Over the past few months, we’ve been doing a deep dive on our blog into the basics of email marketing. The first post in our series taught you how to choose an email marketing software and build an email list, while the second post discussed how to create your email and track valuable metrics.
What we barely touched on, however, is how to utilize your email contact list to its fullest potential. In this blog, we review a common concept in email marketing: email segmentation. Although you’ve probably heard about it before from your in-house marketing coordinator or through your digital agency, you may not know what it entails.
What is Email Segmentation?
Not all subscribers are created equal. You wouldn’t want to send a coupon for a product or service to someone who recently purchased the same product or service. Instead, you’d want to send the coupon to someone who has visited your site, learned about your product or service, but hasn’t yet made a purchase.
You also wouldn’t want to send a customer loyalty email to a new subscriber who hasn’t yet become a customer. The buyer journey is crucial for digital marketing, making it important to meet your subscribers where they are.
That’s where email segmentation comes into play.
Basically, email segmentation is exactly what it sounds like: splitting up your list of email subscribers based on certain criteria. Segmenting your list allows you to narrow your focus and send relevant messages to different groups within your larger list.
According to Mailchimp, segmented campaigns have 14.31 percent higher open rates and 100.95 percent higher click-through rates than non-segmented campaigns. If you were doubting the power of a simple shift in email marketing, the proof is in the numbers.
How to Segment Your Email List
Now that you know what email segmentation is and how it can positively impact your digital marketing efforts, start looking into how to segment your own list. There is no limit to how you choose to segment, but here are a few popular ways to help you reorganize your list:
- Interests: You most likely won’t be able to tell the interest of your subscribers based on their contact information alone, but there are other ways to gauge their interests. Surveys and quizzes are an effective method to learn more about your contacts–just be sure to offer some kind of incentive, such as a coupon or a drawing entry for a prize!
- Demographics: Demographics are a good place to start when segmenting emails–age, gender, occupation, marital status, education level, and other socioeconomic characteristics help determine what kind of message you should send to certain groups. You wouldn’t talk to your grandmother the same way you speak to your little brother–at least we hope not–and your email campaigns should reflect those differences as well.
- Geography: Sorting by geography is helpful if you have a brick-and-mortar establishment. This way, you aren’t sending in-store offers to those who don’t live within a reasonable distance of your shop. You can also tailor your campaign for specific areas if you have multiple locations.
- Signup Date: A common way to segment your email list is by the date they were added or imported to your contact list within an email marketing software. You could choose to sort by a specific date, a date range, or even by whether or not your newer subscribers were sent the last campaign.
- Subscriber Activity/Behavior: Look into the behavior of your subscribers. Is there a group that regularly opens your email campaigns but doesn’t click through to the site? Perhaps they need a little more of an incentive.
Let Cosmitto Lend You a Hand with Email Segmentation
Email marketing doesn’t stop at sending out a monthly newsletter to your customers–it’s about having a comprehensive email marketing strategy to help you connect and engage with your customers on a personal level. By personalizing emails and segmenting your subscriber list, your efforts could lead to substantial conversions from your email subscribers. At Cosmitto, we tailor email marketing strategies to fit your marketing and business goals. Get in touch with us today.
Cheyenne Knight
