and wider visibility for your restaurant.
8. Regularly Update Your Social Media
Post regularly on your social media platforms with engaging content, such as behind-the-scenes looks, staff highlights, and new menu items. This can attract more followers who you can then encourage to sign up for your email list.
9. Use Social Proof
Social proof, such as positive customer reviews and ratings, can heavily influence purchasing decisions. Including these in your email campaigns can boost credibility and reassure potential customers of your restaurant’s quality.
10. Encourage Email Sign-Ups Through Reviews
If a consumer leaves a positive review, you should thank them for their feedback and encourage them to join your email list to receive updates and promotions.
11. Run Email-Exclusive Deals
Offer special deals that are only available to email subscribers, and promote these on social media to encourage more email sign-ups.
12. Collaborate with Influencers
Partner with local food bloggers and influencers for special events or menu items. Share their posts and reviews in your email campaigns to reach a wider audience.
13. Use Social Media to Understand Your Audience
Learn more about your followers’ preferences by using social media analytics. You can then use this data to tailor your email content for better engagement.
14. Test and Optimize
Find out what kind of material, headlines, and photos your audience prefers by conducting A/B testing on your social media posts and email marketing. Use these insights to continually improve your strategy.
15. Create a Seamless Brand Experience
Your brand should be consistent across all platforms. That means the tone, aesthetics, and messaging in your emails should match that of your social media posts and responses.
15 Things to Avoid When Integrating Restaurant Email Campaigns with Social Media and Online Reviews
1. Ignoring Negative Reviews
Negative reviews can be a gold mine for businesses looking to improve. They give you honest, unfiltered opinions from actual customers about your business. For instance, if a customer complains about a particular dish, it gives you an opportunity to review the recipe or presentation and make necessary adjustments. If disregarded, your products and services will deteriorate, as will your customer base.
2. Over-Promotion
Bombarding your audience with constant promotional content can lead to unfollows and unsubscriptions. For example, if every post on your social media is about your discounts or new dishes, your customers may lose interest. Balance your promotional content with valuable, engaging content such as behind-the-scenes posts, chef interviews, or cooking tips to keep your audience engaged.
3. Spam Emails
Sending out emails too frequently or emails that are irrelevant to your customers can lead to them being marked as spam, reducing your email deliverability rate. If a customer signed up for updates on your special vegetarian dishes, sending them information about your steak night can lead to unsubscriptions.
4. Inconsistency
Consistency is key to retaining customers. For instance, if you send out emails every Tuesday but suddenly stop, your customers may feel disengaged and forget about your restaurant.
5. Forgetting Personalization
Sending generic emails that do not target the interests of your audience can result in low engagement rates. If you know a group of customers always order wine with their meals, sending them an email about your new wine collection can lead to higher engagement and sales.
6. Neglecting Mobile Optimization
More than half of all emails are opened on mobile devices. Customers may have a negative experience and fewer clicks if they have trouble reading your emails on their mobile devices since they were not optimized for that format.
7. Not Tracking Performance
Ignoring your campaign analytics can prevent you from understanding what strategies are working and what needs improvement. For example, if you notice that emails sent on Fridays have lower open rates, you might consider changing your sending schedule.
8. Buying Email Lists
Purchasing email lists may seem like a quick way to reach more people, but it often results in low engagement rates and can harm your reputation. It’s always best to build your email list organically through sign-ups at your restaurant or on your website.
9. Being Unresponsive
Failing to respond to comments, messages, or emails can make your customers feel unappreciated and ignored. Always respond to customer interactions promptly to build strong relationships.
10. Ignoring User-Generated Content
User-generated content, like customer photos or reviews, can be a powerful tool for authentic and engaging content. Failing to share this content can result in lost opportunities for engagement and promotion.
11. Overlooking the Importance of Subject Lines
Subject lines can determine whether or not your email is opened. A poorly crafted subject line can result in your email being ignored or sent to the spam folder.
12. Not Segmenting Your Email List
Sending the same email to everyone on your list, rather than segmenting based on interests or behaviors, can lead to lower engagement rates. For example, customers who frequently order vegetarian dishes might appreciate an email about your new vegetarian options, while meat-lovers might not.
13. Ignoring Social Media Bios
Your social media bios are prime real estate for promoting your email newsletter. Failing to promote your email sign-up in your bios is a missed opportunity for growing your list.
14. Not Testing
Failing to A/B test your campaigns can result in less effective strategies. For example, testing different subject lines or email designs can help you understand what your audience prefers
15. Failing to Offer Value
A restaurant’s failure to provide its customers with relevant information is a critical error. If your emails or social media posts are only about promoting your business, without offering something of value, you’re likely to see high unsubscribe rates. Value can come in many forms, such as discount codes, exclusive recipes, insider tips, or early access to new menu items.
How to Plan an Effective Social Media Email Integration for Restaurants
Step 1: Identifying Your Audience
Identifying your target market is the first step to a successful marketing strategy. Are your customers mostly locals or tourists? Families or professionals? What are their interests and preferences? You can gather this information through customer surveys, social media analytics, and interactions with your customers. With this information, you can better tailor your emails and social media posts to your readers’ interests and needs.
Step 2: Setting Clear Goals
Every successful marketing campaign starts with clear, measurable goals. To what end are your social media and email marketing strategies geared? Do you want to attract more customers, increase brand awareness, or perhaps promote a new menu item? Setting goals will give you a clear direction for your campaign and will help you measure its success. Remember to use the SMART goal framework – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Step 3: Building Your Email List
A robust email list is a goldmine for any restaurant. You may grow your email list in many ways. You can provide a sign-up form on your website, offer a discount or free in exchange for email addresses, or even collect them manually at your restaurant. Remember, it’s essential to ask for consent before adding anyone to your email list, as per GDPR and other privacy laws.
Step 4: Creating Engaging Content
Content is king in email marketing. Your emails should be engaging, relevant, and provide value to your customers. This could be in the form of special offers, updates about your restaurant, or even interesting food-related content. You might, for instance, forward an email containing a dish from your chef, complete with eye-pleasing images and clear instructions.
Step 5: Leveraging Social Media
Social networking is a terrific method to humanize your customers. You can use platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to share updates, promote offers, and even showcase your restaurant’s atmosphere and cuisine with photos and videos. Post a kitchen video to show your admirers how you make your signature dish, or take a vote to find out which dessert is most popular.
Step 6: Integrating Email and Social Media
Integration is where the magic happens. Your email newsletter can be promoted on your social media accounts, and vice versa. For instance, you could tease your upcoming newsletter content in a social media post, encouraging your followers to subscribe to your emails. In a similar vein, you might facilitate content sharing among your email list by including social share buttons.
Step 7: Monitoring and Adjusting Your Strategy
It’s important to regularly monitor your campaign’s performance and adjust your strategy as needed. Look at metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates for your emails, and engagement, reach, and follower growth for your social media posts. If your present strategy isn’t working, don’t hesitate to change it. This could involve testing different types of content, trying different posting times, or experimenting with various promotional offers.
Step 8: Email Automation
Email automation, as mentioned, involves scheduling emails to send at specific times or in response to particular triggers. A subscriber to your newsletter, for instance, could be sent a welcome message right away, then an introduction to your menu two days later, and finally a discount offer promotional message seven days later. These automated sequences ensure that you’re regularly engaging with your customers and providing them with relevant and timely content.
Step 9: Encourage Online Reviews
Online reviews are powerful tools for attracting new customers. A report by BrightLocal reveals that 82% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses. Encourage your customers to leave reviews by making it easy for them – provide a link in your email newsletters, include a call-to-action on your receipts, or even display a sign in your restaurant. You could also incentivize reviews by offering a small discount or free in return.
Step 10: Respond to Reviews
Responding to reviews shows that you value your customers’ opinions. For positive reviews, a simple “Thank you for your kind words!” can suffice. It’s crucial to tread carefully while responding to bad feedback. Address the customer’s concerns, apologize if necessary, and offer a solution. Turning a bad experience around demonstrates that you care about your clients and want to provide great service.
Step 11: Optimize for Mobile
Since mobile devices now account for more than half of web traffic, your emails and social media posts must be correctly presented on these smaller displays. This means using responsive design for emails, ensuring text is readable, images load quickly, and links are easy to click. For social media, it means understanding the platform’s specifications – for instance, Instagram posts should be square, while Twitter images are best in a rectangular format.
Step 12: Use Hashtags
Hashtags help increase the discoverability of your social media posts. For instance, if you’re a pizza restaurant in Chicago, using hashtags like #ChicagoPizza or #PizzaLovers can help local pizza enthusiasts find your posts. Remember to research each platform’s best practices for hashtags – while Instagram posts can benefit from multiple hashtags, Twitter posts are typically better with one or two.
Step 13: Offer Exclusive Deals
Offering subscribers or followers exclusive discounts is a terrific approach to get them to sign up for your newsletters or follow you on social media. For example, you could offer a free dessert for new email subscribers or a special discount code for your Instagram followers. These offers not only encourage sign-ups but also make your subscribers feel valued.
Step 14: Collaborate with Influencers
Marketing with influencers may help you reach more people. You could invite a local food blogger to try your new menu and write a review, or collaborate with an influencer for a giveaway. This exposes your restaurant to the influencer’s followers, who likely trust their recommendations.
Step 15: Consistency is Key
Consistency in your messaging and posting schedule helps build your brand identity and keeps your audience engaged. This means maintaining a consistent tone of voice, visual style, and posting frequency. If you post daily on social media, try to stick to that schedule. If you send emails every Tuesday, make sure an email goes out every Tuesday.
Overall, integrating email campaigns with social media and online reviews can provide a comprehensive, multi-channel approach to restaurant marketing. Your restaurant’s web presence can benefit from this tactic, as can your customers’ general satisfaction with their dining experience and their devotion to your brand.
Summary Checklist of Action Plans
- Develop an Integrated Strategy: Align your email marketing, social media, and online review strategies to work synergistically towards your business goals.
- Leverage User-Generated Content: Share customer reviews and social media posts in your emails to enhance credibility and engagement.
- Encourage Email Sign-ups on Social Media: Use your social platforms to promote your email newsletter and increase your subscriber base.
- Incentivize Reviews: Encourage customers to leave online reviews by offering incentives like discounts or freebies.
- Measure and Optimize: Regularly analyze the performance of your email campaigns, social media engagement, and online reviews. Use these insights to optimize your strategies and ensure you’re maximizing ROI.
Conclusion
Email marketing strategies for restaurants are more effective than ever when they incorporate social media and internet reviews. This powerful combination can drive engagement, increase reach, enhance credibility, and boost ROI, making it a potent tool in the restaurant industry.
This strategy can drastically change your advertising and create new doors for restaurant owners, managers, and marketers. So, are you ready to boost your restaurant’s email campaigns with social media and online reviews?
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