Email copy: eighty words and one link

The email starts with "We hope this finds you well", spends a paragraph on how busy the summer has been, tells the story of how the restaurant began, lists six things happening this month and ends with links to the menu, the gift cards, the careers page and four social media accounts. Somewhere in the middle is the one thing the venue wanted guests to do: book for the new Thursday supper. Hardly anyone does. The email copy buried it.

Restaurant emails are read on phones, in spare moments, between other things. A guest gives an email a few seconds to show why it matters. The emails that work in that moment are short: one idea, a few sentences in a real person's voice and one clear link. About eighty words is often enough, and the discipline of writing that little makes the email better.

This guide covers the shape of a restaurant email that gets read, why eighty words is a useful target, the three paragraphs most emails should lose, why one link beats six and how to write and check an email before it goes out. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

Most guests read email on a phone, often while doing something else. They scan the first lines, decide whether the email matters and either act or move on. Long email copy asks for attention that most readers will not give, and the important part is often lost below the first screen.

Short email copy respects that. It puts the one thing that matters first, gives the reason to care in a sentence or two and makes the next step obvious. Guests can read it in the time it takes to wait for a kettle, and still know exactly what to do.

A restaurant email that works usually has the same shape. A subject line that names the one thing. Preview text that finishes the thought. A first line that repeats and expands the promise. Two short paragraphs: what it is, and why the guest will enjoy it. One link or button to act on it. A sign-off from a real person.

That is all. There is no room for a newsletter's worth of news, and that is the point. Each email does one job well, rather than several jobs badly.

Eighty words is roughly what fits on a phone screen without scrolling, or with a short scroll. It is enough to say what is happening, why it is worth coming and how to book. It is not enough to say much else, which forces the writer to decide what matters.

Treat it as a target, not a limit. Some emails need a hundred and twenty words; a few need fewer than fifty. But if a draft is three hundred words, it almost always contains two or three emails, or several paragraphs nobody will read.

Here is an example, for an invented bistro:

"The lamb shoulder is back. We slow-cook it for six hours, with garlic, rosemary and white beans, and serve it for two to share, carved at the table. It is on every Thursday this autumn, and it usually goes by nine. If you have missed it since spring, this is your week. Book a table for Thursday below. See you soon, Maria and the team."

It names one thing, makes it specific, gives a reason to come soon and points to one action. A guest who loves lamb knows what to do. A guest who does not has lost ten seconds.

The first line is the most important sentence in the email. It is shown in many inboxes next to the subject, and it is the line guests read before deciding whether to read on. It should continue the promise of the subject line, not start somewhere else.

If the subject is "The lamb shoulder is back", the first line should be about the lamb shoulder, not about the weather or the busy summer. Email subject lines and first lines work as a pair. Our guide to email subject lines for a restaurant, tested covers how to write the first half.

Most restaurant emails can be improved by deleting three paragraphs that appear in almost every draft: the warm-up, the history and the list of everything else. None of them is wrong in itself. Each one delays the point, and together they bury it.

Cutting them usually halves the length of the email and doubles its clarity. The sections below take each in turn.

The warm-up is the opening paragraph that says nothing: "We hope this email finds you well." "It has been a busy few months here at the bistro." "As the leaves start to turn, we have been thinking about..." It feels polite, but guests skip it, and some stop reading altogether.

Start with the news instead. A friend sending you a message about a dinner would not begin with a paragraph about the season. They would say, "The lamb is back, want to come on Thursday?" Write like that.

The history paragraph tells the venue's story: when it opened, who founded it, what it believes in. It belongs on the website, where guests looking for it can find it. In an email about Thursday's supper, it is in the way.

Guests on your list already know who you are; they chose to hear from you. They do not need the story again each month. If the story is relevant to the email, such as a new chef or an anniversary, tell the part that matters in a sentence.

The everything-else list is the round-up at the bottom: the gift cards, the private room, the new opening hours, the job vacancies, the social media links, the upcoming events, the wine of the month. It feels efficient to mention everything at once. In practice, it scatters the guest's attention.

If several things genuinely need saying, send them as separate emails over the coming weeks, each with its own subject line and link. Or choose the one that matters most this week, and save the rest.

The simplest rule for restaurant email copy is one email, one idea. An email about the Thursday supper is about the Thursday supper. An email about the new wine list is about the new wine list. Combining them halves the impact of each.

One idea per email also makes emails easier to write, easier to measure and easier for guests to act on. When an email about one thing brings bookings, you know why. When an email about six things brings bookings, you do not.

One email, one link. When an email offers six links, guests either choose the wrong one, choose none or click around and forget what they came for. When it offers one, usually a button to book, the next step is obvious.

That link is often the most important part of the email. Booking links that take guests straight to the right page, with the date or the event already in view where possible, make booking easy. Our guide to booking links that tell you where guests came from covers how to make them work harder.

The button, the call to action, should say exactly what will happen: "Book a table for Thursday", "See the autumn menu", "Reserve a seat at the tasting". Generic words like "Click here" or "Learn more" tell the guest nothing, and they make the email feel like any other.

The call to action is a long-established idea in marketing, and the principle is simple: one clear action, in plain words, easy to find. Put the button where the guest will see it without scrolling, and make it large enough to tap with a thumb.

Emails that sound like a person get read. Short sentences, everyday words and a real name at the bottom make an email feel like a message from someone at the venue, not a broadcast from a marketing department.

Read the draft aloud. If it sounds like something you would say to a regular at the bar, it is right. If it sounds like a press release, rewrite it. Our guide to personalisation that is not a mail merge covers why a real voice matters more than a merged first name.

Specific words do more than general ones. "Slow-cooked lamb shoulder for two, carved at the table" makes a guest hungry. "Delicious new dishes" does not. "Twelve seats at the chef's table" creates interest. "An exciting evening" does not.

Look for the general words in every draft, such as "delicious", "exciting", "amazing", "special", and replace them with specific details. What is in the dish? How is it cooked? How many seats are there? The details are what make the email worth reading.

Email design should help the words, not compete with them. A single column, large readable text, one image and one button work well on a phone. Busy layouts with several columns, small text and many images look impressive on a desktop and become cluttered on a phone.

Remember that many guests read with dark mode on, and that some email apps change colours. A simple design with good contrast survives these changes. An intricate one may not. When in doubt, choose the plainer option.

One good photograph of the dish, the room or the event can make an email far more appealing. Use a real photo of your own food, not a stock image. Guests can tell the difference, and a real photo sets honest expectations.

Do not rely on the image to carry the message. Some guests have images turned off, and some email apps block them at first. The words should make sense without the picture, and the image should have a short description, so that a guest who cannot see it still knows what it shows.

Offer emails benefit most from short copy, because guests want the facts: what it is, when it runs, what it costs and how to book. "Three courses for a fixed price, every weekday lunch this month. Choose from four starters, four mains and three desserts. Book below." That is the email.

Avoid wrapping the offer in excitement. Guests are wary of offers that sound too good, and a plain description is more trustworthy. Our guide to offer emails without training guests to wait covers when and how often to send them.

End with a real person. "See you soon, Maria" or "From all of us in the kitchen, Tom" makes the email feel personal and invites replies. A sign-off from "The Management" or the business name alone feels distant.

Make replies welcome. Some guests will reply with a question or a booking request, and an email that comes from an address someone reads, and answers, turns a campaign into a conversation.

Every marketing email needs a footer: the venue's name and address, and a clear way to unsubscribe. Keep it small and tidy. It is necessary, but it should not compete with the message.

Resist the urge to fill the footer with everything else: social media icons, opening hours, the gift card link, the careers page. A short footer keeps the focus on the one link that matters.

Before every send, send a test to yourself and read it on your phone. Does the point appear without scrolling? Is the button easy to tap? Does the image load, and does the email make sense if it does not? Is the text large enough to read without zooming?

Many problems only show on a phone: a line that wraps badly, a button too small, a photo that pushes everything below the fold. A minute spent reading the test saves an email that does not work for most of your guests.

A useful editing habit: write the email, then cut it by half. Remove the warm-up, the history and the round-up. Remove every sentence that does not help the guest decide to book. Replace general words with specific ones. Then read what is left.

It almost always reads better. The shorter version says the same thing more clearly, and the one link stands out. If the email still feels too long, cut again.

Occasionally, a longer email is right: a story about the chef's trip to visit a supplier, a note from the owner after a difficult year, an announcement of a big change. Regulars may welcome these, now and then, because they feel part of the venue's story.

Even then, keep it focused: one story, written well, with one link at the end. And keep longer emails rare. If every email is long, none of them is read to the end.

Most guests skim before they read. They look at the first line, the image, the button and perhaps a phrase or two in between. Write so that a skimmer gets the point: the news in the first line, the key details in short sentences and the button clearly labelled.

Short paragraphs help, with space between them. So does putting the most important detail, such as the date or the price, early in a sentence rather than at the end. A guest who skims an eighty-word email written for skimming has, in effect, read it.

When an email is about something on a particular day, make the details unmissable: the date, the time and the price if there is one. Guests who have to search the email for the date of the tasting are less likely to book.

Write them plainly, without abbreviations that could confuse, and check them twice before sending. A wrong date in an email is one of the most common and most damaging mistakes, because guests act on it and arrive on the wrong night.

What happens after the click is part of the email copy's job. If the button says "Book a table for Thursday", the page it opens should make booking for Thursday easy, not leave the guest on the home page. A strong email that leads to a confusing page wastes the guest's interest.

Click the button yourself in the test email, and follow the path to a booking. If it takes more than a couple of steps, or the night the email is about is already full, fix that before you send.

Some words appear in so many restaurant emails that guests no longer notice them: "delighted to announce", "exclusive", "unmissable", "mouth-watering", "something for everyone". They take up space without saying anything.

Keep a short list of the phrases your venue overuses, and cut them in every edit. Replace each with a specific detail: instead of "a mouth-watering new dish", name the dish and say how it is cooked. The email gets shorter and more appetising at the same time.

An invented wine bar sends a monthly newsletter of about four hundred words: a warm-up, the month's news, the story of the bar and a list of six links. Very few guests click. It switches to shorter emails, each about one thing: a tasting evening, a new wine by the glass, the terrace opening. Each is about eighty words, with one button and a sign-off from the owner.

Over the next three months, the bar sends more emails, but each is shorter and focused. Clicks on the booking button rise, the tasting evenings fill from the emails alone and more guests reply directly to the owner. The bar now writes every email by drafting, cutting it by half and reading it on a phone.

In servearound, campaign emails are built from blocks in the venue's own design, from a paragraph to a button, starting from a blank email or one of more than 150 templates, and each email can be previewed as it looks on a desktop and on a phone, then sent as a test to any address. A button can link to the venue's booking page or its menu through the booking and menu links, which point to the right pages for the venue, and the unsubscribe footer is added to every campaign.

Campaign analytics show where the clicks went, by destination, with the clicks and the guests who clicked for each, and each campaign's report shows the clicks on each link, so an email with one link shows plainly whether it worked. servearound does not attribute bookings to a campaign, so compare the clicks on the booking link with the bookings that followed. See Campaigns.

Often about eighty words: enough for one idea, a reason to care and one link.

It should continue the promise of the subject line, with the news itself.

The warm-up, the venue's history and the list of everything else happening.

One, usually a button to book.

Exactly what will happen, such as "Book a table for Thursday".

One real photo helps. The words should still work if it does not load.

Occasionally, for a story or a big change, with one link at the end.

Send a test to yourself and read it on your phone.

Restaurant email copy works when it is short: one idea, a few sentences in a real person's voice and one link. About eighty words is a useful target, because it fits a phone screen and forces you to decide what matters. Start with the news, make it specific, give a reason to come soon and end with a button that says exactly what will happen.

Delete the three paragraphs most drafts contain: the warm-up, the history and the round-up of everything else. Keep the design simple, use one real photo, sign off with a name and keep the footer small. Send a test to yourself and read it on your phone before every send, and when a draft feels long, cut it by half.