SMS marketing for restaurants isn’t any different than in other industries: most benefits still apply. Generally speaking, SMS is an incredibly popular and effective channel – it’s widely read, opened, and replied to or clicked through, and highly engaging.
For instance, customers are 4.5 times more likely to respond to an SMS message than an email. It’s response rate is even higher than popular social media and messaging platforms combined.
What’s more, SMS messages have an incredibly high open and read rate – about 98% after 20 minutes. Over 80% of millennials, for example, open SMS messages within the first 90 seconds.
Finally, SMS marketing is perfect for restaurants as it’s incredibly reactive. Emails are too slow to be of much use – few people expect to communicate with a restaurant through email, so SMS remains the best option.
Read On for Text Marketing Best Practices
- Keep Your Restaurant Messages Relevant: Text messages are more personal than emails, so make sure the messages you send are valuable to your customers. Ask yourself if there’s any unique benefit they’ll receive before sending the message.
- Keep Restaurant SMS Messages Short: Stick to the 160 character limit when crafting your SMS marketing messages for restaurants. If a message goes above that limit, it’s split into two and can cause issues during the delivery process.
- Gather Opt-in Contacts and Implement Opt-outs. This isn’t exactly a best practice, but it is a necessity. Legislation surrounding data protection requires you to obtain permission from users before you can interact with them. The same applies to SMS marketing. Additionally, you should always provide an opt-out option at least once. Not doing so is not only unkind but could lead to legal issues.
- Personalize Text Messages: Personalization works in every marketing channel we know. Since you have to collect consent through opt-ins, you have some information to base your marketing decisions on. SMS messages are short, but you can still personalize them. A great way to do this is to include the customer’s name in the message. It doesn’t take up a lot of characters, but it makes the message feel more personal.
What restaurant do you know that does text marketing others should learn from? Share with me @spirocks on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok best submission wins Amazing Sushi or the Best Chicken Parm you ever had.