Why Most Brisbane Business Owners Are Flying Blind
I’ve sat down with hundreds of business owners from Chermside to Cleveland, and when I ask how their email marketing is going, I usually get the same answer: "I think it’s doing okay. People seem to be opening them."
Here’s the cold, hard truth: "Thinking" it’s doing okay doesn't pay the power bill. If you are spending time every week putting together an email newsletter or paying a staff member to do it, you need to know exactly how much money that effort is returning to your business.
Most people look at the wrong numbers. They get excited because 30% of people opened an email. But if those 30% didn't buy anything, book a quote, or call your shop, that 30% is a vanity number that means nothing.
In this guide, I’m going to show you how to look at your email data like a CFO, not a tech geek. We’re going to compare the three main ways small businesses track their results so you can decide which approach actually grows your profit.
Approach 1: The "Vibe" Check (What Most People Do)
This is the most common approach I see with local tradies and retail shops. You send out a blast, and then you wait to see if the phone rings a bit more than usual that afternoon.
The Cost: $0 in software, but potentially thousands in wasted time. The Result: Pure guesswork. The Verdict: A waste of money.
If you’re just "blasting" your list and hoping for the best, you’re likely leaving money on the table. I’ve seen businesses in Newstead spend four hours crafting a beautiful email that resulted in zero sales, simply because they weren't tracking what happened after the click. You might find that segmentation strategies work far better than sending the same thing to everyone, but you'll never know if you aren't looking at the data.
Approach 2: The "Basic Stats" Approach
This is where you log into your email tool (like Mailchimp or Klaviyo) and look at the report it gives you. It tells you two main things: how many people opened it and how many people clicked a link.
The "Open" Number
This tells you if your subject line was good. If you're a plumber and you send an email titled "Leaky Tap? Read This," and nobody opens it, your title sucked. If 40% open it, you’ve done well.The "Click" Number
This is more important. This tells you that someone was interested enough in what you said to take action. This is the first step toward a sale.The Cost: The monthly fee for your email platform. The Result: You know if people are paying attention, but you still don't know if they bought anything. The Verdict: Better, but incomplete.
While these numbers are helpful, they can be deceptive. For instance, did you know that email platform costs often increase as your list grows, even if your sales don't? If your "basic stats" look good but your bank account isn't growing, you’re just paying for a hobby, not a marketing channel.
Approach 3: The "Money in the Bank" Deep-Dive (The Winner)
This is the only approach we recommend at Local Marketing Group. This is where we stop caring about "opens" and start caring about "conversions"—which is just a fancy word for people becoming customers.
To do this properly, you need to track three specific data points:
1. Revenue Per Recipient
Take the total amount of money you made from an email and divide it by the number of people you sent it to.Example: You send an email to 1,000 past customers offering a $50 service discount. You get 10 bookings worth $2,000 total. Your revenue per recipient is $2.00.
Next month, you try a different offer and the revenue per recipient is $4.00. Now you know exactly what your customers actually want to buy. This is how you turn old customer lists into actual cash flow without guessing.
2. The "Unsubscribe" Cost
Every time you send an email, a few people will leave your list. If it costs you $10 in Facebook ads to get a new lead, and 10 people unsubscribe from a bad email, that email just cost you $100 in lost potential. You need to weigh the sales you made against the people you lost.3. Lifetime Value of the Click
Some emails don't sell something today, but they keep you "top of mind." We track how many people clicked an email and then booked a service three weeks later. This is common for professional services like accountants or lawyers in the CBD where the "sale" takes longer.Comparing the Approaches: Which is Best for You?
| Feature | The Vibe Check | Basic Stats | Money Deep-Dive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup Time | None | 5 Mins | 30 Mins |
| Accuracy | 0% | 50% | 95% |
| Tells you what to do next? | No | Maybe | Yes |
| Focus | Feelings | Activity | Profit |
Real World Example: The Morningside Landscaper
We worked with a landscaping business near Morningside that was sending out a monthly "Gardening Tips" email. Their "Basic Stats" were great—people loved the tips and the open rates were high.
But when we did a deep-dive into the money, we found those emails resulted in exactly $0 in new bookings over six months. People were enjoying the free advice but weren't hiring them.
We changed the strategy to focus on "Project Showcases" with a clear "Book a Quote" button. The open rates actually went down, but the revenue per recipient went from $0 to $12.50.
The lesson: Don't be fooled by people "liking" your emails. Be driven by people "buying" from your emails.
What Should You Do First?
If you're feeling overwhelmed, don't try to track everything at once. Start here:
1. Stop looking at Open Rates as your main win. It’s a vanity metric. 2. Start tracking "Enquiries per Email". Every time you send an email, keep a tally of how many phone calls or website forms came in over the next 48 hours. 3. Review your costs. If you're paying for an expensive email tool but haven't seen a sale in three months, turn it off or change your strategy.
Marketing shouldn't be a mystery. It should be a machine where you put $1 in and get $5 out. If you can't prove that's happening with your emails, it's time to change how you look at the numbers.
Want to stop guessing and start growing? At Local Marketing Group, we help Brisbane businesses turn their email lists into reliable sales machines. Contact us today and let’s look at your numbers together.