Social media has its place. But there's another marketing channel sitting quietly in the background, one that almost every other Australian business is using, one that reaches people every single morning before they've even gotten out of bed, and most hospitality venues are barely touching it.
That channel is email. And no, it is not old-fashioned. It is not dying. And it does not require a marketing degree to get right.
Email is not dead.
Every few years, someone declares that email is on its way out. Social media killed it. Then messaging apps killed it. Then TikTok killed it.
And yet here we are. In Australia, the email advertising market is estimated at AU$370 million and is growing steadily year on year. Across Australian businesses, 81% already use email as a key part of their marketing strategy. Globally, 99% of people check their inbox at least once a day, and more than half check it before they do anything else online, including scroll through Instagram.
So the question isn't whether email works. It clearly does.
But why aren't more hospitality venues using it properly?
Hospitality venues are building on rented land.
Every single follower you have on Instagram? Not yours. Every fan on your Facebook page? Also not yours. The platform owns that relationship, not you. And platforms change the rules whenever they feel like it.
Remember when Facebook organic reach was strong? Businesses built their entire marketing strategy around Facebook pages. Then, almost overnight, Facebook throttled organic reach, meaning posts from business pages were shown to far fewer people unless businesses paid to boost them. Venues that had spent years building their Facebook following suddenly found that their posts were reaching almost no one.
The same thing can happen tomorrow on Instagram. Or TikTok. Or whatever platform comes next.
An email list, on the other hand, is an asset you own. Nobody can take it away. Nobody can change an algorithm and suddenly make it worthless. If you have a list of 1,000 customers who've said "yes, I want to hear from you," you can reach every single one of them directly.
And yet, research shows that while social media is the primary communication channel for 37% of hospitality venues, email sits at just 26%. More than one in three venues is putting all their eggs in a basket they don't own.
Australians are actually great email openers.
According to global email benchmark data from MailerLite, emails sent from Australia have the highest click-to-open rate in the world, at 8.3%. That means when an Australian opens a marketing email, they're more likely to actually click through and take action than email recipients anywhere else on the planet.
Your customers are among the most engaged email audiences on earth.
This means that if you build an email list and send genuinely useful, relevant content, the people on that list are likely to actually open it, read it, and act on it. That is not a guarantee you get on social media, where your post might reach 3% of your followers on a good day.
What most venues get wrong?
Most venues are collecting customer data constantly but doing almost nothing with it.
Every online booking is a customer telling you their name, their email address, and exactly when they want to visit. Same for every wifi sign-up, every loyalty card, every online order.
First-party data. That means data you collect directly from your customers, with their consent, not rented from a social media platform or purchased from a third party. It is yours and valuable. And for most venues, it is sitting unused in a booking system somewhere.
The main reason venues don't act on this data? Research from Torrens University points to the digital skills gap: venue owners and operators simply haven't been shown how to connect the dots between the data they collect and a simple email strategy. It's a gap nobody has filled for them.
So let's fill it.
4 practical steps to help you get started
You don't need a big budget, a marketing team, or a complicated tool to get started with email marketing. Here's what the path forward looks like, broken down into plain steps.
Step 1: Start collecting emails intentionally
If you use a booking system like Now Book It or Sevenrooms, check whether it captures email addresses. Most do. Make sure you have an opt-in to marketing communications ticked or offered at the point of booking.
Other easy collection points:
- Wifi sign-up: if your venue has guest wifi, require an email address to connect, with an opt-in to your list.
- Loyalty programs: any loyalty or stamp card app you use almost certainly captures email addresses. Connect that data to your email tool.
- In-venue sign-up: a simple QR code on your table or counter linking to a sign-up form works well.
One important note: under Australia's Spam Act 2003, you need explicit consent before sending marketing emails. Always use an opt-in, always identify your business clearly in every email, and always include an unsubscribe link.
Step 2: Pick a simple email tool
You do not need anything fancy to start. Tools like Mailchimp, MailerLite, or Klaviyo all have free tiers that are more than enough for a venue with a small-to-medium list. They handle the design, the sending, the unsubscribes, and the basic analytics so you can see who opened what.
Step 3: Send something worth reading
This is where a lot of venues overthink things. Your first email doesn't need to be a beautifully designed masterpiece. It needs to be useful and genuine.
Think about what your regulars actually want to know:
- What's on the menu this week?
- Is there a special event or live music coming up?
- Are you running a promotion for a public holiday?
- Is there anything behind the scenes, like a new chef, or a new seasonal menu?
Keep it short. Write it like you're talking to a regular. One clear thing to do at the end (book a table, come in on Thursday, grab a spot for the event).
Step 4: Be consistent, not constant
You do not need to email your list every day. For most venues, once or twice a month is plenty. What matters far more than frequency is consistency. Showup reliably so your customers start to expect and look forward to hearing from you.
The venues that win with email are the ones that treat their list like a community, not a broadcast channel. They share genuine updates, make subscribers feel like insiders, and give people real reasons to come back.
A quick note on personalisation
Once you have some data and a bit of confidence, personalisation is where email really pulls ahead of social media. Sending a birthday offer to a customer on their birthday. Reminding someone who booked for last Valentine's Day to book again this year. Letting your regulars know about an event before you announce it publicly.
Targeted, personal communication like this is simply not possible on social media.
So, what's next?
You are sitting on a goldmine of customer data and probably doing nothing with it. Meanwhile, you're pouring time and money into social media platforms you don't own, reaching a shrinking percentage of their followers, and hoping for the best.
Email is not complicated nor expensive. And in a market where Australians have the highest email engagement rates in the world, the opportunity is genuinely there if you're willing to take it seriously.
You don't need to do everything at once. Start with one collection point, one simple email tool, and one email a month. That's enough to be ahead of most of your competition.
The regulars you already have are your most valuable asset. Email is how you keep them.
Looking for help getting your venue's email marketing off the ground? Get in touch. We work with hospitality businesses across Australia to build simple, effective digital marketing strategies that actually fill tables.
