With the rise of social media, small businesses tend to forget the power of email communication. The e-blast isn’t over yet! Your email marketing campaigns would benefit from a targeted list targeting strategy. If done correctly, email segmentation is a best practice for email marketing and can help increase campaign effectiveness.
Importance of email segmentation
While all of your clients share one thing (you), they do not share everything. Your customers are likely of varying ages, socioeconomic levels, and geographic locations, so you must market to them accordingly. Email segmentation allows you to target these groups at the right level. Otherwise, you’ll see an increase in opt-out rates, which isn’t the goal!
Email Segmentation Techniques
Here are six ways to segment your audience and deliver targeted messages.
1. Funnel Stage
You can also segment your lists by marketing funnel stage. You could send a follow-up email to people who downloaded an eBook, encouraging them to sign up for a free trial. Then target those who completed a free trial but then disengaged.
2. Lead Source
Organizing your email lists by lead source will greatly improve campaign results. For example, someone who joins your mailing list via an online link from your blog or social media interactions will require different forms of communication than someone who joins via an in-store purchase.
3. Birthdays
A simple and easy-to-implement email segment is a birthday email! This works on so many levels. First, as stated, segmenting your audience by birthday is simple. Second, it adds a personal touch to your business, making your customers feel valued and noticed. Third, it’s an opportunity to engage them without selling. You can send a simple ‘Happy Birthday’ message or a birthday discount or coupon.
4. Page-Level Targeting
Collecting data about which pages of your website people visit can also help segment email lists. If a customer is spending quite a bit of time on a particular page, you should email them information on that topic and point them to other related pages that they’d find useful. Check out this blog post on website analytics or start with Google Analytics.
5. Location
Make sure you aren’t sending communications to people who don’t qualify due to their location. Based on your service area, segment your email lists by zip code, city, or state.
6. Gender
You don’t want to send a man high heel promos (unless he’s already bought them, then use multiple segmentation lists!) In general, it is safe to say that dividing your customers based on gender will increase conversion rates.
In Conclusion
Remember, you can’t include all segmentation factors in one list. You’ll have multiple lists for different campaigns. For example, a returning customer who recently read a blog post and downloaded a coupon may be on three lists. Those actions entitle them to several.
Cross-referencing will also help. You want to give your customers as much useful information as possible without spamming their inboxes. Examine your communication frequencies and cross-check your lists to make sure nobody is on too many.
Email segmentation should help you save time and resources while allowing you to market strategically.