How to Use Customer Feedback to Improve Email Marketing for Small Business

How to Use Customer Feedback to Improve Email Marketing for Small Business

In today’s competitive digital landscape, businesses are constantly looking for ways to personalise their marketing and deepen customer engagement. One of the most effective, yet often underutilised, resources for enhancing your email campaigns is customer feedback.

Feedback—whether it’s a review, a survey response, or an email reply—can be a goldmine of insights. At Marketing Together, a trusted email marketing firm, we help businesses harness the power of feedback to shape more meaningful, responsive campaigns. Whether you’re running a large brand or focusing on email marketing for small business, integrating customer feedback into your email strategy can significantly improve engagement, loyalty, and conversions.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Use Feedback to Refine Your Email Content

Customer feedback can reveal what your audience actually wants to hear from you. Do they prefer product updates, tips and tutorials, or exclusive discounts? Are they confused by certain aspects of your service?

Monitoring this feedback—especially through post-purchase surveys or direct email replies—can help you determine what kind of content your audience values most. Then, tailor your campaigns accordingly.

For example, if several customers mention they’d like more how-to content, your next campaign could include a quick-start guide or product tips. This kind of responsive content creation is a staple of successful email marketing companies in Australia, including our team at Marketing Together.

2. Create Segmented Campaigns Based on Feedback

Segmentation is a cornerstone of effective email marketing, and customer feedback provides the perfect criteria for building smarter segments.

Let’s say your feedback forms ask customers to rate their experience or specify the services they’re most interested in. You can use this data to:

• Segment happy customers for referral or loyalty campaigns

• Target dissatisfied customers with recovery or support emails

• Send tailored offers based on expressed interests

For example, a small e-commerce business doing email marketing for small business might learn that a segment of customers prefers eco-friendly products. That business could then launch a specialised campaign featuring only sustainable products, increasing relevance and click-through rates.

3. Incorporate Testimonials and Social Proof

One of the most powerful ways to integrate feedback into email marketing is to use it directly—in the form of testimonials, user reviews, or customer stories.

Emails that include real quotes from customers can boost credibility and trust. If a customer leaves a positive review or shares a great experience, feature it in your next campaign with a clear CTA (Call to Action). For example:

“I love how easy it was to get started—thanks to [Company Name] for their great support!”

This technique not only highlights happy customers but also encourages others to engage and potentially leave feedback of their own. At Marketing Together, we often guide clients—especially those new to email marketing agency Australia services—on how to build campaigns centered around client success stories.

4. Use Feedback to Improve Subject Lines and CTAs

Have you ever asked your customers what caught their attention—or what didn’t?

Subject lines and CTAs are crucial to campaign success, and customer feedback can tell you what language works and what feels too pushy or unclear. After running A/B tests, consider following up with a short survey asking subscribers why they clicked (or didn’t). This insight helps fine-tune your messaging tone.

A thoughtful email marketing firm will analyse this feedback regularly and use it to optimise each part of your email journey—from open rates to click-throughs.

5. Send Feedback Request Emails That Double as Engagement Tools

Asking for feedback doesn’t just improve your products or services—it’s also a valuable engagement opportunity in itself.

Feedback request emails are a great way to show customers that their opinions matter. More importantly, they can be used strategically to:

• Re-engage inactive subscribers

• Gather insights for improving future campaigns

• Start a dialogue with customers

These emails should be simple, mobile-friendly, and include a clear incentive or thank-you message. A small discount, loyalty points, or even a friendly thank-you can go a long way.

For many email marketing companies in Australia, feedback requests are often overlooked in favour of promotions. At Marketing Together, we treat them as a core part of an email strategy—especially when working with email marketing for small business clients who thrive on customer relationships.

6. Track and Respond to Negative Feedback Proactively

It’s not just the glowing reviews that matter. Negative feedback can help you course-correct and build trust—especially when you respond directly and respectfully.

Create an email workflow that triggers a response when someone leaves a low rating or negative comment. For example, a customer gives a 2-star review in a post-purchase survey—you can automatically send an email offering to make things right or inviting them to speak with support.

This shows attentiveness and commitment, turning a potential detractor into a loyal customer.

7. Use Net Promoter Score (NPS) Data in Lifecycle Campaigns

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely used method of measuring customer loyalty by asking one simple question: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?”

You can integrate NPS data into your email marketing strategy by:

• Rewarding high scorers (Promoters) with referral campaigns

• Engaging low scorers (Detractors) with support-focused emails

• Nurturing neutral scorers (Passives) with added value

For email campaigns, this kind of data-driven segmentation can significantly boost relevance, click-throughs, and customer satisfaction.

8. Let Customers Influence Future Content and Offers

Sometimes the best email campaign ideas come straight from your audience.

Polls, one-click surveys, and open-ended questions can help you discover what content your subscribers want next. For instance:

• “Which topics would you like to see in our next newsletter?”

• “What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing in [industry] right now?”

Then, you can follow up with campaigns that directly reflect customer input—making them feel seen and heard, which is crucial for relationship-driven marketing.

At Marketing Together, this feedback loop is something we build into our ongoing services as an email marketing agency Australia brands trust for long-term engagement.

Final Thoughts

Customer feedback isn’t just helpful—it’s essential. Integrating it into your email marketing strategy leads to smarter segmentation, more relevant messaging, and deeper relationships with your audience.

Whether you’re working with a professional email marketing firm or managing your own email marketing for small business, feedback should be at the core of your email strategy. The most successful email marketing companies in Australia use it to continuously adapt and optimise their approach—and so should you.