To get you started on a more effective email campaign, let us guide you through the new segmentation processes that will help you carve out a more targeted emailing list.Every customer database needs to be organized and segmented by the DBA for making the email marketing campaigns successful.
1. Location:
If you are a local store with an online presence or a hotel chain or a transport business, you may want to take extra interest in creating location-based mailing lists. Why would you waste your resources in sending in-store offers to people outside your service zone? To optimize your resource utilization, keep your email list geographically segmented. Or you may end up trying to sell an air conditioner to an Eskimo. You should also keep location in mind while designing Holiday emails. While some regions of the country are more likely to celebrate Christmas, others are more likely to celebrate Hanukah.
2. Gender:
What is the point of marketing shaving kits to women only? There are some products like lingerie, grooming kits and cosmetics that need to be targeted to audience based on gender. If you have a wide range of multiple products, asking your database administratorto segment your email database based on genders is probably a good idea. This gives your mailers more focus, and helps you promote your services more objectively.
3. Industry:
If you are a B2B website then you should segregate your target addresses based on their industry type. Your email list possibly contains a milieu of different job functions including developers, consultants, marketers, officers, customer service agents and accountants. Each one will have different interest and that calls for segmentation based on industry and job responsibility. Increasing specificity of your target audience on the database itself will help your campaign achieve a better ROI.
4. Buying interest:
Segmenting your customer database on the basis of purchase interest is a lot easier when a part of your list has purchased from you before. You can identify your selling opportunities by offering promotional offers and additional services to them via mail.Forexample, if your buyer has shown an interest in buying baby cribs and baby products, there is very less chance that he/she will also be interested in college supplies at the moment.It will be smarter to offer related maternity products to this person!A buyer’s recent purchase history is a great way to figure out what he/she may be looking for in recent future.
5. Buying habits:
You can also segment your list based on the frequency of purchases. If you can make use of reward points and other purchase incentives, you can increase the shopping frequency of your buyers. You can introduce loyalty programs for your frequent buyers via emails to attract more potential buyers.
6. Content management:
If you have maintained an exclusive blog, you may have noticed how some people are interest in particular topics only. While some are interested in Spring-Summer trends in clothes, others may be interested in kitchen hacks to save time. This is one segment that can boost your sales and marketing ROI. Categorize your email list by the individual interest of your registered members. It becomes easier if you follow a format like StumbleUpon, where your target audience can fill out a form based on vested interest during registration.
7. Interest level:
It is important to understand that just because a buyer has showed interest in a product once does not mean he actually likes it. For example, if you are holding a webinar, you can make list of all attendees who dropped out in the first 10 minutes and the ones who stayed beyond 30 minutes. You can engage the latter in middle of the funnel offers that will egg them along the sales funnel. The ones who dropped out by 10 minutes can receive surveys and top of the funnel offers to gauge the reasons for their lack of interest.
8. Change in buying behavior:
This is a very good indicator of your customers’ levels of varying interest in your company, website and products. There may be offers and leads that decrease the purchasing frequency, and there are few that always bring about good conversion levels. Therefore, you need to segment your buyers’ contacts as per their responses and behavior cycles on your mailing list as well.
9. Email type:
Email address can speak oodles about your customer. If most of your clients have corporate email addresses, you may want to invest in a good email design. These B2B clients prefer customized emails with a touch of professionalism. So go form responsive, detailed emailer designs that bear the signature of your business.
10.Satisfaction index:
Net Promoter Score is a very popular way of determining how popular you are with your customers. You can segment your email list based on how happy your customer is with your niche services. Someone with a high NPS score represent a greater opportunity of gathering reviews, referrals and upsells. Their mailers need to be completely different from those on the top of the funnel with lower satisfaction scores.
11.Customers without reviews:
There are a few customers who have high NPS scores, but they shy away from giving reviews. You need to create a list that has all the contacts of those who have not yet reviewed your business. If they follow you on Twitter, Facebook and yelp, that is amazing! You just need to set up an online email campaign that will urge them to go ahead and express their love for you publicly!
12.In-store visitors vs. web-store visitors:
If you have a brick and mortar showroom that caters to exclusive customers without an online presence, then you need to give them an incentive to check them out online. Gather their email address where you can send offers and promotions for exclusive online deals. You can do the same for you online patrons. Send amazing store-based offers to your online shoppers that will get them off that couch and into your store!
13.Shopping cart issues:
Very recently, we have seen ecommerce sites send out email reminders to those who have left their shopping carts before checking out. According to Bamyard Institute, 61% of shoppers abandon shopping carts due to extra costs like shipping and vat. The average noted shopping cart abandonment rate is around 69.23% in 2017. Therefore, if you run an ecommerce website, you must have an “abandoned shopping cart email campaign” ready.
14.Event entry:
Do you organize book signings, social events, music fests and conferences? Then you will absolutely need this email list segment. You can always reach out to potential customers who have shown an interest in your products. You can segment your email list based on event type, location, buying capacity, theme and interest for a more successful email campaign. Email campaigns that are targeted to specific audiences based on interest and buying capacity, have a much higher ROI than random email marketing campaigns.
15.Call-to-action mails:
You must have noticed an increasing trend among ecommerce sites to include a call-to-action, clickable button in emails. You can download these templates before customizing them and mailing them out to your target audience. These call to action buttons need to be different for different buyers. While some will be interested to register with your website for promotional offers, others may be returning customers who would like a buy-one-get-one offer on clearance items. You can always tell what will work based on your CTR. Including terms like “Call Now”, “act now”, “buy here”, “limited period offer”, “discount” etc. have a catalytic effect on the recipients.
Email marketing is very effective if you can target your emails properly. The design, content and the language have to be given equal importance. If any one of the components are off balance, you will have trouble earning respectable ROI on your email marketing campaign.
It is understandable that what works for a 15-year old high school kid, will not work for a 30-year old working woman. Therefore, your email list has to be segmented according to individual preference, buying habits and multiple other factors that directly determine the success level of your email campaigns.
Ends.
Author Bio:
Sujain Thomas is a well-known marketing expert who has been running her own marketing consultancy, successfully for the last 10 years. Her focus is a well-maintained database and a well-informed DBA who can add the element of success to any digital marketing campaign. A good database with organized information is the key to a successful business endeavor and Thomas is the expert who can tell you why.
