An effective restaurant email marketing starts with a creative and interesting subject line. It is hard to capture the interest of your customers if your email campaign will just blend with the other messages in their inbox.
But what is the best subject line to use? Are there templates available? If there is, would it apply to different types of customers?
It has been common for restaurants to market through email for years. Restaurants have used it extensively because it is easy to use and provides great results when implemented properly.
There are many untapped potentials in this type of marketing, which can be used to bring a campaign to new heights. This article will discuss the basics of email campaigns and what are the good practices to observe with subject lines.
Email Marketing 101
Email remains essential to digital communication, even as messaging apps and social media gain in popularity. 306.4 billion emails are sent and received daily, which supports this claim.
Even with Millenials, who are known to be reliant on social media apps, Gmail is listed among their most important mobile apps. Given this data, you may start to consider that email campaigns are worth the investment.
To create an effective campaign, you have to equip yourself with basic email campaign management knowledge. What’s the term “open rate” stand for? Is it the only suitable metric to determine the success of your campaign?
What is an Email Open Rate?
Open rates measure how many subscribers or users open an email campaign after receiving it. The numbers on these rates are affected by different factors such as the significance of the topic, personalization or customization of the title, the email subject line, content it carries, and many more.
To consider a healthy one, an open rate must range from twenty to thirty percent. This is the most attainable rate for all e-commerce industries.
But how would you improve the open rate of your ongoing and future campaigns? It is believed the subject lines play the most important role with this type of marketing. Because it is the first touch-point your subscribers will see, you must ensure that you use the most effective ones.
No matter how relevant or engaging your content will be if your customers opt not to click it, then all goes down the drain. It is just safe to say that your subject line can make or break an email campaign that you launch.
What is an Email Subject Line?
The subject line is the very first thing your subscribers will see as soon as your campaign was sent to their inbox. They will simply ignore it if it’s not interesting enough. Your email campaign may be left unread, tagged as spam, or worse, straight up deleted.
Your subject line should be carefully crafted to increase email open rates, prevent emails from getting filtered into the spam folder, and ensure you reach your intended audience.
Sixty-nine percent of emails are reported as spam just because the subject line appears to project risk to the recipient. Would your well-researched and well-written campaigns belong to that group? It’s not in your business’s best interest, particularly with your management.
In email marketing for restaurants, you must establish a strong and compelling headline. It’s all about how you can convince your customers to open and read the rest of your content.
Having a good subject line for your email can make a big difference in your subscribers’ perception. Whether or not you succeed with your email will depend heavily on the words you chose for your subject line.
But how will you cater to different preferences and personalities? It is not practical to launch different types of campaigns to target the different needs of your subscribers. Targeting their common denominator will be the best way to do it.
First, you must ensure that there’s enough personalization on your subject line. It should carry relevance to your subscribers as well. You must not depend on your content when it comes to significance, as it will be left unread if your subject line is not effective enough.
The effectiveness of your email campaigns is entirely dependent upon whether your target audience opens the emails.
Elements of an Effective Subject Line
To craft the best perfect line for your campaigns, you must know the basic foundation of this matter. Subject lines, regardless of the marketing goal, must have the following elements to secure success.
Curiosity
In some cases, subject lines work because they convey the message, “Read this email for the benefit of yourself.” However, in some cases, it is appropriate to maintain a certain amount of mystery, particularly if it creates an air of mystery and intrigue.
They can result in higher open rates since they require people to open the email to get more information. However, you should ensure your subject line has a strong alignment with your brand, however cryptic it may be. In the end, it could be viewed as spam.
Urgency
It is not recommended to use that exact phrase in your email subject line, but expressing a sense of scarcity and importance is effective in motivating recipients to click or take action. It helps if the subject line is written creatively.
However, make sure this type of subject line isn’t used too often. Make sure they are only used in cases where they are needed.
Personalization
Every subscriber is different. And sometimes, that means no two emails should be the same. The marketing world has never had more ways to learn about the professions or general preferences of their subscribers than they do today. In this case, make sure you tailor the content you send them occasionally.
There are tools available that can make this task easier for your marketing team. Learn to utilize technology that can act as an additional hand for help.
Offers
Ultimately, people are drawn to new experiences and things. The more so when they are free or greatly discounted. Use that subject line to begin your email. When free stuff is directly mentioned in a consumer’s daily newsletter, consumers are more likely to open the newsletter.
Significance
Subscribers usually join email lists to stay informed or to gain knowledge on a specific topic. As you would with a curiosity-piqued subject line, creating subject lines with current trends or noteworthy headlines is an effective way to showcase your expertise and encourage your readers to engage more with your content.
Uniqueness
Another place where curiosity plays a big role comes to mind. The first thing your audience will notice when they read your email subject line is an implication of something that only they can read when they open or click the email. Their interest is piqued, and they want to know more.
Ensure that the story will align with your brand. Unless you do so, it might seem confusing to your subscribers and cause them not to open your email.
Recognition
At one point or another, most people have admired a famous person at some point. By knowing the preferences and interests of your audience, you can create content that includes the names of individuals they admire and recognize, and mention them in the subject lines of your emails.
However, keep in mind that this tactic works only if it corresponds to your brand, service, or product, so do not just throw out a name for its own sake.
What Are The Best Ways To Optimize Your Email Subject Line?
Now that you know the basic elements of a subject line, you might be more conscious of it. It might be harder for you to create one since you’re trying to meet every element as possible. But fret not, as there are ways where you can improve your subject line easily.
Utilize power words.
There are specific words that speak to consumers and local SEO algorithms. These power words often stir up an emotional or psychological response from the human brain. If used wisely, they can entice action from your subscriber.
Consumers think that logical arguments and facts are the best means of influencing and controlling their decisions. However, they are not really in complete control of their decisions as they might think.
That can work in your favor. Utilizing only the power words, you can convey trustworthiness, evoke curiosity, instill urgency in the audience, and much more.
However, you must exercise caution in choosing what words to use in your subject line. A set of words can activate spam alerts in restaurant marketing via email. For your email marketing campaigns not to go into your spam folder, you must be aware of these words.
To help you, here are the words you can leverage to boost your open rate.
- 24-hour giveaway
- Celebrate
- Congratulations
- Easiest
- Exclusive
- Fastest
- Freebie
- Great Deals
- Holiday
- Important
- Introducing
- Is Coming
- Last Chance
- Latest
- Monthly
- New
- Orders Over
- Promotional
- Recipe
- Remember
- Several
- Special
- Steps
- Summer
- Thanks
- Tomorrow
- Try
- Update
- Upgrade
- Voucher
- Weekend
- Weekly
- Wonderful
- Yesterday
- Your
And here are the sample of words that can trigger spam filters.
- 100%
- Access
- Alert
- Bargain
- Best price
- Budget
- Cancel
- Certified
- Compare rates
- Deal
- Discount
- Download
- Exclusive deal
- Extended
- Fantastic deal
- Free
- Friday!
- Get started
- Giving away
- Hello
- Increase sales
- Intelligence
- Legal
- Lowest price
- New customers only
- No cost
- Not intended
- Not spam
- Once in a lifetime
- One time
- Opportunity
- Perfect
- Prize
- Problem
- Quickest
- Request
- See for yourself
- Special promotion
- Terms and conditions
- This isn’t spam
- Thousands
- Time-limited
- Vacation
- Volunteer
- Where
- While supplies last
- Why pay more
- Who
- Wife
Maximize Fear-Of-Missing-Out lines.
Using a FOMO subject line will draw your audience’s attention so they will be more inclined to take action. With this concept, you can make email marketing seem more urgent.
FOMO is defined as “A highly subjective feeling of apprehension about other people experiencing rewarding events while one is absent”. Subscribers feel that they’re missing out on all the fun with FOMO and we’re sure they’ve all experienced this fear at one time or another.
Here are some of the subject lines that utilized FOMO at its best.
- Tonight only: Taco night specials
- Urgent: You only have one day to claim this deal
- Last chance to score the buy one get one special
Use the right character length for email subject lines
Be brief when writing your subject lines. The majority of email is opened on mobile devices. In portrait mode, iPhones and Android phones display only around thirty-three to thirty-five characters, respectively.
Occasionally, breaking the rules is okay. But statistically speaking, shorter subject lines perform best, but you need to experiment to find which is effective for your audience.
Make sure that your mobile subscribers can read the entire subject line if they access your email from their mobile device.
It is recommended that you use subject lines that are seventeen to twenty-four characters long to increase email open rates.
Personalize it.
As if you were having a conversation with them, treat your readers as if they were your close friends. It is that easy. You can also use the prospect’s name as the subject line to improve open rates by starting your message with the name of the prospect.
You can improve two things with personalized emails: fourteen percent improvement for click-through rate and ten percent improvement for conversion rate.
Implement double-openings.
Plan B is the next best option if plan A fails. Always have a backup plan in case something goes wrong. Send your email to subscribers one week after the first one is sent to those who did not open it.
When you send out a second email, make sure that the subject line has changed and that you used power words. It is stated that using the double-open approach resulted in an increase of 11% in the open rate, with a total of 30%. It increased the number of people reading the email campaign by 7,028 in just one minute.
Make a segmented subscriber list.
With segmentation, you can create highly targeted emails for email marketing that will lead to higher conversion rates. Comparing an unsegmented list to a segmented one, email lists with smaller groups tend to produce a fourteen percent higher open rate.
Based on the forms your readers fill out, you can segment your list into groups. Using this method, you can make your list highly segmented and automate the process.
Avoid using capital letters.
You won’t succeed by covering your subject line with caps. Despite being powerful, caps should not be used recklessly. Be sparing and responsible when using them, as you would with any weapon.
Email Subject Line Templates
Here are the most common yet proven effective subject line templates you can use for your next restaurant promotion through email marketing.
The Social Engagement Strategy Subject Line
Consumers influence the buying decisions of their consumers. Identify and highlight the customer reviews who love your products to create the temptation to follow them.
It will stir up curiosity on the side of your reader since their fellow subscribers have already tried your service. They will go for that quick read just to know their insights, especially if it’s a well-known local influencer.
Here are some examples:
- Here are five reasons to visit our restaurant
- Ten out of ten – The [new menu item] reviews are in.
- Here’s our most popular [menu item]!
The Welcome Subject Line
The best practice is to send a welcome campaign when someone joins your email list or makes a purchase. Here you can welcome new customers by explaining who you are, what your business is, and why you do it.
It introduces your brand to customers in a fun, warm way.
Here are some examples:
- Oh, hello [first_name]! Thanks for joining us.
- Thank you for joining our club. Here’s your proposal [if you have one].
- Welcome to the [your brand name] family.
The Introduction of New Menu Item or Service Subject Line
In the launching of new products, customers want the newest, freshest product; no one wants to miss out. Make your launch sound like an exclusive event to give it a better chance of being read.
Invitations are appreciated by modern consumers. Another angle on this theme is to challenge someone to “be the first” to accomplish something, solve a confusing problem, or do something new.
Here are some examples:
- It’s a surprise what you’ll get access to early…
- Exclusive invite: Check out [your brand’s] new menu item.
- [Menu item name] will soon be available; you can try it early
The Cart Has Been Abandoned Subject Line
In comparison to other types of emails, abandonment cart emails receive the most engagement. Watch your open rates increase when you nail your email subject lines.
Here are some examples:
- I see you forgot something…
- Your [menu item names] have been waiting for you.
- Was there anything you forgot?
The Tutorial Subject Line
When sending emails with the subject line ‘How-To,’ why does it work? As a result, your email immediately demonstrates its value. You know the reader will get information about solving a problem that they are experiencing when he or she opens your message.
Whenever the subject line of a campaign is ‘How To’, make sure you focus on the benefits your readers will experience by offering something that will be of value to them.
Here are some examples:
- How to make [a product-related thing].
- How to wow your family this Christmas season
- How to [do something remarkable using your product and services].
source https://www.etakeawaymax.co.uk/email-marketing-subject-lines/
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