Your customer list is diverse, and therefore your marketing efforts should reflect this. Different customers have different needs, and matching them is what makes campaigns successful. This can be done through segmentation, the process of separating your mailing list into specific categories based on a variety of factors. Segmentation is the key to successful and effective email marketing, let’s explore how to start the process below!
What Is Email List Segmentation?
In simple terms, segmenting your mailing list is the process of dividing it into smaller groups based on certain criteria. This can be shopping habits, customer lifetime value, and even population demographics. Rather than having one giant mailing list that gets the same email, you can tweak newsletters for each group to feel more personalized and match their needs. Making your emails work for your customers is the key to optimizing your campaigns.
Why Segmentation Is So Effective (Even for Small Lists)
In theory, the goal of marketing is to make a campaign that feels as personal as possible for a customer, without actually knowing them. Your mailing list is just a bunch of emails in a text file, but by using data collected from customer’s habits and history, you can add depth to it through segmentation. When emails feel personal to customers, it improves open and click through rate, reduces unsubscribes, and generates loyalty. This makes your emails feel helpful and unique, rather than generic.
Easy Ways to Segment Your Email List
If you are looking to segment your mailing list, below are some easy ways to start the process.
By Sign-Up Source
Starting at the beginning, a great way to begin segmentation is by splitting new sign-ups by acquisition source. This means that depending on where someone came from to join your mailing list (website, social media, in-store, etc.), they will be grouped based on that parameter. This is great for tailoring welcome emails because you can mention how they found you.
By Customer Type
If you want to reward customers based on their loyalty, segmenting your mailing list by new users, one-time buyers, and repeat customers can be a great way to do so. Perhaps you notice that when one-time buyers are offered a promo code, they end up making repeated purchases later on. Rather than wasting a promo on someone who is already going to make regular purchases, you can use the discount to raise customer loyalty in the long run.
By Interests or Preferences
If your company offers a variety of items that don’t completely fit the same category, segmenting by user preference can help increase sales by only showing what someone is interested in. This segmentation can be done based on content, product category, or service a customer is most engaged with. This can be done before users even make a first purchase by having them self-select their interests at sign-up.
By Location
You can also segment by location which is very useful for those who host local events. If your headquarters are in Boston, but you ship internationally to a global network of customers, you won’t want to send invites to those not in your area. This gets people’s hopes up and gives you an incorrect idea of how many people are interested. Rather, segment by location and only send local promotions to those within a certain radius of your physical store. Additionally, for those who offer seasonal products, you’ll most likely not want to advertise winter coats to California residents. Segmenting by location helps keep messages personal and relevant to your customers.
By Behavior
Segmenting by behavior is a great way to see who is loyal to your brand, and who might need something exciting to reignite their interests. With your mailing platform, you can see if users opened your last newsletter, clicked a link, or even abandoned their cart. Set up automated messages that are triggered by these events to send follow-up alerts. Customers abandoned their cart? Automate a promo code to be mailed to them if the purchase doesn’t occur in an hour. Customer clicked on a link to your pop-up event next month? Send a reminder the week before the event.
Tools for Easy Segmentation
Segmentation is easy in theory, but how do we actually begin the process? Most email platforms like Klaviyo (our preferred service) or Mailchimp offer automatic and manual segmentation based on the data they collect. Each platform is unique in its own way, but for the most part all will have a way to tag or create groups of subscribers for easy reference.
Best Practices for Beginners
Don’t overthink segmentation. The criteria above are meant to guide you and every category doesn’t need to be implemented for success. Only two or three segments are needed to get started. Remember to track performance and refine segments over time to optimize your campaigns.
If you are looking to begin segmenting your mailing list but don’t know where to start, contact Rise Marketing Group today for a free consultation!
