The one for all approach in email marketing will directly land your emails in the trash boxes of your targeted audience. There are even websites and software that will help you unsubscribe from email marketers. Amongst these, how can you improve your marketing strategies and increase your click rates?
Segmentation tactics allow you to send personalized emails to people. Stats from Mailchimp shows that segmented emails get a 101% higher click rate and 14.31% higher open rate. It is because people respond to email better when it resonates with their current living situations. You cannot send stroller ads to people in their early twenties expecting a good response. Below you will see everything you need to know before starting your segmented email campaign.
What is email segmentation?
Segmentation refers to dividing your email subscribers list into multiple smaller segments. Each of the segments will have a different set of criteria based on multiple parameters. This segmentation will allow you to send highly personalized and relevant emails to your subscriber base. In a nutshell, segmented email marketing is all about reducing the “Why am I receiving this email?” reaction from your audience.
The simple parameters
- Who are they?
To begin with, you will have to identify them as your client, customer, or prospect. Once you have identified them, separate them into different segments. You can send appreciation emails to customers and clients who have already bought your product/ services. However, such emails will not be helpful to prospects. The prospects are people that have visited your website but are still reluctant to trust you with their money. This division will help you save time and money as you can send more emails to people that care about spending their money on your website.
- How frequently do you send them the email?
Don’t get too carried away with the emailing. Most people unsubscribe from the email lists because they feel that they are getting them too frequently. Honestly, no one likes unsolicited emails in their inbox. However, you can use the time of purchase to your advantage. You can funnel the customer into different segments based on their time of purchase. For seasonal customers, you can send them emails during the start of their preferred season. You can send more emails to people that like to buy regularly from your website.
- How much do they spend on your website?
Should you treat your high-value customers and low-value customers equally? Yes. But should you send them the same emails? No. A good email marketing expert knows that the customer who has registered more high-value purchases on your website will be more likely to open emails about luxury products. On the other hand, the customer with a low-value purchase history will appreciate an email about products that add more value to their life for a fraction of their cost.
The advanced parameters
- Demographic
You can further segment your subscriber base based on their gender, age, income level, and position in their company. You can extrapolate a significant amount of information from these findings. For example, if you are a food delivery service, knowledge about their cuisine preference will enable you to send them emails about restaurants that offer the same cuisine.
- Behavioral
Behavioral segmenting is a bit more complex as compared to the other forms. But it is also more rewarding. The segments are created based on the interaction of the customer and prospects with your company and with similar companies across multiple platforms of social media, website, email, and more. You can set triggers based on their behaviors which will automatically send the emails. The survey conducted by Econsultancy found that even though this segmentation is more rewarding, only 20% of the email marketers use behavioral triggers.
- Psychographic
Psychographic segmentation offers a higher click rate but has a more hands-on approach. Psychographic tracking means storing the data about the attitude, morals, values, personality type, and motivations to target your audience. However, these data are difficult to collect. You will have to conduct surveys for the same. Finally, you can integrate this information into your marketing campaigns to send highly personalized emails.
- Geographic
Geolocations have become an essential tool in email marketing. You can send highly personalized emails based on the location of the users. You can send emails about products that are more popular in the locality of the customers. Similarly, you can arrange webinars and advertisements according to the time zone of the customer. Additionally, you can segment your customers and prospects based on the time during which they are actively checking their phones.
Wrapping it up
Don’t let the advanced strategies scare you away. You don’t need sophisticated workflows to start the email segmentation journey. First, try the simple methods and continue building and improving those strategies by adding the complex parameters one at a time.
Author: Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest growing full service email marketing agency that specializes in crafting professional email templates, PSD to HTML email conversion and free HTML email templates in addition to providing email automation, campaign management, and data integration & migration services. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.
