Text messaging is an extremely powerful marketing tool for restaurants, especially when it comes to reaching out to a large number of people immediately with your tempting offers. If you are looking into some ways to make use of SMS marketing, then here is what you can do with it.

1. Menu Updates and Suggestions

We assume that you have asked their exclusive permission to receive your marketing text messages. Now one of the best ways to attract, engage, and entice existing customers as well as the new prospects to the table is by sending them SMS updates and notifications about your menu like what is cooking and what new items have been introduced to the menu lately.

Though text marketing only gives you very limited characters to go along with, 160 characters in general, you certainly have that chance to get creative by including your web page links. Another way to be more interactive with your customers is by asking menu suggestions from them – and this concept can create a great impact on your business.

2. Introduce VIP Club Membership

The success of any business lies in maximum and healthy interaction with your customers. Your customers will be more engaged with you if you use your SMS marketing contact list to create a VIP club membership. It’s a natural human instinct that all of us want to be appreciated and cared for. When customers join the club, you can let them feel special by offering them bonus offers like certain discounts that are not found anywhere else and are exclusive to VIP members. If the infrastructure of your establishment allows, you can dive deep by providing other VIP bonuses, like express seating, quick ordering, and queue jumping.

3. Latest Discount Offers

You can also bring in new customers and increase the loyalty of current customers by keeping them informed about all the latest promotions and discount deals. For instance, if you find out certain time of the day when your restaurant operates under capacity then you can advertise 2-for-1 offers to encourage a festive full house. Offering freebies on midweek bookings is another excellent way to attract a bit more audience and thus more revenue into your business. Operating a chain of restaurants? You can come up with targeted promotions by working together with your enthusiastic sales managers to bring customers to the empty tables and increase sales.

4. Bookings through SMS

Sending your customers menu updates and discount offers is one thing, but enabling them to reserve a table through SMS is another. Your SMS campaign can provide them the opportunity to make SMS bookings and this will increase the uptake significantly and conversions substantially. To make it simple and convenient for customers to book a table, you can include certain keywords in your texts which can be sent to a specific short code, thus minimizing the effort at the consumer end. And don’t just stop there! Follow them up with booking confirmation and reminder messages.

5. Customer Feedback through SMS

Repeat customers are a great asset for your company as per various research studies saying the cost of winning new customers is typically five times more than that of retaining existing customers. That said, you should make sure that all your customers are pleased and satisfied with your service. Only then you can expect return customers. Getting feedback from customers also becomes imperative when it comes to providing them the best service. For that, you can conduct simple SMS surveys to learn about both positive and negative comments and suggestions from people about the meal itself as well as the service and the whole atmosphere. By acknowledging their feedback and providing your own feedback, you can definitely set things right (if any).