Email marketing for restaurants. Regulars who come back.

Campaigns and automatic emails: how they differ

A campaign is something you start. Pick who it goes to, write it once and send it. Everyone in that audience gets the same email, and nothing goes out again until you send the next one.

Recipes work the other way round. Switch one on and it keeps running in the background, emailing each client, guest or patient at the right moment, such as a birthday or a long enough gap since their last visit, without anyone on the team having to remember or press send.

Sending an email campaign

A campaign suits a particular moment: a quiet week to fill, a new service, news worth sending once. You choose the audience from records already in Gaplessly, either a segment (New, Regular, Lapsed or Top spenders) or a tag you have given clients, so there is no export to prepare or file to upload anywhere.

• A subject line and your message, with an optional headline and photo
• An optional button to your booking page or any other link
• An optional reply-to address, so replies come to you
• A count of how many people it will reach before you send, and a test email to yourself
• One send to the whole audience. A campaign never repeats on its own.

Rebooking reminders, birthdays and other automatic emails

These automatic emails are called recipes. Each of the ones below is off until you switch it on, and most let you edit the wording. Gaplessly keeps automatic emails to the same customer at least four days apart.

• Time to rebook: timed to each customer's usual gap between visits, once they have at least two visits on record
• We miss you: for someone who has not been back in 90 days
• Birthday: on the day, using the day and month on their record, for customers who have one
• Welcome after first visit: a thank-you the evening after a new customer's first visit
• No-show follow-up: an invitation to find a new time, the evening after a missed booking
• Aftercare, pre-visit prep, and a patch test reminder before a first colour appointment, for salons, clinics and spas only

For a clinic, Time to rebook is the follow-up reminder. It is the same recipe with the same timing, and you can word it as a prompt to book the next check-in.

Consent, unsubscribes and the Spam Act

Campaigns and the recipes listed above only reach customers who can be emailed. That means people who ticked the marketing box on your booking page, or clients who were already on your list when you confirmed in the dashboard that they had agreed to hear from you, or would reasonably expect to, in line with the Spam Act 2003. Showing the box is your choice, it starts unticked, and nobody has to tick it to book.

Every marketing email carries your business name, logo and colour, and an unsubscribe link that works in one click. Anyone who unsubscribes is left out of every campaign and recipe after that.

Same guest and client records, for restaurants and salons

Campaigns and recipes read the guest or client records already in your dashboard: the same bookings, contact details and visit history you look at every day, with no list to export.

Restaurants and venues get campaigns and every recipe above except aftercare, pre-visit prep and the patch test reminder, which depend on appointment services. Of the other marketing tools, gift cards work for venues too, promotions are for appointment bookings only, and loyalty cards are coming soon.