Email Segmentation Definition
Email segmentation is a marketing strategy that divides email subscribers into sub-groups or segments based on their shared characteristics, purchasing behavior, and buying history. An in-depth understanding of the common attributes that each segment possesses will help in creating individualized email marketing campaigns that will lead to higher conversion rates.
In other words, unsegmented emails are a form of shotgun marketing while segmented emails are a form of sniper marketing. The former is a blast type of marketing that is meant to gain attention of large demographics and encompasses a wide range of customer categories regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, geographical location, and income. The latter, on the other hand, is precision tracking and targeting of a clearly defined audience.
Email segmentation is integral to the success of any marketing campaign as it sends the right message at the right time to the right people. Sending highly valuable and relevant messages to a specific group of email subscribers will maximize reach, engagement, and sales of your content.
Here are 5 top email segmentation best practices to keep in mind:
1. Start with a simple segmentation model
Categorizing your email subscribers into the right segments can be quite overwhelming but there’s a simple way to do this – start with just 2 segments: 1) email subscribers who have expressed interest in your brand offering; 2) email subscribers who already made a purchase of your product and/or service.
Other ways you can segment your list:
- B2B and specialization email segmentation: This means crafting different messages for service providers, vendor contacts, marketing people of a different industry, etc.
- Geographic email segmentation: This would work when, for instance, your business is hosting a special event and you have to send out an email invite to contacts that are within the same location.
- Content-specific email segmentation: This is useful when emailing subscribers based on pages they viewed/accessed on your site, on social media channels, and other sites.
- Behavior-specific email segmentation: This is a deeper level of email marketing segmentation based on the attitudes and actions of online users when viewing/accessing your site. Some things to watch out for include length of stay on a specific page, number of pages accessed per visit, as well as products/services they added to cart, abandoned, or cancelled.
2. Create buyer personas.
A buyer persona is a fictional but research-based profile of a company’s ideal customers. This is the basis for developing a tailored email marketing campaign that would effectively convert prospects into paying customers.
3. Collect data continuously.
The more details you can get about your existing clients, prospects, and even competitors’ customers, the better opportunity to hone your content creation skills and the higher chances the segmented emails will resonate with target audience.
4. Optimize email campaigns regularly.
Like all other marketing campaigns, you need to test and evaluate every aspect of your segmented emails to ensure that all is going according to plan. By knowing what’s working and what’s not, you can adjust your email content and segments to see what leads to higher open rates, click-throughs, conversions, and sales.
5. Use tools to automate your email segmentation
Email list segmentation is easier and more automated than ever, thanks to cutting edge technology available right now. If you have questions about choosing the best email automation tool that will help achieve your marketing goals, contact SwaysEast experts. We’ll help narrow the options and find the optimal solution for your business.
If You’re Reading This…
Sending the right email message to the right subscribers at the right time – that’s the goal of email list segmentation. With Waves, you have an all-in-one email marketing platform that helps you connect and convert with your target customers. Sign up for FREE today.
