Categories / Marketing & Content
Newsletter and action-based emails
Gourmet food shop · 47.3% average open rate
- Task
- drive online orders for meals and gift baskets with a monthly newsletter and automated follow-ups
- Result
- 47.3% average open rate (vs 15–25% benchmark per the agency), 22% click rate, <0.2% unsubscribes; $50,000+ in sales in 3 months (Toast attribution = orders within 14 days of an open); average campaign ~$8,400
- Tools
- Toast email tools (restaurant software already paid for)
- Setup
- monthly template for specials and seasonal offers → optimised subject line and preview text with strong photography → thank-you automations after online and in-person orders → win-back email for guests who haven't ordered in a while → scheduled holiday/store-event promotions
Send this to your AI
A ready-to-send prompt built from this card. Your AI will ask a few questions about your business, then give you a beginner setup plan.
Copy prompt
Help me set this up for my business: "Newsletter and action-based emails".
Example business: local gourmet food shop with two stores (client of a digital agency). Task: drive online orders for meals and gift baskets with a monthly newsletter and automated follow-ups.
Reported result: 47.3% average open rate (vs 15–25% benchmark per the agency), 22% click rate, <0.2% unsubscribes; $50,000+ in sales in 3 months (Toast attribution = orders within 14…
Tools: Toast email tools (restaurant software already paid for)
Setup outline:
1. monthly template for specials and seasonal offers → optimised subject line and preview text with strong…
Starter prompt from the guide (use it as a base):
Write the monthly newsletter for {{shop}}, a local gourmet food shop with two stores.
Include: a subject line (3 options under 45 characters), preview text, a short intro, three featured items with one-sentence descriptions, a gift-basket reminder with the order deadline {{date}}, and a button label for {{order link}}. Warm, appetising, under 180 words.
First, ask me up to 5 questions about my business and tools. Then give me a beginner step-by-step setup plan, plus copy-paste prompts/templates I can use. Plain English, and tell me if any step needs a tech helper.
via autopilotbusiness.ai/use-case/gourmet-food-shop-toast-newsletter-action-based-emails-47-opens-50k-in/Step-by-step setup guide + copy-paste prompt
Honest note: rule-based email automation, not AI. The $50,000 is attribution (orders within 14 days of an opened email), not proven extra sales, and the source is an agency about its own client.
Prerequisites
- Toast with online ordering and the Toast email marketing tools (check your plan), plus a guest list built through checkout.
- Good photos of your specials and gift baskets.
Step-by-step setup
Step 1. Send one monthly newsletter. Create a template that shows this month's specials and seasonal items, with one big button to your online-ordering page. The agency tuned the subject line and preview text for opens.
Step 2. Turn on automated emails. In Toast Web go to Marketing → Automations, choose a prebuilt campaign (welcome, win-back "Miss You", repeat-guest, online-order thank-you, in-store visit follow-up), set its trigger, then Save and Publish.
Step 3. Know the limits. Automated emails go out once a day to eligible guests from the prior 24 hours, and a guest can't get another automated email within 28 days.
Step 4. Add holiday sends. Schedule promotional emails for holidays and store events (for example, gift-basket deadlines).
Step 5. Measure carefully. Look at orders and revenue from email, but compare to non-email weeks, because Toast counts any order within 14 days by an opener.
Copy-paste prompt
Write the monthly newsletter for {{shop}}, a local gourmet food shop with two stores.
Include: a subject line (3 options under 45 characters), preview text, a short intro, three featured items with one-sentence descriptions, a gift-basket reminder with the order deadline {{date}}, and a button label for {{order link}}. Warm, appetising, under 180 words.Sources
- Wheelhorse Digital: Local gourmet food shop email marketing case study. Credit: a two-store gourmet food shop in the US, written up by its digital agency.
- Toast Support: Launch your Toast email marketing campaign
- Toast Support: Set up an ongoing Toast marketing campaign
Industries: AI automation for Restaurants, Cafes & Food Businesses · AI automation for Retail Shops · AI automation for Agencies & Consultancies
Results as reported by the source; not independently verified. Community-sourced from public sites and attributed to the source platform. Original author? Ask us to correct or remove it. Read the disclaimer.