What should I expect from an email audit?

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Step 1 – Initial Consultation

When you engage us to conduct an email audit for you, the process starts with a call. This call is designed to understand your objectives and identify any specific issues you want to address, such as a high unsubscribe rate. This step ensures that the audit is tailored to your unique needs and goals.

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Step 2 – Deep Dive & Analysis

We will then take a deep dive into your systems and database to:

• Analyse the performance of your current email and SMS campaigns, and automations
• Examine the content, cadence, templates, copy, and segmentation of your communications
• Assess the quality and health of your database, catalogue your data if needed
• Analyse your customer behaviour
• Benchmark your practices against your competitors.

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During the audit we may discover that deeper work is needed in some areas. e.g. consolidating your lists or cleaning your database.

Step 3 – Detailed Presentation

After completing the analysis, we produce a detailed presentation. It demonstrates your current performance metrics and compare them to industry benchmarks and best-in-class examples. This step provides a clear picture of where you stand and what improvements can be made.

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Step 4 – Actionable Recommendations

The final step is a meeting where we present our findings and recommendations to you. You will leave this meeting with clear next steps, including:

• Urgent fixes: Immediate actions to address critical issues.
• Quick wins: Easy-to-implement changes that can quickly improve performance.
• Medium and long-term strategic recommendations to enhance your lifecycle marketing effectiveness.

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Why Do You Need an Email Audit?

An email audit is essential for several reasons.

1. Identify Problems: Pinpoint issues that may be hindering your email marketing success, such as low engagement rates or high unsubscribe rates.
2. Optimise Performance: Gain insights into what is working and what isn’t, allowing you to refine your strategies for better results.
3. Enhance Customer Experience: Understand customer behaviour and create more relevant and engaging content.
4. Stay Competitive: Benchmark your practices against industry standards to ensure you remain competitive.
5. Strategic Planning: Develop a clear, actionable plan to improve your email marketing efforts over the short and long term.

Closing

An email (and SMS) audit is a critical step in developing a successful lifecycle marketing strategy. It involves an initial consultation to understand your goals, a thorough analysis of your campaigns and database, a detailed presentation of findings, and actionable recommendations.

Sometimes a pair of fresh eyes is exactly what your business needs, when you've been stuck to doing things the way you have always done them or had non-expert staff running the email channel in your business.

By conducting an email audit, you can identify problems, optimise performance, enhance customer experience, stay competitive, and develop a strategic plan for ongoing improvement.

Here at Matterra, we have conducted dozens of email audits for clients big and small and would be happy to help you get some clarity about your strategy. Contact us to discuss your needs.