Your Restaurant’s Most Overlooked Goldmine

Dear Restaurant Partner,

When I started Oddle, our mission was clear: help restaurants grow through data.

Over the years, we’ve built tools that make transactions easier—eShop, Oddle Reserve, payment terminals—and tools that help restaurants build deeper relationships with their customers, like Oddle Loyalty.

But here’s something I’ve noticed: most restaurants are sitting on a goldmine of customer data… and doing nothing with it.

They collect customer emails, phone numbers, and order histories—but very few take action on it.

No follow-ups. No engagement. No remarketing. Just data collecting dust.

How Fast Is Your Database Growing?

Customer data is an asset—and like any asset, it should be growing every month.

A good benchmark? Your database should grow at 20% of your total covers per month.

That means if you serve 5,000 covers a month, you should be capturing at least 1,000 customers into your database. If you're not tracking this, you have no idea how much potential revenue you're leaving on the table.

Most Restaurants Overestimate Their Return Rate

A lot of restaurant owners tell me, “We have strong customer retention—people love our food and service.”

Here’s the reality: most people overestimate their customer return rates.

For a restaurant with an average spend of $25, the return rate typically ranges at 12%—with the best-performing ones hitting 19%.

That means if you serve 100 first-time customers, only 12 will return.

And it’s not because of bad service or bad food.

It’s simply a lack of brand recall.

Your customers aren’t avoiding you—they’re just not thinking about you. The moment they leave, they’re bombarded by other dining options, ads, and distractions. If you’re not consistently engaging them, they forget.

Why Sending Emails Consistently is Non-Negotiable

A lot of restaurants hesitate to send emails, thinking: “What if people get annoyed?”

But here’s what the numbers say:

• The open rate of a single email is about 30%.
• But when you send weekly emails, the unique customers who open at least 1 out of 4 emails in a month can be as high as 55%.
• The difference between sending one email (30%) vs. four emails (55%) is massive.

This is why consistency in email marketing is more important than sending the ‘perfect’ email.

I was speaking with a couple of restaurant owners recently, and they told me:

"The email looks good, but I think the colour contrast isn’t great. Maybe we should tweak it first."

My response? That doesn’t matter. What matters is consistency.

• Email marketing is the cheapest and highest-ROI remarketing channel.
• Meta + Google Display retargeting isn’t as cheap, but it ensures in-your-face brand recall.
• Most importantly—a half-good email sent regularly beats a perfect email sent once in a blue moon.

Make Email Marketing a Hygiene Execution

Engaging your customers shouldn’t be an afterthought—it should be as fundamental as updating your menu or optimising your food costs.

We believe this so strongly that we built an email marketing module directly into Oddle—helping restaurants consolidate customer data from multiple channels and engage customers effortlessly.

No more manual list pulling. No more overthinking. Just consistent customer engagement that drives revenue.

Here’s My Challenge to You

Take 10 minutes this week and send one email to your customer list. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just a simple update, a special menu item, or a reminder about your bestsellers.

And if you want to see how top-performing restaurants use data to double their repeat customers, let’s have a quick chat.

Book a Free Strategy Call →

Want to Learn More?

If you're looking to dive deeper into how email marketing can drive more repeat customers for your restaurant, check out these articles:

📌 Email Marketing Is Not Spam—Here’s What Restaurants Get Wrong

📌 You Know Email Marketing Works—So Why Aren’t You Doing It?

See you in the next newsletter!

Jonathan Lim

Founder & CEO, Oddle