It’s 4:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. In many households, the great “What’s for dinner?” debate is in full swing. This discussion can drag on until everyone gets so hungry they start raiding the fridge for leftovers—or until a well-timed text message from a local restaurant puts the dinner debate to rest.
SMS marketing, sometimes called text message marketing, is a powerful digital marketing tool. It gives restaurants a direct and effective way to engage with their customers. They use SMS messages to promote special offers, announce new menu items, confirm reservations, and foster customer loyalty.
In this guide, we’ve rounded up some of the most effective strategies to help restaurant marketers boost engagement and sales through SMS marketing.
What is SMS marketing for restaurants, and why is it important?
Consumers get bombarded with marketing messages across every channel. SMS marketing gives businesses a timely, proven strategy for breaking through the noise. Businesses in the hospitality industry typically generate conversion rates of around 11–20% for SMS marketing campaigns. Given their relatively low cost, SMS campaigns often result in a significant return on investment.
Here’s another eye-opening stat: SMS marketing has a 98% open rate and a 45% response rate. Many people have their mobile devices at their side throughout the day. Restaurants that leverage customer data to tailor their SMS campaigns and offer exclusive deals and recommendations based on customer dining preferences have a unique advantage. They can immediately deliver highly targeted, personalized messages to customers’ mobile phones.
Is your restaurant looking to create a more loyal customer base? SMS marketing is a solid strategy for attracting more repeat customers. Ninety percent of customers say they gain value from SMS loyalty programs, which often reward regular customers with exclusive deals and points redeemable for discounts.
It’s a win-win: Restaurants bring in more business, and their customers get the VIP treatment.
Key elements of an effective SMS marketing strategy for restaurants
Crafting a successful SMS marketing campaign for your restaurant is rarely as simple as hitting send. You’ll first want to make sure you’re sending the right message to the right people at the right time and that you have permission to send them texts.
Here are a few key elements your SMS marketing strategy should include.
Audience segmentation
Segmentation is essential for delivering personalized and effective SMS campaigns. It enables businesses to create a better customer experience by demonstrating an understanding of their customers’ unique needs and interests.
Let’s say a customer always orders entrees from their favorite local bar and grill. They sign up to receive texts through the restaurant’s customer loyalty program. If the restaurant sends this customer irrelevant SMS messages about drink specials and BOGO appetizers, they may not continue to opt in to receive texts.
Segmentation can include a customer’s buying behaviors or specific attributes like purchase history, location, or loyalty status. By segmenting your audiences, you can identify which customers are most likely to make a purchase and craft messages that make your recipients want to engage with them.
Message content and clarity
Sometimes, the simplest messages are the most powerful. To avoid sending SMS messages that go unread, create clear messages that effectively convey your offer or value. Make sure you have a distinct call to action (CTA) that gives recipients obvious next steps. When they have a clear CTA, 43% of business owners and digital marketers report an SMS click-through rate (CTR) of between 20% and 35%.
How do you optimize your messages for maximum engagement and a higher SMS CTR? We recommend limiting your message to 160 characters or less. This will help you drive customer engagement and keep your SMS costs low.
You’ll also want to include a short mobile link. With a URL shortener for SMS, you can cut down on your character count and save on SMS per-character fees. Mobile links allow you to track every unique link in your SMS messages to measure campaign effectiveness.
One great industry example is Domino’s Pizza. Domino’s uses a strong CTA, “Order Here,” with a shortened URL. It’s a great CTA to create a sense of urgency and boost click-through rates for pizza-loving audiences.
Timing and frequency
Effective SMS campaigns strike the right balance between message timing and frequency. If you send multiple messages to your customers daily, you may generate more eye rolls than engagement. Likewise, early-morning or late-night texts can annoy recipients to the point of unsubscribing from messages altogether.
Customer burnout is a threat to the success of your SMS campaigns. That’s why it’s important to be mindful and strategic about the messages you send. Generally, the best time to send SMS messages is during regular business hours, or between 10 am and 8 pm, and as close to peak meal times as possible.
Messages sent on Thursday and Saturday often have the highest engagement and conversion rates. This is great news for restaurants that do their best business later in the week and on the weekends. While there isn’t a magic number, experts recommend sending 10-12 SMS messages per month and no more than one message per day.
Opt-in management
Businesses that send marketing messages via text must get explicit written consent from message recipients, known as an SMS opt-in. Customers who want to receive texts will often opt-in through a web form, checking a box to indicate they consent to SMS marketing.
Some businesses create text-to-join campaigns that drive consumers to text a specific keyword to a designated number. Double opt-in has also become an industry best practice for many companies. Text subscribers must provide their phone number, either through a form or text-to-join keyword, and then confirm their opt-in from their mobile device.
Just as customers should have a clear way to opt in, they should also be able to opt out of your SMS program at any time. This can be as easy as replying to an SMS message with “STOP” or “UNSUBSCRIBE.” Once a customer opts out of receiving your marketing messages, you must cease sending further messages aside from an opt-out confirmation message.
We also recommend maintaining an updated opt-out list and comparing this list to your current list before sending out an SMS campaign. Violating a customer’s privacy request may harm your reputation and result in serious fines or civil penalties.
Integration with other promotions
Many marketers lean on other channels to drive SMS marketing engagement. For example, encourage your customers to sign up to receive SMS messages through an email marketing campaign, social post, website pop-up, or in-store signage. Give customers who sign up for texts a special discount or offer to sweeten the deal.
Let’s say you want to get more customers to join your restaurant’s loyalty program. You might email your top customers, encouraging them to send a text for a special discount, or create a social post to entice followers who opt into SMS messages with exclusive promotions.
Consider making SMS part of your customer journey, where your customers receive order updates along with great deals and promotions.
What kind of restaurants should try SMS marketing?
Its versatility is one of the proven benefits of SMS marketing. Companies across industries can profit from an effective SMS campaign.
The same applies to the restaurant industry. Whether you’re a fine dining establishment or a fast-casual eatery, SMS marketing can help you connect with your customers.
Below, we’ve included a few examples of how different types of restaurants might leverage SMS messaging in their marketing.
Fast food and casual dining
- Promote limited-time offers, discounts, combo deals, and new menu items to drive traffic during slow periods.
- Remind customers of mobile ordering options and convenient pickup.
- Build loyalty programs and send customers exclusive SMS offers.
Family-friendly restaurants
- Promote family meal deals or kids-eat-free specials to attract families.
- Share new menu updates and seasonal specials.
- Make it easy for customers to make reservations or get on the waitlist via SMS.
Upscale fine-dining restaurants
- Announce chef’s specials, tasting menus, or exclusive events.
- Allow customers to unlock special menu items through SMS.
Local independent restaurants
- Promote special events like live music, trivia nights, or holiday specials.
- Create two-way conversations and allow customers to provide feedback.
Delivery and takeout
- Send order confirmations and updates.
- Offer special promotions for delivery or pickup.
How to plan an effective SMS marketing strategy built for restaurant needs
A well-planned SMS marketing strategy can help you drive traffic to your restaurant, increase customer engagement, and boost your bottom line.
Ready to start building your strategy? Make sure you’re doing these things as you begin planning and executing your SMS campaigns.
Define your goals first
You may already have a goal in mind for SMS marketing. It’s what likely motivated you to learn more. Start by defining the primary goal and any secondary goals of your SMS campaign. Maybe you want to get more foot traffic into your restaurant, drive customer loyalty, or increase the number of weekend reservations.
Once you’ve identified your goals, apply the SMART framework, setting objectives that are:
- Specific: Clearly define what you want to achieve (for example, 150 dine-ins for May).
- Measurable: Establish metrics to track your progress.
- Attainable: Ensure your objectives are realistic based on resources and past performance.
- Relevant: Align your objectives with your overall marketing strategy and goals.
- Time-bound: Set a deadline to create a sense of urgency.
Select the right types of tools
The right SMS marketing tool can make adding a new strategy to your marketing toolkit feel nearly seamless. Choose a user-friendly tool with an intuitive interface and straightforward campaign management so that your team doesn’t have to navigate a steep learning curve. Many platforms offer drag-and-drop builders, pre-built templates, and automation to streamline campaign creation and execution.
Reliability is another significant factor you should consider. Since SMS marketing relies on timely, consistent message delivery, you’ll want a tool from a reputable provider with a robust infrastructure. As you get more subscribers, you’ll also need a platform to keep up with higher message volumes.
Finally, select tools that integrate with other important tools, like Bitly. Managing and analyzing SMS campaigns is much easier when your tools can communicate with analytics, URL shortening, link tracking, and link management.
For example, you could include a short link in your text that drives customers to a sign-up form for your customer loyalty program. With Bitly Analytics, you can track your engagement results to see how many people tap on your link, what device they’re using, what time they’re engaging, and even where they’re located. Alongside this, you can leverage secondary analytics (like Google Analytics or perhaps even your chosen SMS platform) to see how many customers complete the sign-up form.
Craft campaign messages
To do this well, you have to know your audience. What are their needs, preferences, behaviors, goals, and challenges? Personalized, relevant messaging resonates far better with your audience than generic messaging.
When you’re crafting an SMS marketing message, clarity is essential. Start with a compelling headline that captures the recipient’s attention and use simple, direct language, avoiding confusing jargon or abbreviations. Emojis can add a playful touch if they’re appropriate for your brand.
And don’t forget to include a CTA that tells the recipient exactly what action you want them to take and why. A strong CTA can significantly boost engagement metrics like click-through and conversion rates.
Test and gather feedback
It’s not always clear what SMS messages and strategies will work best. A/B testing allows you to experiment with different headlines, calls to action, offers, and other variables that impact the success of your campaign.
Your customers are also a great source of feedback. Ask them if they find your restaurant’s SMS messages valuable and what content they most want to receive. Maybe they want to be the first to know about new menu items or promotions, or perhaps they love getting exclusive deals.
With Bitly Analytics, you can see exactly how certain campaign variables are performing. Best of all, you can streamline all your clicks or scans in one place to holistically view your campaign data without needing to “Frankenstein” a report from multiple sources.
Monitor and adjust your SMS campaigns
SMS marketing is a two-way street. You aren’t just sending messages into the void—you’re monitoring your audience’s reactions and using those insights to improve future campaigns.
Don’t be afraid to make adjustments as you learn what is and isn’t working. Go deeper with your segmentation to boost relevance and engagement. Experiment with message timing during weekdays or lunch hours when people are likely to be more receptive to food offers. Reflect on which offers and promotions resonate most with your audience, and tailor future campaigns to those offers.
Measure success over time
Pay close attention to your key performance indicators (KPIs). In an SMS marketing campaign, these metrics typically include delivery rate, open rate, CTR, conversion rate, and unsubscribe rate. Fortunately, most SMS marketing platforms offer built-in analytics dashboards that enable you to track these KPIs.
Tips for executing your restaurant’s SMS marketing campaign
Once you have your SMS marketing strategy in place, you might be a little hesitant to set it in motion. Remember, not everything has to be perfect right out of the gate. Customers who sign up to receive texts from your restaurant want to hear from you. The trick is to provide them with the right content!
Here are some helpful tips to guide you as you start executing your SMS campaign.
Be mindful when launching your campaign
If you’ve chosen a reliable SMS platform, managing your subscriber list, crafting messages, and scheduling campaigns should be fairly easy. But it’s always wise to do a trial run before your campaign goes live.
Start by testing your SMS messages internally. Send a message to yourself and your colleagues to ensure proper formatting, delivery, and functionality. Then, craft a sample SMS with a compelling offer and send it to a small segment of your subscribers. This will allow you to gauge the initial response and fine-tune your messaging before rolling out your campaign.
Want to increase the number of clicks you get from your SMS campaign? Create short, branded links to build familiarity and trust with your audience and encourage them to tap through.
Timing is everything with SMS campaigns. Stick to the peak times people are thinking about placing a to-go order or dining out, and avoid early mornings and late nights. By considering all of these variables, you’ll ensure a smooth launch and maximize the success of your SMS marketing efforts.
Use customer engagement techniques
Beyond special promotions and discounts, there are other ways to engage your customers. Interactive content like polls, contests, and Q&As can give your SMS campaigns a more fun, personalized feel.
Try sending out a poll to get real-time feedback on new menu items. Ask customers about their recent experience in a survey. Consider running an SMS-exclusive contest where customers can enter by texting a keyword for a chance to win prizes. Host an “Ask the Chef” live Q&A so customers can get a behind-the-scenes look at your restaurant. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination!
Manage customer responses
Since text is a two-way conversation, you’ll likely receive responses to your SMS marketing campaigns. Customers may have questions or feedback, and you’ll want to be sure you respond promptly and thank them for their message.
Many SMS marketing platforms offer features to streamline response management, including automated replies and keyword triggers. If a customer asks a frequently asked question (such as, What are your hours?), you and your team won’t have to craft a response for every message.
Above all, maintain consistency in your responses. Ensure that every message you send conveys your brand voice and personality.
Implement follow-up strategies from the beginning
The goal of any SMS marketing campaign is to keep customers engaged. Sending one or two special promotions may lead to an uptick in sales, but you probably won’t keep your customers’ attention.
After a customer places an online order, send them a post-purchase SMS message asking them to rate their experience. A week later, recommend some additional menu items they might like based on their order history. The key is to keep experimenting and finding ways to make your restaurant top of mind.
Avoid common mistakes in SMS restaurant marketing
Restaurant owners new to SMS marketing typically make at least one of these mistakes:
1. Sending messages without consent
You should never send an SMS message without explicit consent from your recipient. Customers who receive an unsolicited message from your restaurant may unsubscribe or even report your message as spam.
2. Creating uninteresting or generic messages
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Would you want to visit a restaurant that sent you a generic “Try our delicious food!” message?
3. Forgetting their calls to action
Customers should know exactly what to do after reading your message, whether that’s placing an online order or making a reservation.
4. Not timing out their sends
If you want to attract the lunch crowd, you probably shouldn’t send your message at 3 pm. Similarly, announcing the weekend’s live entertainment on a Friday afternoon might not give customers enough time to clear their schedules.
5. Sending too few or too many messages
Start with two to four messages per month, and track your campaign performance to find the frequency that works best for your audience.
6. Delivering the same message to all audiences
You should tailor your message to your customers’ demographics, preferences, and purchase history.
7. Neglecting personalization
If you want to make your customers feel valued, simply adding their first name in a message can go a long way.
8. Not tracking results
Without tracking open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, you won’t know what’s working and what you should change. Using an analytics platform like Google Analytics can help you keep track of these valuable metrics.
Should you integrate SMS with other marketing efforts?
The short answer: Yes! When paired with your other marketing channels, SMS marketing can amplify your results, maximizing reach and engagement.
Let’s cover a few things you should consider when tying your marketing efforts together.
Benefits of integrations
Your marketing efforts should augment your customer journey. When you integrate your SMS marketing with email, social media, and in-store promotions, you create a powerful and cohesive marketing experience for your restaurant.
Let’s say a customer hears about a special promotion on Instagram, receives a text, and then sees the promotion advertised in-store. They’re more likely to take advantage of the promotion when it’s top of mind.
Now imagine that a customer sees a special promotion for their favorite restaurant on Instagram, but they find no mention of it on the restaurant’s website or in-store. This type of inconsistent communication across channels may confuse the customer and prevent them from redeeming the offer.
Examples of coordinated campaigns
(Note: These examples were found during our online research.)
Burger King’s ‘Whopper Detour’ Campaign
When you’re craving a fast food burger, Burger King (BK) and McDonald’s are probably two options that come to mind. To attract customers craving a burger, Burger King launched its “Whopper Detour” campaign, offering one cent Whoppers exclusively through its app when customers were within 600 feet of a McDonald’s.
BK sent targeted SMS messages to nearby customers with a link to download their app and access the deal. They also promoted the “Whopper Detour” across social media and set up geo-targeted mobile ads to alert users about the promotion when near McDonald’s locations. The campaign led to more than 1.5 million app downloads and a significant increase in BK’s sales and customer traffic.
Mendocino Farms, Online Ordering
Mendocino Farms, a West Coast fast-casual chain, began offering online ordering and needed a way to communicate the news to customers. To make it easy to gather customer emails across its 27 locations, Mendocino Farms created special keywords for each of its locations. When customers texted the location-specific keyword, Mendocino Farms requested the customer’s email address and already knew their location based on the keyword they texted.
In-store signage and business cards near the cash registers encouraged customers to sign up for texts, provide their email addresses, and get exciting updates about Mendocino Farms.
Technology and tool integration solutions
Integrating SMS with other platforms is essential for restaurant marketers to streamline their communication and marketing. Fortunately, some tools facilitate this integration and enable seamless connectivity between SMS services and applications.
One of these tools is Bitly. The Bitly API allows businesses to integrate their SMS platforms with Bitly’s link shortening and management capabilities. Restaurants can deliver branded, targeted text messages at nearly any volume. Bitly makes it easy to shorten and track links within your existing SMS workflows to ensure clear and concise communication with customers.
Bitly’s API also integrates with leading SMS platforms like Twilio and Salesforce. Managing communications and customer data is significantly easier when you can leverage data from your existing platforms.
Advanced SMS marketing tactics for restaurants to know
Once you have a few SMS marketing campaigns under your belt, here are a few advanced SMS marketing tactics you can experiment with.
Personalization and AI
The more you can personalize your SMS messages, the better the response you’ll get from your campaigns. Using AI, you can access a treasure trove of data—including purchase history, browsing behavior, demographics, and interactions across channels—to predict a customer’s future interest and needs. Use this data to send personalized SMS messages and recommendations.
Geotargeting and location-based offers
By using location data, restaurants can send hyper-targeted SMS messages to customers within a specific geographic region. Any offers or promotions the customer receives will be relevant to their location, which increases the likelihood they’ll engage and convert.
Geotargeted SMS campaigns can also drive foot traffic to your restaurant. If you have multiple locations, you can use geotargeting to promote location-specific offers, discounts, and events.
Automation
It’s easy to forget to schedule an SMS campaign or hit send later than you’d planned. This is why SMS automation is helpful. You can pre-schedule entire campaigns in advance, specifying the date and time you want to send and what customer segments should receive your message. Automation ensures your messages hit their target at the right time.
You can also set up automated SMS campaigns to trigger upon specific customer actions or behaviors. If a customer hasn’t placed an online order in several months, you can pre-schedule an automated message with a discount code to encourage re-engagement.
Cross-promotion tactics
SMS marketing campaigns can be great for cross-promoting new menu items, events, and other offerings. Send your SMS subscribers teasers about new menu items before they hit the menu, including enticing details and photos to build excitement. If you have limited-time or seasonal menu items, SMS messages can help create a greater sense of urgency and drive traffic to your restaurant.
You can also use SMS to drive customers to other channels. For example, send customers a text urging them to follow your restaurant on Instagram, where you’ll give followers a sneak peek of your new summer cocktail menu.
How Bitly makes SMS marketing for restaurants simple
Just like having the right SMS marketing platform makes sending SMS campaigns easier, the right link management platform can paint a clearer picture of your campaign results. Below, we’ve included a few ways Bitly helps you run more cohesive and seamless campaigns.
Simplifying campaign management
Busy restaurant marketing teams need tools that are intuitive and easy to use. Bitly offers many valuable features like link shortening, which saves limited character space in SMS messages and makes links more clickable and aesthetically pleasing. You can also create custom-branded links for your restaurant that customers will recognize and trust.
Enhancing tracking and analytics
With Bitly’s tracking and analytics tools, you never have to wonder how your SMS campaigns are performing. Bitly provides detailed real-time tracking and analytics for every short link you create—and you can access these insights as soon as your messages go out.
Easily view metrics like clicks, locations, and devices used, and use this data to optimize your SMS campaigns for better engagement. Many restaurants using location-based targeting love how Bitly gives them specific geographic data so they can see where people are clicking their links.
Ensuring compliance
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in the U.S. and GDPR in Europe set strict regulations around SMS marketing. Fortunately, there are tools and CRM integrations to help marketers manage and document consent. HubSpot’s SMS tool allows you to collect SMS opt-ins via keywords, edit consent status, and view SMS subscription status with contact records.
Many SMS marketing platforms also have built-in consent management capabilities that can integrate with your CRM system and with Bitly for link tracking.
Integration with other marketing tools
Bitly communicates seamlessly with various marketing tools to make your workflow more efficient. This includes SMS tools like Twilio and Salesforce, email marketing tools, social media management tools, and website builders. However, it’s important to note that you need an API to connect them with Bitly.
Connect with your restaurant customers easily with Bitly
SMS marketing offers many advantages that make it a solid strategy for restaurants to explore. You can reach your customers where they’re already spending their time—on their mobile devices—and deliver personalized messages based on their history and behaviors. Compared to other marketing methods, SMS campaigns are cost-effective and get your brand in front of a larger audience.
Bitly is a robust tool for SMS marketing known for its ease of use, effectiveness, and integration capabilities. Get started with Bitly today and start creating SMS messaging campaigns for your restaurant today!
