SMS or email: which message gets the booking

A restaurant has a table for four free tonight at eight, after a late cancellation. An email to its list will be read by some guests tomorrow, too late. A text will be read within minutes, by guests who might still be making plans. Next month, the same restaurant launches its autumn menu, with photos, descriptions and a story about the new chef. A text could say almost none of that. SMS or email is not a question about which channel is better. It is a question about which one suits the message.

Each channel has its strengths. Texts are fast, personal and read almost at once, but they cost money per message, hold only a few words and wear out guests' patience quickly. Emails are cheap, flexible and well suited to longer messages and pictures, but they are read later, if at all. Restaurants that use each for what it does best get more bookings from both.

This guide compares the two channels on cost, reach, speed and tolerance, then covers the four kinds of message each one is better at, how to use them together and how to tell which one your own guests respond to. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

The useful question is not "should we use texts or email?" but "for this message, which channel will get the booking without wearing out the guest?" A message that is urgent, short and personal usually belongs in a text. A message that is planned, detailed or visual usually belongs in an email.

Both are forms of what marketers call direct marketing, and texts in particular sit within mobile marketing, but a restaurant does not need the theory. Asking the question message by message stops two common mistakes: texting things that should be emailed, which annoys guests, and emailing things that needed a text, which arrive too late to matter.

Texts usually cost money for every message sent, and longer messages that split into several texts cost more. Emails, once a venue has an email tool, cost little or nothing per send. For a list of a few thousand guests, the difference between one text and one email is significant every time.

So texts need to earn their cost. A text that fills a table tonight pays for itself many times over. A text that repeats what an email could have said, to guests who would have read the email anyway, is money spent for no extra result.

Almost every guest has a phone that receives texts, and texts rarely go astray, so they reach nearly everyone on the list who has agreed to them. Emails reach most guests too, but some addresses stop working, some emails land in spam and some inboxes are so full that messages are never seen.

Reach is not the same as response, though. A text that reaches everyone but irritates many of them may bring fewer bookings, over time, than an email that reaches fewer people who are glad to read it.

Texts are read quickly. Most people look at a text soon after it arrives, because texts are usually personal and often urgent. Emails are read when the guest gets round to their inbox, which may be minutes later or days later, or never.

Speed matters only for some messages. For a table tonight, it decides everything. For a menu launching next week, it hardly matters, and the speed of a text can even work against it, by interrupting a guest who would have preferred to read about the menu later.

Guests tolerate far more email than texts. Many will accept a marketing email every week or two from a venue they like. Few will accept marketing texts that often: a text every week from a restaurant feels intrusive, and guests reply STOP quickly.

That is the most important difference between the channels. Email can carry a regular rhythm of news and invitations. Texts can carry only a few messages a year before guests tire of them, so each one has to count.

A standard text holds 160 characters, and fewer if it includes special characters or emoji. That is enough for one clear message and a link, and not much more. There is no room for photos, menus, stories or several pieces of news.

An email can hold all of that: pictures of the dishes, a short story, a button to book, a link to the menu. For any message that benefits from showing rather than telling, email is the better channel.

Both channels need the guest's agreement for marketing, but texts often need more care. In many places, marketing texts need clear prior consent, and some countries set strict rules and penalties. A guest who agreed to emails has not agreed to texts; ask for each separately.

That makes the text list smaller than the email list for most venues, which is another reason to reserve texts for messages that matter. Our guide to SMS marketing for restaurants, used sparingly covers consent for texts in more detail.

Four kinds of message are usually better by text:

Each is short, time-sensitive and more useful if read at once. Each is also something the guest is likely to welcome, because it helps them rather than selling to them.

Booking reminders are one of the most useful messages a restaurant sends, because they reduce no-shows and let guests who cannot come cancel in time. A reminder by text, a few hours before or the day before, is read quickly and acted on.

Email reminders work too, especially the day before, when guests are likely to check their inbox. Many venues use email for the confirmation and a reminder, and consider texts for reminders close to the time. Our guide to booking reminders: how many and how late covers the timing.

For guests on a waiting list, the message that their table is ready needs to arrive at once, wherever they are waiting. A text suits it perfectly: short, urgent and immediately useful. An email would arrive too late to matter.

Where texts are not available, the host calls the guest or fetches them from the bar. Either way, the principle is speed: a guest who has to wonder whether their table is ready is likely to give up and leave. Our guide to waitlist management on a night with no tables covers the waiting list itself.

When a table comes free at short notice, a text can fill it. "A table for four has come free tonight at eight. Reply to take it." sent in the afternoon to guests who asked to hear about such things can turn a cancellation into a booking within minutes.

Use it only when it is true and only for guests who agreed to receive such texts. If last-minute texts arrive every day, they stop feeling like opportunities and start feeling like the venue is always empty.

When something changes suddenly, such as a closure because of a burst pipe, a power cut or a delay to opening, guests with bookings need to know quickly. A text reaches them in time to change their plans; an email might not be read until they are standing outside a locked door.

These are service messages, not marketing, and guests are grateful for them. Keep them factual and apologetic, and say clearly what happens next, such as a new date or a call to rebook.

Four kinds of message are usually better by email:

Each benefits from space, pictures or time to read, and none loses anything by being read later. Sending any of them by text would waste the text's speed and spend the guest's patience for no gain.

A new menu, a seasonal dish or the first asparagus of the year is best shown, not just mentioned. An email can include a photo, a short description and a button to book, which a text cannot. Guests read it when they have a moment, and book when they are ready.

These messages also suit email's rhythm. A venue that sends a short email about each new season or menu keeps in touch without overwhelming anyone. Our guide to email copy: eighty words and one link covers how to write them.

An event planned weeks ahead, such as a wine evening, a guest chef or a festive party menu, needs details: the date, the time, the price, what is included and how to book. An email holds all of it, and guests can keep it and come back to it when they check their diary.

A text might be useful later, as a short reminder to guests who have booked, but the announcement itself belongs in email. Texting an event announcement to everyone on the list spends the channel on something that did not need it.

Stories, such as a new chef, a supplier visit, a refurbishment or the venue's anniversary, help guests feel connected to a restaurant. They need more than a sentence, and they are read for pleasure rather than urgency, which suits email perfectly.

Keep them occasional and short, even in email. But never send them by text: a text that says "Read our latest news" with a link is exactly the kind of message that teaches guests to ignore texts from you.

Offers with conditions, such as a set menu with a choice of courses or a midweek menu with a fixed price, need explaining. An email can describe the offer, show the dishes and set out when it runs. A text can only hint, and a hint usually raises more questions than it answers.

If you run offers at all, email is the right channel for most of them. Our guide to offer emails without training guests to wait covers how to send them without making the offer the price.

Some moments use both channels, each for its strength. An event might be announced by email weeks ahead, with a short text reminder on the day to guests who booked and asked for texts. A seasonal menu might be launched by email, with a text only to regulars who asked to hear when a favourite dish returns.

The rule is that each channel does a different job. If the text simply repeats the email, it adds cost and annoyance without adding bookings.

To compare channels, use the same measures for both: bookings that followed, seated covers, cost and opt-outs or unsubscribes. Campaign reporting that counts bookings from a text and an email in the same way shows which channel works better for which kind of message.

Avoid comparing a text's speed with an email's opens. Opens have become unreliable, and speed is only an advantage for urgent messages. Our guide to campaign reporting: from send to seated guest covers the measures that matter.

For most restaurants, email marketing is the backbone: the regular, low-cost way to keep in touch with guests, share news and invite them back. It carries most of the messages a venue needs to send, at a rhythm guests accept.

Invest in it first. A good email list, a steady rhythm and short, useful emails bring more bookings over a year than any amount of texting. Our guide to email open rates and the numbers that matter more covers how to judge whether it is working.

SMS marketing works best as the exception: a channel kept for the few messages that need speed and earn an interruption. A venue that texts rarely, and only when it matters, finds that guests pay attention when a text arrives.

Treat every marketing text as something to justify. If it could be an email, make it an email. If it does not need sending at all, do not send it.

Your guests may differ from the general pattern. Some lists respond strongly to texts; others barely at all. Test with the messages that could reasonably go either way, such as a reminder for a special event, and compare bookings, cost and opt-outs.

Test small and carefully, because a badly judged text test can cost opt-outs that do not come back. Over time, the results show which channel your guests prefer for which kind of message, which is the only answer that really matters.

Some guests rarely read email; others dislike texts and never respond to them. Where you can, let guests choose: a box for emails, a separate box for texts, and the freedom to tick one, both or neither. Guests who choose a channel are far more likely to respond on it.

Respect the choice. A guest who agreed to emails only should never receive a marketing text, however urgent the venue feels the message is. Their choice is the clearest guide you have to which channel will get their booking.

A booking confirmation carries a lot of detail: the date, the time, the party size, the address, how to change or cancel and perhaps a note about parking or the dress code. Email holds all of that comfortably, and guests can find it again later.

A text can carry a short confirmation, such as the date and time, but not much more. Many venues confirm by email, so the guest has the full details, and keep texts, where they use them, for a brief reminder close to the time.

Neither channel is guaranteed to arrive. Emails can be filtered into spam, especially if guests ignore or report them. Texts can be filtered or blocked too, particularly from unfamiliar senders or when they look like spam.

On both channels, the best protection is the same: send only to guests who agreed, send things they want and make leaving easy. A sender guests recognise and welcome is far more likely to reach them, by email or by text.

Every message spends a little goodwill. On email, the cost is usually small: a guest who is not interested deletes the email and moves on. On texts, the cost is higher: an unwanted text feels like an interruption, and guests are quicker to opt out.

Count opt-outs and unsubscribes as a real cost when comparing channels. A text campaign that brings a few bookings but causes many opt-outs has spent a channel that took months to build. An email that brings the same bookings with few unsubscribes has cost far less.

Asking for feedback after a visit suits email better than texts. The guest can open the request when they have a moment, follow a link to a short form and take their time. A text asking for feedback arrives as an interruption, often while the guest is busy with something else.

Keep the request short and personal, sent the next day while the visit is fresh, and make sure replies reach someone who reads them. Our guide to feedback emails that are not an interrogation covers how to write one.

An invented bistro has been sending its monthly news and offers by text as well as by email, and its text opt-outs keep rising. It splits the jobs. Monthly news, menus, events and offers go by email only. Texts are kept for guests who asked for them, and only for last-minute tables and the occasional urgent change.

Over the next three months, text opt-outs almost stop, the last-minute texts fill most of the tables they offer and the emails bring as many bookings as before. The bistro spends less on texts and gets more from each one.

servearound sends email only: there are no text or WhatsApp messages today, so booking confirmations and reminders go by email, with the reminder a set number of hours before the booking, and a guest on the waiting list is called or fetched by the host when their table is ready. Guests confirm their email with a six-digit code before a booking is confirmed, so the address the reminder goes to works.

Campaigns go only to guests who opted in and confirmed by email, and campaign analytics show deliveries, clicks, bounces and unsubscribes for every send, with no open rates and no bookings credited to a send, so comparing channels means comparing those figures with the bookings that followed, as this guide describes. See Campaigns and Analytics.

Neither, in general. Texts suit short, urgent messages; email suits everything else.

Reminders close to the time, table-ready messages, last-minute availability and urgent changes.

Menus and seasonal news, events announced ahead, stories and offers that need explaining.

Usually, yes. Texts cost per message; emails cost little per send.

No. Most accept far fewer marketing texts than emails.

No. Ask for each separately, and check the rules where you trade.

Rarely. Give each channel its own job.

Use the same measures for both: bookings, seated covers, cost and opt-outs.

SMS or email depends on the message. Texts are fast, personal and read almost at once, but they cost money per message, hold only a few words and wear out guests' patience quickly. Emails are cheap, flexible and suited to pictures and detail, but they are read later. Guests tolerate far more email than texts.

Use texts for the few messages that need speed: reminders close to the time, a table that is ready, last-minute availability and urgent changes. Use email for menus, events announced ahead, stories and offers that need explaining. Ask for consent to each separately, give each channel its own job, compare them on bookings, cost and opt-outs and let email be the backbone, with texts as the exception.