Four automated emails every venue should have

Automated emails are messages a venue sets up once and then sends automatically, to the right guest at the right moment, without anyone having to remember. A guest books, and a reminder goes out the day before. A guest visits, and a thank-you arrives the next morning. A regular drifts away, and a warm invitation reaches them after a couple of months. Each one does a small job that a busy team would otherwise forget, every single day.

For a venue with no marketer, automated emails are the most efficient marketing there is. They are written once, reviewed occasionally, and they keep working through busy weeks, staff changes and holidays. They also tend to perform better than newsletters, because each one reaches a guest at the moment it is most relevant to them.

This guide sets out four automated emails every venue should have: a welcome email, booking reminders, a post visit email and a win back email. For each, it explains when it is sent, what it should say, what to avoid and how to measure it. It also covers how the four fit together, how to keep guests from receiving too much, how consent applies, and how to keep automated emails sounding human.

Most venues know they should thank guests, remind them of their bookings and invite back the ones who drift away. Few do it consistently, because each depends on someone remembering at the right moment. On a busy week, nobody does. Automation removes the remembering.

It also improves timing. A reminder sent automatically the day before a booking, a thank-you sent the morning after a visit, an invitation sent two months after a regular's last visit: each arrives at the moment that matters, every time, for every guest.

And it frees time. Once set up, automated emails need only occasional review. The time saved can go into the emails that need a human touch, such as event announcements and the monthly newsletter.

The four automated emails every venue should have are:

Each covers a different moment in the guest's relationship with the venue: joining, booking, visiting and drifting. Together they form a simple system that keeps guests informed, welcomed and invited back.

The welcome email is sent when a guest subscribes to the venue's news. Its job is to confirm the subscription, thank the guest and set expectations: what they will receive, how often, and why it is worth reading. It is also the first marketing email the guest receives, so it sets the tone for everything that follows.

Many venues use a confirmation step: a short email asking the guest to confirm they want to subscribe, by clicking a link. That confirmation is often the first part of the welcome. Once confirmed, a short welcome can follow, or the confirmation itself can carry the welcome message.

Keep it brief and warm. "Thank you for joining our list. You will hear from us about once a month, with first looks at new menus and invitations to events. We look forward to seeing you soon." Add a link to book, and perhaps one thing worth knowing about the venue.

Avoid making the welcome a sales pitch. A guest who has just subscribed does not want three offers and a list of every event for the next six months. Avoid promising a discount for signing up unless you are happy to give it to everyone who joins.

Avoid a long, generic welcome that could come from any business. A short, specific message in the venue's voice is far more memorable.

And avoid sending marketing to guests who have not confirmed. If you use a confirmation step, only confirmed guests should receive anything else.

Booking reminders are sent before each booking, usually the day before or on the morning of the booking. They remind the guest of the date, time and party size, and give them an easy way to change or cancel if their plans have changed.

They are among the most useful automated emails a venue can send, because they reduce no-shows. A guest who has forgotten, or whose plans have changed, is reminded in time to come or to cancel, and a cancelled table can be offered to someone else. Our guide to booking reminders: how many and how late covers timing in detail.

Booking reminders are part of the service the guest asked for when they booked, rather than marketing, so they can be sent to every guest who booked, whether or not they subscribed to news.

A good reminder is short and practical. It includes the venue's name, the date and time, the party size, the address, and a clear link to change or cancel. It may include anything the guest needs to know, such as parking, a dress code or how long the table is held if they are late.

Keep marketing out of reminders. A reminder that is mostly a promotion confuses guests and may be treated as marketing by mailbox providers. One line about something the guest might enjoy, such as a new dish, is the most a reminder should carry.

Send it at a sensible time. A reminder the evening before a dinner booking, or a few hours before a same-day booking, gives guests time to act.

The post visit email is sent after each visit, often the next morning. Its two purposes are to thank the guest and to invite them back. It may also ask for feedback, with a link to a short form.

It works on the most important gap in the guest journey: between the first visit and the second. Many guests enjoy a visit and never return, simply because nothing reminded them. A warm note the next morning, with a reason to come back, turns a good memory into a plan.

Our guide to the post visit email, sent the next morning covers how to write it, including the line that earns a reply.

The post visit email needs a personal thank-you, using the guest's name and signed by a person, one reason to return, such as a dish they did not try or an upcoming event, and a link to book. If it asks for feedback, it needs a link to a short form, and someone needs to read the answers.

It needs to be sent at the right moment: after the visit has ended, while it is still fresh. And it needs to be sent to the right guests: guests who visited, with an email address, and, where it promotes future bookings, guests who agreed to receive such messages.

Consider sending the full version after first visits and a lighter touch, or nothing, after a regular's routine visit, so regulars are not thanked after every coffee.

The win back email is sent to guests who used to visit and have stopped: lapsed guests. Its job is to remind them of what they enjoyed and give them a reason to return. Because it is automated, it reaches each guest when they lapse, rather than in an occasional campaign months later.

Define lapsed for your venue, such as a guest who visited more than once but has not returned for 60 or 90 days. When a guest crosses that line, the win back email is sent.

Keep it warm and personal, without pressure. Our guide to lapsed guests and the message that brings them back covers the wording, including why a discount is usually unnecessary.

Avoid guilt and pressure. "We noticed you have not visited in 94 days" can feel uncomfortable; "it has been a little while" feels friendly. Avoid reaching for a large discount by default; most lapsed guests did not leave because of price.

Avoid sending it repeatedly. One win back email, and perhaps a second some weeks later if there is a new reason to return, is enough. A lapsed guest who receives a reminder every week will unsubscribe.

And avoid sending it to guests who lapsed after a bad experience without acknowledging it. If you know something went wrong, a personal message is better than an automated one.

Before any reminder, there is the booking confirmation: the email a guest receives the moment they book. It is automated in almost every booking system, and it is easy to overlook as marketing, yet it is often the most-read email a venue sends. Guests open it to check their booking, and many keep it until the day.

Make it count. It should confirm the date, time, party size and address clearly, carry the link to change or cancel, and say anything the guest needs to know before arriving. It can also set the tone: a warm line from the venue, in its own voice, makes the booking feel like the start of the visit.

Keep marketing out of it, as with reminders. The confirmation's job is to reassure.

Some guests do not arrive. A short, kind message after a missed booking can help, if it is written well. It acknowledges that plans change, says the venue would love to welcome them another time, and makes rebooking easy. It does not scold, threaten or charge.

A message like this does two things. It brings back some guests who simply forgot, and it reminds every guest, gently, that a table was held for them. Our guide to reducing no-shows without annoying guests covers the wider toolkit.

The four emails follow the guest's relationship with the venue. A guest subscribes and receives the welcome. They book and receive a reminder. They visit and receive the post visit email. If they stop coming, they receive the win back email. Each email has a clear trigger, a clear purpose and a clear audience.

Map them out on one page: trigger, timing, audience, purpose and the main line of each email. That map is the whole automated system, and it can be reviewed in a few minutes.

Automated emails can overlap. A guest might subscribe, book, visit and receive a newsletter in the same week. Each email may be reasonable on its own; together they can feel like too much.

Set a simple rule for marketing emails, such as no more than one per guest per week, and let transactional emails, such as booking reminders, sit outside it because guests need them. Decide which marketing email takes priority when two would overlap.

Watch unsubscribes after automated emails. A rise suggests guests are receiving too much, or that one of the emails is not welcome.

Automated emails are still subject to the same rules as any other email. Booking reminders and confirmations are part of the service guests asked for when they booked. Marketing emails, such as most welcome, post visit and win back messages that promote future visits, should go only to guests who agreed to receive them.

Collect consent clearly, record it on the guest's record, and include an easy unsubscribe in every marketing email. Our guide to marketing consent collected so it holds up covers the details.

Automated does not have to mean robotic. Write each email as if writing to one guest. Use their name, sign from a person, and keep the tone warm and specific to the venue. Read each one aloud before turning it on: if it sounds like a bank, rewrite it.

Review them every few months. Update the dish or event they mention with the season, check that the links work, and make sure they still sound like the venue. An automated email that recommends a summer dish in December shows guests that nobody is paying attention.

The general practice of email marketing has produced many automated sequences; for a restaurant, four well-written emails are usually enough.

Measure each automated email by what it is meant to achieve. For the welcome, how many confirmed subscribers later book. For booking reminders, the no-show rate and the number of cancellations that arrive in time to rebook the table. For the post visit email, the share of first-time guests who return within three months. For the win back email, the share of lapsed guests who return within a month.

Opens and clicks are useful signs, but bookings and visits are the point. Compare results before and after an email is introduced, and after any change to it.

Setting up the four emails takes an afternoon. Write each one, decide its trigger and timing, choose its audience, and test it by sending it to yourself. Make sure the system knows when a guest subscribes, books, visits and lapses, which depends on bookings, visits and subscriptions being connected to the same guest.

Turn them on one at a time, so you can see the effect of each. Many venues start with booking reminders and the post visit email, which have the most immediate effect, and add the welcome and win back emails afterwards.

Here is an illustrative venue setting up the four automated emails. The details are examples.

Together, they run every day, and nobody on the team has to remember any of them.

In servearound, booking reminders go out as many hours before as you choose, and every confirmation carries a link to change or cancel; a same-day reminder template, a waitlist confirmation and a table-ready message are also among the booking emails, all in your own email design. When a booking is completed, the guest can receive a thank-you email with a link to share feedback, sent once per booking. New subscribers confirm by email before they are ever mailed.

With Campaigns, an automation sends a campaign every week or every month on its own, each run with its own report, to an audience such as new guests or lapsed regulars among those who opted in. No guest receives the same automation twice, and automations skip anyone who has had a campaign email from any of your venues in the last seven days. See Campaigns, or get in touch.

Booking reminders, because they reduce no-shows straight away, then the post visit email, which works on the second visit.

They are part of the service the guest asked for, but keep them free of marketing.

Soon, often the next morning, while the visit is fresh.

When they have not visited for noticeably longer than usual, often 60 to 90 days for frequent guests.

Usually not. A warm reminder and a reason to return work for most lapsed guests.

Every few months, and whenever the menu or season changes.

Not entirely. Automated emails handle the moments that repeat for every guest; the newsletter carries what is happening at the venue now, and it should stay personal and current.

Make sure the win back audience excludes guests with a recent or upcoming booking, so the email only reaches guests who have genuinely drifted away. A guest who books should leave the audience at once.

They should look like the venue, in its colours and type, but simple. A clean design with one message and one link works best on a phone, which is where most guests will read them. Test each one on your own phone before switching it on.

Four automated emails every venue should have are a welcome email, booking reminders, a post visit email and a win back email. Each covers a moment in the guest's relationship: joining, booking, visiting and drifting away. Set up once, they run every day without anyone remembering, and they reach each guest at the moment it matters.

Keep each one short, personal and focused on one job, keep marketing out of booking reminders, send marketing automations only to guests who opted in, and limit how often any guest hears from you. Review the emails with the seasons, and measure them by no-shows, second visits and returning guests rather than opens.