Retail email marketing campaigns had an average open rate of 14.6% in 2019, much lower than other industry sectors such as Education (31.2%), Automotive and Aerospace (30.7%) and Government (30.5%), according to an Email Marketing Benchmarks for Australia Report released by Campaign Monitor.
The report compiled data from an analysis of billions of email marketing campaigns sent in Australia in 2019 for industry members to measure how their email marketing strategy compared.
Despite the result for the retail sector, email marketing remains an effective tool to engage customers and keep traffic coming in-store and online. And Australia leads the charge with open rates with an average of 18.7%, slightly higher than the global average of 17.8%, the UK at 17.5% and the US at 17%.
The report found that Wednesday attracts the highest open rate in retail at 15.6%, while Sunday performs the worst with an average of 13.3%. The click-through rate is slightly higher on Tuesdays and Saturdays (1.7%) and the click-to-open rate is highest on Sundays (12.2%).
According to Campaign Monitor vice president – commerce product strategy, Adii Pienaar, there are ways to bolster campaigns and successfully improve sales.
This includes:
- List segmentation – welcoming new customers and enticing lapsed customers with promotions
- Email automation – activating pre-built emails to develop welcome series, abandoned cart, order follow-ups and loyalty program messages
- Newsletters – nurture and covert customers with branded emails
- Receipts – design and send different receipts to different customer types to optimise each marketing opportunity
- Reviews – integrate each product review on your site and in any email
- Data insights – use benchmark data and previous indicators of success to inform timing for campaigns
- Customer insights – create a poll or survey to accompany campaigns to learn about your audience and inform future marketing
This article was first published on retailbiz.com.au