Restaurant Marketing: 5 List-Building Ideas

Inbox Ideas | Email Marketing Tips by AWeber

Posted by Justin Premick

Restaurant Email Signup Form In previous articles on restaurant marketing, we’ve floated a number of content ideas for your emails, like sending birthday emails and giving a behind-the-scenes look at your chef and kitchen.

The thing is, these ideas (and others that we’ll continue to publish here) don’t do much good if you don’t have any potential diners to send to!

Just as with any other business, a restaurant’s email marketing campaign has to start by getting subscribers.

So where/how can restaurant owners build their lists?

On Your Website

As part of the research for this post, I looked at a number of restaurant websites, and was struck by the fact that most of them did not offer any email signup at all.

This is a no-brainer for any business. Get a signup form on your website already!

Restaurants in particular should put a signup form in at least two places:

The homepage
Their menu page (if you have separate pages for lunch/dinner, all the better - get the form on each of them)

Ideally, you should have a signup form on your other pages as well, but your home page and menu/s are a good start.

In Person At Your Restaurant

Comment cards have been popular for years at restaurants.

Include an email signup on those cards and bring them with the check!

Be sure to bring a pen with the check, too - even before you know if the customer is paying by credit card. That way, they can pass the time (while the server brings them their change or runs their credit card) by signing up to your email list!

With Takeout/Delivery Orders

Insert a card promoting your email campaign with your takeout and delivery orders.

Simply put your site URL on it and tell people to go there to subscribe.

Or, for a twist have them fill out a form on the card and bring it in on their next visit (this could work well where you’re offering a signup incentive like a coupon or half-price menu item).

On Menus and Other Promotional Pieces

Do you offer paper menus for customers to take away? Or send direct mail pieces?

If so, mention your emails on them.

As with the takeout cards, you may want to have people fill out something in person and then bring it back to your restaurant – that way, not only do they not have to wait until they’re at their computer to sign up, but they have an extra incentive to come back (to drop off the card and get whatever bonus you’re offering new members)!

When People Make Reservations

You don’t have to wait for customers to finish their meals before offering an email signup. Heck, you don’t even have to wait for them to arrive at your restaurant!

Someone making a reservation is identifying him/herself as a customer, someone especially interested in your restaurant (compared to say, someone who happens to visit your website but is not yet committed to coming in and dining with you).

Sites like OpenTable know this, and offer diners the chance to sign up to restaurants’ email lists when making reservations.

If you take reservations on your site, you should be doing so, too. It helps drive repeat business.

In theory, you should also be doing this when taking reservations by phone, but to be honest I haven’t quite worked out when during the reservation I would ask that, or how I would word it (your suggestions are quite welcome here!).

What Other List-Building Opportunities Do Restaurants Have?

In a future article on restaurant marketing I’ll talk about incentives you can use to make list-building easier.

For now, though, let’s come up with some other ideas that restaurant owners can use to build their email lists.

Share your ideas and suggestions below!

Tags: list building

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10 Responses

Jim Cockrum
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:34 pm

Great article guys - this is going straight on the OfflineBiz.com discussion forum NOW.
Callie
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:37 am

How to ask a customer to sign up for your email list when taking a reservation…

Reservationist: "Thank you for your reservation with us Mr/Ms Smith, we appreciate your business. Could I take another moment of your time to let you know of a special offer we have for our reservation guests?"

Guest - "Certainly, I’m always up for a deal!"

Reservationist: "Wonderful! Mr/Ms Smith, here at The Grape Divine we offer (insert $$ amt) eCertificates/eCoupons to our customers who enjoy receiving our weekly menu specials through email. Would you like to be added to our email list to take advantage of the coupon for your dinner reservation?

Guest - "Hey, that would be great… will you send me out the email with a coupon before my reservation Friday night?"

Reservationist - "Yes, Absolutely."

Guest - "Great. My email address is mrandmrssmith@gmail.com"
Justin Premick
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:52 am

Callie,

That’s exactly the kind of example I was looking for. Thanks!
Sheri Zampelli
October 5th, 2008 at 7:04 pm

Hello, I have many years of waitressing experience and I love to eat out. No doubt, the best time to ask a customer for something is after they’re well fed, well served and feel a connetion/obligation to show their appreciation. If you nurture the client throughout the entire meal, they might just ask YOU if you have a mailing list.

You could say something like, "Did you enjoy the meal?" And while they are gushing your praises, you can smile, pause, then say to them, "you know, we have a mailing list so you can find out about our specials" if they love you, they will beg to sign the list. That brings me to another point: make them love you first.
Murray McFadgen
October 5th, 2008 at 9:31 pm

Callie,
This is a fabulous way to ask for the email address. But more…
how could the customer feel anything but good about this offer.
Clearly if the emails have good quality content and are interesting, the customer may begin to tell others of this experience.

Thanks for a great suggestion.
Karin H.
October 6th, 2008 at 5:55 am

Hi all

And if your combine Callie’s great idea with the no-brainer on the website for (first time) web visitors chances are you can double your list in double quick time.
Incentives, that’s what counts!
Charles Heineke
October 6th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

For subscriptions, one might use something like this:

"Are you on our email list for specials and free offers?"
Building Your Restaurant’s E-Newsletter Audience | Successful Restaurant Websites
October 9th, 2008 at 8:50 am

[...] Restaurant Marketing: 5 List Building Ideas (AWeber) [...]
Agatha
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:17 am

Nowadays you talk to a restaurant owner these days, it is almost invariably a story of how hard it is to be in the restaurant business. For them your blog is helping a lot. And after a while, it may not seem like restaurateurs have been dealt the worst possible deal.
Ron Davies
November 4th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Hi Justin,

I couldn’t figure out where to put this, and you had sent me an email a while back looking for ideas and suggestions. Well procrastination got the better of me, and I put it off. Here it is:

How about a "search & replace" feature that was campaign or series-wide? This would be a huge help when there is a price change, a site url change etc. I have 75 messages in one of my campaigns, all of which have prices in them.

Would be cool if I could just search and replace the whole seaies of 75 from a single dialogue.

Don’t know if it’s possible, but would be awesome!