Marketers know that focusing on a specific segment of an email list with targeted messages can improve open and click-through rates. But, which segments should you target? How do you define your segments for greatest impact?
The bottom line: You will see the best results with the most specific segments.
Email Segmentation 101
Many marketers already use demographics to segment their email marketing lists and target potential buyers. Today, you can use software platforms that analyze your email signup and other forms that website visitors compete. These allow you to segment by age, gender, position, income, zip code and other categories that could be relevant to your marketing efforts.
7 Ways to Segment an Email List for Better Results
Marketers often find that moving beyond basic demographics when segmenting email lists provides even greater results. Seven examples of advanced list segmentation include:
- Email engagement: You can segment by categorizing users as active or interactive. If someone has not opened your emails for three months, for example, you could categorize them as Then you can develop a special campaign to re-engage them.
- Time zones and regions: If you are a national company, you can stagger your email messages to take advantage of the most optimum time for people to see your messages. You can also send messages promoting events, such as in-store sales, in those locations where you have bricks and mortar presence.
- Previous purchases: The easy way to take advantage of this information—information you already have—is to send out emails recommending additional items that go with an earlier purchase. You can also target customers based on the length of time since the last purchase.
- Short-lived products: If a buyer purchased something that runs out, such as a food item, a grooming item or other product that gets used, you can predict when they will need the product again and send an email reminder.
- Amount spent: You can determine how much someone spends each year, or whether they buy expensive or cheaper items. You can then send email promotions that are appropriate to their expenditure levels.
- Sales funnel position: Are customers new to your products, or did they start to purchase something and abandon the cart? Newcomers could receive general messages, while customers at the bottom of the sales funnel (the abandoned cart) could receive a message informing them that their cart still exists.
- Behavior on websites: You can send targeted emails based on websites visited or you can segment by other aspects of website behavior. For example, it is possible to pick out people who visited one page but did not visit another, related, page.
Need Help Implementing These Ideas?
Although there are software platforms that allow the creation of segmented email lists, it is often more effective to work with an online marketing specialist. Call our email marketing team for more information.
