Anyone that tells you email marketing is easy, literally has no idea what they are talking about. However, done correctly, it’s the single most effective method to communicate and engage guests.
Unfortunately, most users of email platforms don’t do it correctly.
It’s one thing to send 1000 emails to your list, but if none of them get delivered to an inbox or opened, then you’ve accomplished nothing with your time. There are technical aspects along with best practices that need to be addressed to earn any success using email to market your restaurant.
Step 1: Setting Up the Technical Side of Your Sports Bar’s Email Programs for Success
Let’s start with the technical.
Once completed, it ensures your emails will be identifiable as being sent by you (and not your email service). This dramatically increases your inbox deliver success and thus your open rates. Inbox delivery is a minefield of settings to properly brand your email delivery as coming from your restaurant.
From CName to a DMarc policy, the settings must be completed on your site host location. The good news is that once it’s completed, it never needs to be addressed again. As we referenced, most operators have no capacity for those steps. Consequently, some authentication steps get left out and this degrades the success of any campaign you send.
Step 2: Nailing the Creative & Strategic Aspects of Email Marketing
Of course, doing the technical part is only half the battle for achieving email marketing success. Once you have accomplished all your authentication requirements, then you have to move on to issues related to email marketing execution.
The following best practices are only a few of the key steps inherent in a successful email strategy.
The Subject Line Rules
If you write a boring subject line, then you can expect no one to be interested. The subject line is your first and only chance to motivate an email subscriber to open your correspondence. As a result, it is also the single most important aspect of EVERY email campaign.
You want short and clear subject lines to catch attention and that also shows off your sports bar’s personality. Using emojis in the subject line can also be great, assuming your guests and readers are into them.
Personalization
Name call outs are extremely valuable. Everyone loves to hear or read their own name. Include a personalization in your subject line and watch the open rates increase. However, personalization is great in the email body as well. It gives people the sense you are engaging them directly. Personalize but don’t go overboard; the goal is to make it sound natural.
Metered Approach
There is obviously a consequence of sending too much email, it’s called an unsubscribe. Unsubs will be the death of any successful email strategy. Have a plan and send only when that plan calls for it. If you are seeing high unsubs, reassess your plan.
Content
If you have nothing of interest to share, you are definitely better off not sharing. Which is why it is crucial that you have a content focus. For sports-themed operators you always have the conversation around upcoming games. Sports is why your guests visit, so leverage it by including information like favorite team schedules or special offers for viewing sports.
The SportsTV Guide HQ Can Help You Do All This and More!
We understand how intimidating all these email challenges can be to operators. All you really want is for the email to send itself. Ironically, this is exactly what we have created at SportsTV Guide HQ, the ONLY sports-themed operators dedicated email platform.
From prebuilt ready to deploy promotions to content creation, our platform knows marketing for sports bars and is built to make it easy for operators. If you are ready to up your email game, let’s do a demo and show just how far your game can go.
BONUS: Special Offer to STVG Subscribers
Now through the end of the 2024, SportsTV Guide Subscribers can get UPGRADED Concierge Level marketing service (a $3600/year value) at Pro level pricing of just $150/month for 2500+ contacts. This includes your STVG subscription! Plus:
- Complete technical setup, including migration of your email templates and contact list
- Unique newsletter and single-send email template designs, exclusive to your brand
- Base email campaign and design setup (birthday, reward programs, etc.)
- Email marketing planning meetings with the STVG HQ staff
- Prebuilt sports-themed promotions (March Madness, Weekly Football Cards, etc.)
- Content creation for your email marketing and social campaigns
To learn more about STVG HQ and to schedule your free demo to see it action, visit here.
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