Posted On: Sep 26, 2018
Posted By: John Duff
Email List Segmentation

The email communication, known as the traditional digital channel, is utilized by industries worldwide to enhance their link with the outer world. They make the best use of this medium to boost their sales ratio in the form of campaigns. But it isn’t the case with everyone. There are a few industries which struggle to raise their conversion rates through email marketing. Be it one thousand or one million mailing list, the way how you manage the data leads a path towards success.

Segmentation is one of the most exceptional practices to handle the email list in your organization. It helps you to analyze the buyer’s behavior pattern and sketch the plan accordingly. To boost your email marketing campaigns, you can segment the list in two different ways.

– Behavioral traits such as buying pattern.

– Personality and psychographic traits such as location, age and more.

Although behavioral traits yield a better result than the later, it is always recommended to use both if you wish to reap the maximum benefit from this approach. We listed a few popular segmentation strategies that help you to improve the customer engagement and view guaranteed result effortlessly. Let’s dive into the details of each process.

1. Geographical and Demographical Factors

Apart from behavioral traits, you can also customize the email list based on the customer’s geographic location or demographical factors such as age, gender, and more. With the location-based segments, you can target the local audience by providing some offers on products or services that reminds them of some local event or helps them in particular climatic condition.

You can also segment the email list based on different factors such as gender, age, education, social status, income, occupation, lifestyle, family, and more. Since the people of different demographics have different tastes in the product, it helps the companies to segregate the offers by studying these factors.

2. Purchase Patterns

Using the customer’s buying pattern or previous purchase history, you can increase the per-person sale most efficiently. When a customer lands on any particular page of your website or physical store, you will get to know their interest in your specific product or services. Using this information, you can provide particular features or offers to them that will be of help. That is, make a list of add-on services or products that will interest them.

Later, you can message or email them regarding the discounts on those services. With this strategy, your customers will not be annoyed with receiving the uninterested offers that you broadcast for the whole set of audience. Invest some time in studying their buying journey and determine the next step wisely.

3. Position the Prospects

Your organization will have a variety of clients with diversified interests. Hence to ease your campaign execution task, you must place your different prospects in the different positions of the marketing funnel. For instance, you can position the clients who are most likely to buy your product at the top and less likely at the bottom.

Based on this category, you can come up with separate offers for different positions. That is, you can provide free delivery options for the prospects at the top of the list which aids in increasing the conversion rate whereas free trial or discounts for new subscribers to gain their attention.

4. Loyalty of Customers

Segment your email list based on the buyer’s loyalty level. That is, you can split your database into separate groups such as –

– First Time Buyers: The one who purchased your product or service for the first time.

– One Time Buyers: The buyers who bought your product or used your service only once.

– Recurrent Buyers: The list of people who buy your product or utilize your service repeatedly. That is the one who purchased your product more than once.

– Everyday Buyers: These are the loyal buyers who buy from you on a regular basis such as once in a week, month or year based on the plans chosen by them

You can also segment it further or in a different format that suits your business operations. Once you segment the list on the buyer’s loyalty level, you can promote your product through separate brand messages for different groups. For instance, you can send a special membership voucher or rewards for repeated buyers whereas some exclusive discounts for the first time or one-time users.

Also Read: 7 Strategies for Sensational Segmentation

5. Lead Magnet

With the help of lead magnets, you can promote your product or services differently. That is, based on the type of lead magnet requested, you can segment your list and strengthen your brand value. By keeping track of all these aspects, you can target the offers or promotional messages to the group and improve your bond with them.

To do this, you must make a separate list of prospects who requested for a different lead magnet. Once the database is ready, you can send those prospects all the relevant contents on the specific topic enquired by them. It will help not only the clients but also the companies to build a healthy relationship with them.

6. Opened Email

Segmenting the list based on opened emails is the best way to stay connected with the interested buyers. That is, make a list of prospects who read your email messages. These are the users who love to engage with your business activities. They deserve attention since their chances of doing business with you is more.

Once you identify such prospects, you must further segment your list based on the type of messages they open. That is, you can split them into a group of users who are interested in a specific topic, promotional messages, types of products, services, events, offers, and more. This strategy helps you to know about their interest in detail. So, you can send only targeted messages to such readers instead of annoying with unnecessary emails.

7. Frequency of Response

You can also customize the list based on their response frequency. There might be some users who only open your messages and do not click any link. But there are a few who click the link and do not buy. Whereas some buy your product through the link that redirects to your website. Also, some buyers reply to your email to verify the product or to discuss it.

You must track all these data and segment the list to ease your next step. Once you separate them, you can proceed with the campaigns or promotional email that helps a particular user. You must give much importance to this kind of segments because retaining the old customers or interested users brings more value to your revenue than wasting your efforts on new ones.

Wrapping Up

Your long email list includes a different kind of people with different attitude and interests. Hence if you treat those different people in the same manner, it will not do any good for your organization. Split the list into groups and then apply campaign strategies on it for successful execution. Once you complete the process of segmentation, you can relax for a while before proceeding with the other steps. Since segmentation plays a crucial role in email marketing, it is advised not to skip this process if you wish to see a higher click-through and conversion rates.