Attracting new customers and keeping existing ones engaged can be challenging for any local restaurant. But what if you could reach your customers directly and efficiently with a simple, yet powerful tool? Say hello to text marketing. With an open rate of 98% compared to 20% for email, text is one of the most effective ways to reach your customers and promote your restaurant. Whether you’re offering limited-time discounts, loyalty rewards, or happy hour specials, a text campaign can help you drive business and build a strong relationship with your customers.

So, are you ready to boost your restaurant’s success with text marketing? Let’s dive into some of the best text campaign ideas to help promote your local restaurant.

Offers

Creating special offers that are unique and exclusive to your restaurant is a powerful tool for driving traffic and boosting sales. From a limited-time discount to a happy hour special, offers can help you attract new customers and keep existing ones coming back.

Here are some of the best offer-based text campaigns you can use to promote your restaurant:

Limited time offers

Limited-time offers can help you stand out from the competition and create buzz and excitement around your restaurant as they provide a sense of urgency and exclusivity that can entice customers to take action and book a table. For example, offering a discount on a specific menu item, a combo deal, or a limited-time menu item can encourage customers to dine at your restaurant sooner rather than later and help fill tables during slower times.

Additionally, they are a great way to test new menu items or deals before offering them permanently, which can help you make informed decisions about what works best for your business.  

Happy hour specials

Offering happy hour discounts on drinks and food during off-peak hours can help you fill tables and increase revenue, as you can attract customers who may not necessarily dine at your restaurant during busier hours. 

Happy hour offers are also a great way to encourage customers to come together and socialise after work.

Regular offers

Offering regular discounts on menu items, either weekly or monthly, is a great way to keep your customers interested and ensures that they never run out of reasons to visit your restaurant.

Regular offers also give you valuable insights into your customers’ dining preferences. By tracking which deals and menu items are most popular, you can learn which items are customer favourites and adjust your menu accordingly.

Personalised offers

Sending special offers or deals directly to your customers for their birthdays, anniversaries, or other special events shows you value their loyalty and appreciate their business. These offers can be as simple as a discount on their meal or as elaborate as a menu item that’s only available to them.

Personalised offers are also a great way to create a memorable experience for your customers that they are likely to share with others.

Loyalty programs

Loyalty programs reward frequent customers with exclusive offers and have always been the cornerstone of a restaurant’s marketing strategy. They can boost targeted retention, decrease acquisition costs, drive new business through word-of-mouth, and help build a customer list.

But used in conjunction with text, they can be very powerful. A branded loyalty text campaign should always start with an invitation to join the program and then feature exclusive offers or a first look at new menu items. Subscribers can also be asked for their opinion through surveys and polls on your food and service to help determine what is and isn’t working at your restaurant, which can help you create a more enjoyable dining experience for your guests.

An effective loyalty program should have a well-thought-out plan for when and how to send messages to ensure that you only send important messages and do not annoy or overwhelm your subscriber list with irrelevant offers.

It’s also important to ensure signing up for the program is easy, and every invitation should include a link to the loyalty program’s sign-up website or app.

Event promotion

Sending text campaigns ensures your customers are aware of your upcoming events and can plan accordingly. This can be particularly beneficial when promoting events with limited availability, such as charity events or holiday parties, as customers are more likely to secure their spot before it’s too late.

Text campaigns also allow you to personalise the message and target specific segments of your customer base. For example, if you’re hosting a live music event, you can target customers who have previously shown interest in music events by purchasing tickets or have visited your restaurant in the past. This allows you to send more relevant messages that increase the chances of your event’s success.

Additionally, by tracking which customers respond to your text event promotions, you can discover which events are most popular, adjust accordingly, and then use this information when you plan future events to ensure their success.

Booking reminders

Sending booking reminders by text can provide numerous benefits for restaurants, including convenient and effective reach, reduced no-shows, and improved customer relationships.

In today’s fast-paced world, customers often have busy schedules and may forget about their upcoming reservation. One of the key advantages of using text reminders is that they provide a convenient and effective way to reach customers on the go and ensure they are aware of their upcoming booking and, therefore, will be less likely to miss it.

In addition to reducing the number of no-shows, text booking reminders can also provide an opportunity to build stronger relationships with your customers. Sending a personalised reminder can show your customers that you value their business and are committed to ensuring their satisfaction which can help increase customer loyalty and encourage repeat business, supporting the long-term success of your restaurant.

Customer feedback

To improve the quality of your food and service and understand what customers enjoy and dislike about your restaurant, sending them a text after the meal is a convenient and easy way to obtain their feedback.

Asking for feedback can help build stronger relationships with your customers. It shows you value their opinions and are committed to improving their dining experience, and this can help increase customer loyalty and encourage repeat business.

Additionally, feedback can help you identify areas for improvement and make changes to meet the needs and preferences of your customers, which can ensure your restaurant is offering the best possible dining experience and keeping up with the changing needs of your customers.

Offering a discount on their next meal in return for feedback may entice customers to take a few moments to provide their thoughts and opinions on their dining experience, and this can help increase the volume of feedback received and provide more comprehensive insights into what your customers want.

However, it’s important to note that offering incentives in exchange for reviews can be seen as a form of bribery and may violate the terms of service of some review websites. Moreover, offering incentives may not necessarily result in more positive reviews and can even backfire, especially if customers feel like they are being coerced into leaving a review.

Key takeaway

As you can see, text marketing campaigns are a great way to connect with your customers, and with a 98% open rate, are more effective than any other form of marketing.

Whether you offer special deals, a loyalty program, promote events or need to get reviews, it’s important to discover what works best for your business and your customers. That said, it’s also important to be creative to keep your customers engaged and interested.

And with the right approach, text campaigns can help you build better customer relationships that drive business and support the long-term success of your restaurant.

About Magic

Magic helps local businesses grow. Thousands of local businesses use Magic to get more online reviews, win new customers, easily manage customer conversations and grow sales. Magic offers these features:

• Reviews: Get more reviews with easy review requests for popular review sites like Google, Facebook, Yelp, TrustPilot, and more. Rank high on local search and enhance your visibility on Google. 
• Inbox: Keep track of customer conversations across channels in one inbox, including SMS, Facebook, Instagram, and Gmail. Manage conversations better as a team and do more with industry specific templates. 
• Text Marketing: Drive more sales with instant text campaigns and reach your customers at the right moment with automation. Use prebuilt templates to send out text campaigns in minutes. 
• Webchat: Turn website visitors into customers with SMS powered Webchat. Chat to website visitors directly through SMS so you won’t miss a lead, even when they leave your website. 

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