Marketing
27 Subject Line Ideas for Your Restaurant Emails
December 1, 2022
Boost your email marketing strategy and improve your open rates with better subject lines. Plus, learn what types of restaurant emails you should be sending.
Email marketing is a powerful — often untapped — tool for restaurants. The channel drives more revenue for restaurants than social media and offers a cost-effective way to reach both former diners and potential customers.
Read more: A Beginner's Guide to Restaurant Email Marketing
A major component of a successful email marketing strategy is to make sure your emails are actually opened. The average open rate for restaurants is 19.77%, which means that if you have an email list of 1,000 people, only 190 will open your email per campaign.
The key to improving your open rate? A great subject line.
PRODUCT
Email Marketing for Restaurants
Want to build guest relationships with marketing automation? Trigger emails based on diner behavior to drive repeat revenue.
Subject Line Best Practices
Shorter is better.
Marketing company CoSchedule analyzed 20 case studies, articles and guides about email subject lines and found that the ideal length is 17-24 characters. This ensures that your subject line is seen on both desktop and mobile without cutting off.
Questions can be good hooks.
Does curiosity drive engagement? Data shows that it does. Sales engagement tool Yesware found that subject lines that are questions receive a 10% higher open rate compared to average open rates. This doesn’t mean that every email you send needs to have a question as a subject line, but it’s a good nugget of knowledge to keep in your email marketing toolkit for frequent use.
Numbers perform well.
Yesware also analyzed 115 million emails and found that subject lines with numbers resulted in a higher than average open rate — a 53.2% open rate with numbers compared to a 51.9% open rate without numbers.
Sentence case capitalization is preferred.
Email marketing company AWeber surveyed 100 email marketing professionals. 60% use sentence-case capitalization, 34% use title-case capitalization and 6% use all lowercase email subject lines. Here’s what those terms mean:
Sentence case capitalization (the first letter of the first word is capitalized, for example: This is an email subject line)
Title case capitalization (the first letter of every word is capitalized except for articles like “the” and “an”, for example: This Is an Email Subject Line)
Lowercase capitalization (every letter is lowercase, for example: this is an email subject line)
Types of Restaurant Emails
Get your content in front of more subscribers by using some of the subject line ideas below. We’ve outlined various restaurant emails you’re likely sending and included a list of suggested subject lines. Take them as inspiration, and customize to fit your audience and campaign. If you want to write your own, keep in mind the best practices above.
Emails showcasing restaurant gift cards
Restaurant gift cards are a powerful revenue driver, and they’re heavily promoted around the holiday season. Many restaurants run gift card specials for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
In this example, Indianapolis hospitality group Won’t Stop Hospitality promotes a gift card deal that runs from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve: $20 free when you purchase $100 in gift cards. Hospitality groups may consider an email like this when a promotion is available across multiple concepts under the same hospitality group umbrella.
Read more: 3 Reasons to Sell Gift Cards During the Holidays
Subject Line Ideas:
🎁 Buy $100, Get $20 free
Want a $20 bonus gift card?
Need an easy holiday gift?
Emails selling restaurant merchandise
Does your restaurant sell merchandise like mugs, cookbooks, tote bags, apparel or packaged foods? Let customers know when you drop a new type of gear or you’re having a holiday sale.
Selling restaurant merchandise directly on your website keeps online visitors in one place, and it’s easy to drive traffic through automated email marketing campaigns.
Tasty Burger’s winter merch includes beanies, hoodies and pom pom hats. Fans of the burger company, which has five locations around Boston, can show off their enthusiasm for the local staple.
Read more: Most Popular Restaurant Merchandise Ideas
Subject Line Ideas:
You’re missing out…
New merch is here!
Meet your new winter gear
Beanie or Pom-Pom Hat?
3 new pieces of 🍔 gear
Emails encouraging online ordering
Drive online orders through email campaigns. You can send an email to past customers, thanks to automated marketing campaigns that enable you to re-engage previous diners. Or, you can send a promotion to your general email list — anyone who signed up through your website or social media, registered for an event or previously purchased merchandise.
To create an incentive to place an online order, restaurants can offer a discount in their email campaigns. Here, Trattoria Vaccaro offers 15% off a customer’s next online order with a special promo code.
Read more: The Best Online Ordering System for Restaurants in 2022
Subject Line Ideas:
Here’s an offer for your next visit
For your next visit…
Get $5 off your next order
FREE appetizer on us
Tonight only! 15% OFF
PRODUCT
Online Ordering for Restaurants
Drive more revenue with unified, branded, commission-free online ordering.
Emails promoting restaurant events
Are you selling tickets to restaurant events? Maybe you’re hosting a wine dinner, cooking class, holiday pop-up or a special brunch. Promote the event through email marketing. A neighborhood spot in Boston, 75 Chestnut, tapped into its email list to share details about their annual Gingerbread House Brunch that’s offered throughout November and December. Incorporating questions and the name of the event into the subject line performs well for these types of emails.
Read more: 6 Tips For Planning Holiday Ticketed Events
Subject Line Ideas:
You’re invited! [Event Name]
See you next Wednesday?
Have you registered yet?
Cook with Chef [Name]
Emails publicizing seasonal or special menus
Restaurants, coffee shops and bakeries can share their seasonal menus and specials with email subscribers. Unveiling a line-up of holiday drinks? Transitioning from your winter menu to spring menu? Keep your email list in the know with an informative email that’s equal parts exciting and to-the-point.
Chicago-based Goddess and the Baker does this well with the announcement of its holiday drink specials. The email has beautiful graphics, prominent drink names and detailed descriptions.
Subject Line Ideas:
Meet our new [season] menu
New menu! Find your favorite dish
Don’t miss these drink specials
See what’s new on our menu
Emails calling for pre-orders & catering
Placing an order in advance happens all throughout the year. Is your restaurant offering a Valentine’s Day dessert package to go, Mother’s Day brunch takeout, Fourth of July barbeque party packs or pick-up for Thanksgiving turkey and sides? That’s a perfect reason to send an email to your subscriber list.
Pre-orders and catering make great calls to action (CTAs) in your email campaign, and you can directly track the number of orders generated from your email marketing efforts. In this example, Chicago’s Dearborn Tavern calls for holiday pie pre-orders. The email mentions the restaurant’s pastry chef that makes the subscribers feel like insiders, and the ingredient call-outs add descriptiveness to the imagery.
Read more: A Better Way to Capture Advance Restaurant Orders
Subject Line Ideas:
Need pie?
Pie orders due by [Date]
Order a pie from Chef [Name]
Emails announcing new locations
A new location or expansion to another city requires robust promotion, and an email announcement should be part of your marketing strategy. Current subscribers may have friends or family in the city where you’re opening a new concept, and an email campaign can fuel a word-of-mouth chain.
NYC-based restaurant group Major Food Group announced that their popular trattoria in Boston called Contessa is opening a location in Miami. A singular call to action to “Make a Reservation” that’s highly visible and differentiated from the rest of the email — notice how the white button stands out — further makes this a shining example.
Read more: How to Market a New Restaurant Opening
Subject Line Ideas:
We’re opening in…
It’s official! Our new location is…
Can you guess our new location?
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