Hotel businesses today have an array of marketing automation tools at their disposal to stay connected with their diverse clientele, including business travelers, luxury guests, families, and more. However, the challenge always lies between creating a compelling and personalized message and determining effective touchpoints.

Here comes Electronic Direct Email (EDM), one of the most powerful tools for hotel restaurants to increase sales and boost guest loyalty. Combined with rich guest data, EDM allows hotels to optimize marketing strategies, and tailor messages to increase guest engagement, leading to better sales.

The strength of hotel EDM campaigns

EDM is one of the most cost-effective ways to drive repeat guests. Hotel restaurants can create visually rich, targeted content by sending ongoing promotions, offers, and important updates directly to segmented audiences.

Moreover, EDMs offer excellent tracking capabilities and enable restaurant operators to monitor campaign performance, analyze data, and refine future marketing strategies. It also helps pinpoint successful tactics to optimize engagement with their audience.

TableCheck EDM: A powerful marketing automation feature for hotels

Whether the user is a marketing novice or a seasoned pro, the TableCheck EDM feature is designed to help hotel businesses scale their marketing campaigns.

Here are a few reasons why it is the best feature of the TableCheck platform:

• It is built to simplify the process of creating, sending, and managing targeted email marketing campaigns.

• Users can easily customize email templates according to the brand's colors, and fonts, and apply standardized header and footer, thus strengthening the restaurant brand’s presence in all email campaigns.

• Email campaigns are highly trackable and each campaigns are segregated properly, making it easy for users to assess, analyze, and adjust future marketing efforts, or find a proven strategy that engages their audience.

• TableCheck EDM includes the most important metrics such as open rates, click rates, reservations, and other key indicators to gauge campaign success and conversions.

• TableCheck Insight – our powerful analytics tool – also displays a TableCheck EDM dashboard to help hotel GMs, F&B directors, and revenue managers understand EDM performance along with their sales.

More importantly, the TableCheck EDM software was developed with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) compliance in mind, helping hotel restaurants manage consent, data protection, and privacy effortlessly. With Tablecheck’s EDM platform, operators can send out GDPR-compliant email marketing keeping marketing efforts within legal boundaries.

Learn more: How to run successful EDM campaigns

Best practices for successful hotel EDM campaigns

To ensure effectiveness, build stronger connections with the audience, and achieve better results, below is a list of important considerations for hotel F&B restaurant marketing managers or staff when sending out email campaigns:

1. Build a strong database and segment your hotel guests

Restaurants need to capture important client details such as their name, email addresses, and other critical data and segment them based on demographics and preference for more targeted and relevant content. "Frequent Diners", "VIPs", "vegetarian guests", and "couples with kids" are just some examples of how to segment hotel guests and walk-ins.

2. Create personalized messages with compelling subject lines with a clear and engaging design

Subject lines are the gateway to effective emails, so they must capture attention and entice recipients to open the message. It is a best practice to combine an engaging subject line with visually appealing email content. A clean layout, legible fonts, and relevant images should complement and enhance the message, rather than distract from it. The design should also be consistent with the restaurant’s branding.

3. Include strong calls to action (CTAs) to monitor efficient metrics

Calls to action must be clear and actionable, guiding recipients on what to do next, whether to read more about a particular offer or make a reservation. This significantly helps in efficiently tracking and analyzing the performance of each campaign.

4. Schedule EDMs strategically

It's recommended to send out EDM emails during optimal hours and frequencies based on your audience's behavior and preferences to maximize engagement. Emails that are sent when the target audience is more likely to open their inboxes can lead to higher open rates and successful marketing campaigns.

5. More visibility to encourage more sign-ups in the mailing list

One of the most effective practices placing QR codes on strategic locations such as on the menu, kiosk, or guest room. This has been proven to rapidly build a mailing list effortlessly as guests can easily subscribe by just scanning the code.

6. Test EDM performance: repeat successful campaigns

Hotel restaurant managers need to track EDM performance to understand the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and how it translates to sales. Open rates for subject email headers, click-through rates of the CTAs (call to action) and bounce rates are just some of the metrics they need to see how well these emails perform. By analyzing their metrics, hotel F&B managers can pivot to create better and more engaging email campaigns.

10 email examples to send to hotel restaurant guests

The best type of email usually includes exciting announcements and perks. Here are just a few examples of EDM campaigns tailored for specific hotel guests:

1. Exclusive perks for frequent business travelers: Complimentary drinks when they dine in the hotel restaurant

2. Spa invitations combined with luxury dining experiences for VIPs: Spa experience followed by a tasting menu from the hotel's luxury restaurant

3. Special discounts for families for Mother's Day and Father's Day: Exclusive 15% for the celebrant

4. Halloween treat or trick plus dinner for couples with kids: A Halloween-themed buffet for the whole family

5. Free cocktails for birthday guests: Complimentary drinks for the birthday celebrants

6. New green recipes: The latest plant-based dishes for vegetarian guests

7. A special 10% discount on their second visit: Welcoming back guests

8. A free bottle of wine for the first 20 groups: Perks for the New Year's Eve

9. Exclusive discounts for Ramadan: Iftar menu and set buffets for those observing this holy celebration

10. Cook with the Michelin-chef: A free cooking class for the first five diner
    

TableCheck provides Hotel F&B and restaurant owners with the best-in-class hospitality tech solutions to help them provide unforgettable dining experiences to guests while maximizing their hotel restaurant management operations and revenue. With TableCheck EDM, hotel restaurant operators can attract repeat guests while moving their business forward. Book a demo today to find out more about TableCheck EDM.

Learn more: Boost sales with marketing automation and EDM | TableCheck