Email marketing is one of the most effective and affordable ways to reach and engage your customers. It can help you build trust, loyalty, and brand awareness, as well as increase your sales and conversions. However, email marketing is not a one-size-fits-all solution. You need to tailor your email marketing strategy to suit your specific business goals, audience, and market. In this article, we will show you how to create a winning email marketing strategy for your Australian business. We will cover the following topics:
- How to define your email marketing goals and objectives
- How to understand your Australian email audience and their preferences
- How to choose the right email marketing platform and service for your business
- How to design and create effective and engaging email campaigns
- How to test and optimise your email marketing performance
By the end of this article, you will have a clear and actionable plan to launch and grow your email marketing strategy in Australia. Let’s get started!
How to define your email marketing goals and objectives
The first step in creating a winning email marketing strategy is to define your goals and objectives. What do you want to achieve with your email marketing? How will you measure your success? Some common email marketing goals are:
- To increase brand awareness and recognition
- To generate more leads and prospects
- To nurture and educate your existing customers
- To drive more traffic to your website or landing page
- To boost your sales and revenue
- To improve your customer retention and loyalty
- To get more referrals and word-of-mouth
Once you have defined your goals, you need to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, your objective could be to increase your email open rate by 10% in the next three months. Having SMART objectives will help you track your progress and evaluate your results.
How to understand your Australian email audience and their preferences
The next step in creating a winning email marketing strategy is to understand your Australian email audience and their preferences. Who are you sending emails to? What are their needs, challenges, interests, and pain points? How do they prefer to receive and consume emails? Knowing your audience will help you create relevant and personalised email content that resonates with them.
One of the best ways to understand your Australian email audience is to create buyer personas. Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers based on real data and research. You can use tools like [HubSpot’s Make My Persona] or [Xtensio’s User Persona Creator] to create buyer personas for your business. Some of the information you should include in your buyer personas are:
- Demographic details such as age, gender, location, income, education, etc.
- Psychographic details such as values, attitudes, motivations, goals, challenges, etc.
- Behavioural details such as online habits, preferred channels, devices, platforms, etc.
- Email preferences such as frequency, timing, format, tone, etc.
Another way to understand your Australian email audience is to conduct surveys and feedback forms. You can use tools like [SurveyMonkey] or [Typeform] to create and send surveys to your email subscribers. You can ask them questions such as:
- What are the main reasons you subscribed to our emails?
- What type of content do you want to receive from us?
- How often do you want to hear from us?
- What are the best days and times for you to receive our emails?
- How satisfied are you with our emails?
- What can we do to improve our emails?
By collecting and analysing the data from your buyer personas and surveys, you will be able to segment your Australian email audience into different groups based on their characteristics and preferences. This will allow you to tailor your email content and campaigns accordingly.
How to choose the right email marketing platform and service for your business
The third step in creating a winning email marketing strategy is to choose the right email marketing platform and service for your business. An email marketing platform is a software that allows you to create, send, manage, and monitor your email campaigns. An email marketing service is a provider that offers additional features and benefits such as deliverability, security, compliance, support, etc.
There are many email marketing platforms and services available in the market today. Some of the most popular ones are:
- [Mailchimp]: Mailchimp is one of the most widely used email marketing platforms in the world. It offers a user-friendly interface, a drag-and-drop editor, a variety of templates and designs, advanced analytics and reporting tools, integrations with other platforms and apps, etc. Mailchimp also offers a free plan for up to 2,000 contacts and 10,000 emails per month.
- [ActiveCampaign]: ActiveCampaign is an email marketing platform that focuses on automation and personalisation. It allows you to create and send targeted and triggered email campaigns based on your audience’s behaviour and actions. It also offers features such as CRM, landing pages, forms, segmentation, split testing, etc. ActiveCampaign has a 14-day free trial and a starting price of $9 per month for up to 500 contacts.
- [Campaign Monitor]: Campaign Monitor is an email marketing platform that caters to Australian businesses. It offers features such as local support, Australian data centres, Australian privacy laws compliance, etc. It also offers a simple and intuitive interface, a drag-and-drop editor, a range of templates and designs, analytics and reporting tools, integrations with other platforms and apps, etc. Campaign Monitor has a free plan for up to 2,500 emails per month and a starting price of $9 per month for up to 500 contacts.
When choosing an email marketing platform and service for your business, you should consider factors such as:
- Your budget and pricing options
- Your email marketing goals and objectives
- Your email marketing features and functions
- Your email marketing performance and deliverability
- Your email marketing support and customer service
You should also compare different email marketing platforms and services based on their reviews, ratings, testimonials, case studies, etc. You can use tools like [Capterra] or [G2] to find and compare the best email marketing software for your business.
How to design and create effective and engaging email campaigns
The fourth step in creating a winning email marketing strategy is to design and create effective and engaging email campaigns. An email campaign is a series of emails that are sent to your audience based on a specific goal or purpose. Some common types of email campaigns are:
- Welcome emails: These are the first emails you send to your new subscribers to introduce yourself, thank them for joining your list, and set their expectations for future emails.
- Newsletter emails: These are the regular emails you send to your subscribers to keep them updated on your latest news, offers, tips, etc.
- Promotional emails: These are the emails you send to your subscribers to promote your products, services, events, discounts, etc.
- Educational emails: These are the emails you send to your subscribers to educate them on topics related to your industry, niche, or expertise.
- Transactional emails: These are the emails you send to your subscribers to confirm their actions such as purchases, registrations, bookings, etc.
- Re-engagement emails: These are the emails you send to your inactive or unresponsive subscribers to rekindle their interest and loyalty.
When designing and creating your email campaigns, you should follow some best practices such as:
- Use a clear and catchy subject line that entices your audience to open your email
- Use a friendly and professional sender name that reflects your brand identity
- Use a responsive and attractive design that adapts to different devices and screen sizes
- Use a simple and concise copy that conveys your message and value proposition
- Use a compelling and relevant call-to-action that guides your audience to take the next step
• Use images, videos, gifs, emojis, etc. to enhance your visual appeal and engagement
• Use personalisation and segmentation to tailor your content and tone to different audiences
• Use A/B testing to experiment with different elements of your email such as subject line, design, copy, etc. and find out what works best for your audience
You can use tools like [SubjectLine.com] or [CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer] to test and improve your subject lines. You can use tools like [Canva] or [Unsplash] to create and find stunning images for your emails. You can use tools like [Lumen5] or [Giphy] to create and find engaging videos and gifs for your emails.
How to test and optimise your email marketing performance
The fifth and final step in creating a winning email marketing strategy is to test and optimise your email marketing performance. Testing and optimising your email marketing performance will help you measure your results, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and improve your ROI.
Some of the key metrics you should track and analyse for your email marketing performance are:
- Open rate: The percentage of recipients who opened your email
- Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of recipients who clicked on a link in your email
- Conversion rate: The percentage of recipients who completed a desired action such as making a purchase, signing up for a trial, downloading a resource, etc.
- Bounce rate: The percentage of emails that were not delivered due to invalid or non-existent addresses
- Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of recipients who opted out of receiving future emails from you
- Spam rate: The percentage of recipients who marked