We recently discussed the incredible return on investment that email marketing has to offer. With that nailed down, it’s time to master how to segment your email list to boost that ROI even further! Research from the Direct Marketing Association revealed that effective segmentation can increase email campaign revenue by as much as 760%. With a little imagination, it’s easy to understand why! Every audience member is a unique individual, with their very own wants and needs. Tailoring email content to reflect the recipients, through email segmentation best practices, is a sure fire strategy for happier customers – and more of them! So, “what are these best practices?” we hear you ask. Let’s explore! Here we will dig into the dos and don’ts of how to segment your email list effectively for future email marketing success!
1. Dialing In The Demographics
As you weigh up how to segment your email list, aiming for balance is going to be key. Recipients respond well to personalization – in fact, a study found that 79% of American consumers expect it! However, writing a custom email for each person on your subscriber list would be simply impossible, so sensible segmentation offers the perfect solution. The classic approach to segmentation is to sort your audience by basic demographics. This means tracking data on your audience such as age, gender, occupation, location, income, family – and so on. If you sell to other businesses, pertinent information might be location, job title, industry and organization type. Such indicators can provide helpful insight into which product ranges might be most relevant. Depending on your specific brand’s offering, you can assess the usefulness of these sorts of segments. However, you’re not going to stop there! The email segmentation best practices of today have extended far beyond simple demography.
2. Being Savvy To Customer Behavior
When planning your email marketing strategy, you might be tempted to focus on acquiring new customers. Don’t make the mistake of neglecting the customers you already have, as these guys most likely account for 40% of your business revenue! For past purchasers, and email subscribers, you have access to a range of useful data that you can use to segment your audience.
Examining patterns in previous email or website engagement, and monitoring past purchases can help you identify what your audience is most likely to seek out in the future. For example, on the website of a fashion retailer, a customer who bought new swimwear at the beginning of beach season last year, might be tempted by an email advertising this year’s range. Other customers, who have a habit of lingering in the men’s winter boots category would probably respond to a discount code for the footwear their heart desires. By examining trends in the behavior of your customers, you can identify hooks that might draw them towards a fateful click of the “buy now” button!
3. Getting Curious About Your Audience’s Interests
Knowing your product or service back to front as you do, what insights do you wish you could glean from the inner workings of your audience? In reality, there is nothing stopping you from seeking out that info! Pique your curiosity, and get creative about getting to know your audience better. This might mean creating content within your email marketing prompting clicks that will reveal certain interests. It could mean incorporating a fun, playful customer survey into your email marketing. The promise of a reward on completion will be enough to tempt your audience into sharing a little more about themselves. Your tasks is to discover the motivations, characteristics, and needs of your audience, in relation to the product or service you provide.
Once you have a sense of individuals’ interests, you can create “buyer personas” and segment accordingly. This is one of the most explored email segmentation best practices today! This will allow you to target enticing and fresh contentthat specific groups of readers will respond to. Research has highlighted the motivational power that new information holds over our brain. This comes via the dopamine hit that we experience when we come across something novel and exciting! Giving your readers a rewarding content experience may motivate them to follow through on that feel-good factor, and buy! Certain topics, or even formats, might be a better fit for different audience groups.
4. Harnessing Customer Life-Cycle Stages
Research suggests that the more purchases a customer has made with you in the past, the more likely they are to purchase again. Taking different marketing approaches with new subscribers, one-time purchases, and loyal customers makes sense! This can be a relatively simple tool to use, as you figure out how to segment your email list. Your latest subscribers can be welcomed with a promotional code, or great testimonials. You can use the chance to make newcomers feel included in something special, and set expectations. Newer customers, one or two purchases in, are prime for further investigation – to see what else will grab them. Loyal, long-standing customers can be rewarded with exclusive offers on their favorite things. In this way, you can capitalize on each stage of the customer lifecycle to maximize your revenue!
5. Grasping An Opportunity With Shopping Cart Abandonment
An abandoned shopping cart is a near miss in sales terms, but the right email might just save the day! Always pay attention to your abandoned carts, and grasp the moment to try and reel that shopper back in. Did they get distracted, or were they feeling a little hesitant? An email addressing that subscriber by name, offering them a time limited discount code might just seal the deal. A follow-up email telling them more about why they need their almost-purchase might bring that sale home too. Business Insider reported that about 63% of revenue slipping away through abandoned carts is potentially recoverable. That’s no small statistic!
Tailoring Email Segmentation Best Practices For Your Business
Your relationship with your audience is one of a kind, and so your segmentation strategy is certain to be a custom fit! By exploring the above best practices areas in relation to your brand’s specific ability to meet customer’s needs, you can harness the power of email segmentation. You can start with relatively simple segments, and hone your craft over time. Keep gathering information, and monitoring your results. Explore the segmentation tools that your email service provider can offer you. As you discover how to segment your email list in the most effective way, you can deliver the content that your readers truly want. 56% of people who click on “unsubscribe” do so because what they receive isn’t relevant. So, don’t be that business! By meeting your audience’s needs in a tailor-made manner, you can become a valued brand, that they will return to again and again!
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