6 SMS Marketing Strategies to Boost Restaurant Sales

With a proper marketing strategy, your restaurant can attract new customers and convert them into loyal regulars. SMS marketing is a fantastic way to reach out to old and new customers and offers a wide variety of benefits.  

With promotions, vouchers, birthday deals, and WhatsApp marketing, your business can gain a steady stream of repeat customers. In this guide, we will show the benefits of text advertising and the best ways to make the most of SMS messaging for marketing.

What is SMS marketing?

SMS marketing is a form of advertising where a business sends promotions and advertisements directly to customers' phones through short message services. It is an opt in marketing service where patrons consent for your restaurant to contact them.

ResDiary allows you to gather customer contact data in the booking process. Diners can then opt in to receive future marketing communications at the end of the booking process. When they opt in, their data is stored securely in ResDiary’s CRM.

Hospitality venues can use SMS marketing campaigns to advertise new items, provide booking reminders and confirmations, and get post-dining feedback. Through SMS marketing for restaurants, you can reduce the amount of no-shows, find new customers, and increase your brand awareness.

Why is SMS marketing effective for restaurants?

SMS marketing grants you a new way to engage with customers directly, and in a highly personalised way. You can use SMS marketing for goals like: 

• Customer outreach: Text message marketing and SMS campaigns can reach customers more effectively than email marketing or other adverts.  At least 94% of people in the UK own a smartphone, as do almost 87% of Australians. With an SMS marketing strategy, you can find a wider audience as directly as possible through their mobile device.  
• Marketing efficiency: Not only is an SMS message more likely to be seen by your diners, but SMS messaging campaigns are less expensive than other channels of marketing. SMS marketing offers instant contact as well as easy personalisation and message creation. This means that SMS marketing can boost sales quickly and efficiently.
• Patron profiles: An SMS programme offers a unique opportunity for making use of customer data. With text marketing, you can use reservation data to understand each diner's specific interests. This enables more personalisation options for special events and limited-time deals.

You should create unique customer profiles for maximum effectiveness in text message marketing and targeted campaigns. With effective customer relations management systems, you can automate the process of gathering customer data and information for other digital marketing campaigns.

This is made possible with the ResDiary restaurant reservation system. ResDiary integrates with customer relationship management systems like TalkBox or Acteol. These systems allow you to leverage the data you collect about your customers.

ResDiary also integrates with Silverstreet, which offers its own straightforward and effective approach to personalised SMS marketing.

6 ways to use SMS marketing in your restaurant

Here are six ways you can use SMS marketing to get the best results for your restaurant:

1. Promotions

Promotions are special offers you can use to delight your customers and get more attention to your business. Promotion opportunities include tasting menus, end-of-season specials on seasonal dishes, holidays, and more. Promotions allow customers to explore the best your restaurant has to offer.

By sending promotional messages directly to your customers, you don't have to fight for their attention. This can be a big advantage compared to channels like social media. Text message marketing goes straight to a phone, so you know they've seen it, making it more effective than out-of-the-way marketing on a website or other platforms.

With ResDiary’s promotions feature, you can automatically set up promotions to run for specific days or a whole week. With tools like Silverstreet, you can also automate sending promotions to address specific people, and adjust colours, themes, and aesthetics.

2. Events

Hosting a special event like a wine-tasting session is an outstanding way to build relationships with customers. With the help of SMS marketing, you can spread the word about your events, making them a major success.

Personalising text messages associated with your event will increase customer engagement, revenue and gain more brand exposure. Reaching out to diners for events can also make them feel appreciated, building customer loyalty.

SMS marketing for events can use visuals personalised by each invitation. A cocktail party could have a tropical theme, for instance. This makes your event more enticing for your customers, and clearly communicates what it will involve.

With ResDiary’s integrations, you can build customer data and cater your event marketing to your customer’s known interests. Organise events more easily with ResDiary’s booking system and use CRM integrations to ensure they are a smashing success.

3. Reservation follow-up and reminders 

With SMS marketing, you can help to prevent no-shows or forgotten bookings. No-shows are people who have made a reservation but never appear for their booking.

In our Hospitality Industry Report, we found that during 2023, 8% of bookings resulted in a no-show. Over time, they can become seriously costly for your business.

You will generate less income, your staff will have to adapt to the scheduling issues on the fly, and you will take on unnecessary costs. ResDiary’s online restaurant booking system can help keep track of reservations and integrate with SMS marketing systems to follow-up with customers.

By using SMS marketing to follow-up on your customers’ booking times, you can reduce no-shows and build relationships with your diners. In cases when customers need to back out of a booking, restaurant text messaging can remind them to cancel, freeing up table space.

Using ResDiary in conjunction with tools like Silverstreet is the perfect way to ensure customers don’t fail to appear for their reservations. This helps to streamline your restaurant’s operations and nurture your customer relationships.

4. Dining follow-ups 

Continue showing appreciation for your customers with dining follow-up messages. Communicating with patrons after dining shows your business cares and helps you get more insight into your diner’s experience.

With personalised SMS marketing, you get a chance to receive valuable feedback from your customers and improve your business.

Sending a text after a client has been at your restaurant can also encourage more online reviews. These are vital for your restaurant, with 94% of Australians trusting online reviews for businesses. In the UK, 77% of consumers have checked online reviews for restaurants when looking to make a booking.

Google reviews play a big role in bringing customers into your venue and can affect the placement of your business in search results. Your SMS marketing can even include a link to leave an online Google review, encouraging more positive reviews to be left for your restaurant.

5. Birthdays and special occasions 

Communicating with diners on special occasions like birthdays makes them feel valued, helping to build customer loyalty. Birthdays and special anniversaries are a good moment to offer special discounts as well, encouraging customers to return to your venue for these big events.

Best of all, customers are often willing to spend more on major occasions.

With ResDiary’s table management system and CRM integrations, you can track information about your customers including their birthdays. Then, it’s easy to create a personalised message to draw them back to your venue.

Offer a discount or another special offer to ensure they can’t resist coming back.

6. New menu items 

If your menu has new options or has been updated, an SMS message is a fast and efficient way to let your customers know about it. Menu changes also offer another chance to send messages and use creative marketing.

Lean into the visual appeal of the dish or send aesthetic messages based on the dish's cuisine culture, or colours. An effective new menu message will invite customers back to your business and boost customer engagement.

Regulars will be interested in knowing about any changes to your menu. SMS marketing presents a quick and efficient way to drum up excitement for new items.

With ResDiary’s CRM integrations, you can also keep track of customers' specific tastes through their data. Build a greater relationship with regulars by reaching out to them if a new item might take their fancy.

5 tips for creating irresistible SMS marketing messages

It’s not enough to simply send out SMS messages for your business. If they are not succinct and high quality, you won’t hook diners. Here are five tips to create an engaging and effective SMS campaign:

1. Short texts: A good text message can be read and understood in seconds. Keeping it too long or too formal can cause your customer to lose interest. It’s best to stay away from the ‘sales pitch’ language that audiences have gotten used to. Message content must be succinct, quick and easy to understand.
2. Attractive messages: Ensure the message is to the point but enjoyable to read. Keep the words flowing and sharp. For longer messages, take advantage of whitespace and break texts into short messages. Add relevant images to the message for events and promotions.
3. Personalise: Wherever possible, personalise your messages to the diner you are talking to. You can use ResDiary and its integrations to retain information around birthdays, set menu purchases and favourite dishes.
4. Create urgency: Drum up immediate attention for your business by making limited time offers and special, short term events. By creating urgency, you are selling your services clearly and enticingly.
5. Use CTAs: A call-to-action is a slogan or phrase encouraging direct actions. For restaurant SMS marketing, this will generally involve placing a booking. CTAs help customers directly act on their interest in the easiest way possible. Without a CTA, an interested customer has no immediate way to respond to your message. 
   

Maximise your restaurant marketing with ResDiary 

ResDiary has the integrations and functions you need to market your restaurant as efficiently as possible. In addition to SMS marketing, ResDiary has a range of built-in email marketing features, allowing you to directly communicate with customers on multiple fronts.

ResDiary also offers integrations for Reserve with Google and Meta, making it easy to generate paying customers from search engines and social media marketing. Plus, ResDiary offers the outstanding table management functionality needed to manage all these new customers.

Book a demo with ResDiary today to level up your marketing and grow your business.