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How Many Pieces of the Pie Are There?
Email marketing has come a long way since the days of dial-up! More than 246 billion emails are sent daily, 128 business-related. Most of us receive 100 spam emails weekly, if not daily. How do you ensure your email campaigns are opened? Are you sending the right message to the right people? While I believe an essential part of email marketing is segmentation, I wanted to check in with other marketing professionals for a well-rounded opinion.
Email marketing is not a “one size fits all” marketing strategy. A successful campaign needs to segment your email subscribers into different groups based on specific criteria or characteristics. There are important steps in setting up a good email campaign; segmentation criteria, targeted messaging, personalization (nobody likes BCC:), and testing/performance analysis. Tailoring your email content and marketing strategies to really connect with the prospect will result in a more effective and targeted email campaign. But remember – segmentation and optimizing the campaign is an ongoing process that leads to a better ROI.
While we could end right here with Diana’s confirmation, why not hear from a few more in the industry? It’s always nice to have your ideas solidified by the CEO. Let’s pass the mic on to Stephanie, another leading lady in the business for 20+ years.
Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses, but it can only be as effective as the segmentation you put in place. When done correctly, email list segmentation allows you to personalize messages and easily tailor content to different audiences. It also helps marketers identify their most profitable customers, while allowing them to save time by focusing on certain segments of their database. By leveraging the power of email list segmentation, companies discover what works best with each individual audience which ultimately leads to more sales and a stronger bond with subscribers
Diana and Stephanie’s answers mirrored one another; while running their own companies, they shared the same thoughts on email segmentation. Three opinions in, it’s apparent we favor email segmentation. I contacted my former e-marketing professor & few graduates from the FIU MSM program to dive deeper into how we should approach the process.
Have you ever received an email from your favorite brand saying “Hey, it’s been a long time, we miss you”? If the answer yes, then you might have asked yourself: How did they know? The answer is segmentation.
However, nowadays, marketing strategies require more than just demographic and purchase behavior data to build effective messaging. As marketers, we need to understand our consumers’ motivations to make a decision. There are different ways to cluster your audience. However, regardless of the author, you should always answer: why the consumer buys (motivational)? when the consumer buys (timing)? how the consumer buys (behavioral)? who is the consumer (demographic, geographic, and attitudinal)?
Always keep in mind, an effective email marketing campaign should deliver the right message, at the right time, through the right platform, to the right person.
Email segmentation is a powerful strategy used in digital marketing to personalize and tailor email campaigns for different target audiences. By dividing your email list into segments based on various criteria such as demographics, interests, past behavior, or purchase history, you can deliver more relevant content and increase engagement. This approach allows you to send targeted messages, promotions, and recommendations that resonate with specific groups, leading to higher open rates, click-through rates, and ultimately, conversion rates. Email segmentation enables you to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time, fostering stronger connections, and driving better results for your email marketing campaigns.
I believe that segmenting your email contact list can play a huge part in whether or not your campaign is successful to its fullest potential.
There are many ways you segment an email contact list; by purchase history, interests, geographical location, and other behavioral and demographic information. As a marketer, being able to segment your contacts this way, allows you to cater your email content to a specific target audience as opposed to sending out one mass email to every one of your contacts.
Email marketing is not a one size fits all technique, different people have different needs, and if you are able to pinpoint what those are and use it to produce marketing content that provides solutions for them, then that audience is more likely to engage with your emails and follow through with your call to action.
Segmenting our email list is an essential practice in modern marketing strategies. I recognize that treating our entire email database as a homogeneous group limits the effectiveness of our campaigns. When I was working in Capital Analytics, we had different strategies to send out emails. I divided them into “Clients” and “Associates”. By segmenting our list based on demographics, behaviors, or interests, we can personalize our messages, delivering relevant content that resonates with each segment. This targeted approach enhances engagement, improves open and click-through rates, and ultimately drives higher conversions.
If our consumers are unique, our emails should be too. This is why it’s so important to segment our email marketing list. Buyers want a custom experience that fits who they are and what they’re interested in. They want their emails to feel intentional. And they want to feel known by the brands they support.
As I suspected, everyone agrees segmenting our marketing list is a must, from CEOs to my former marketing professor and fellow graduates. Who wants something that was made for everyone? Now the question is how clever you can be with your segmenting. How much time will you spend on the process, and how often will you update your list? How many pieces of the pie can you slice?
While I have been sending weekly emails for years, it wasn’t until recently that I began dissecting my email list. I still send emails to all of my contacts with a general newsletter; however, I also divide the list to send personalized pieces. Examples would be selecting emails from guests who purchase specific product lines to inform them we launched new products and pulling emails from guests who visit a particular stylist to offer a promotion.
Taking the time to divide contacts allows your content to be received by the proper individuals on a personalized level. Being diligent and creative with your segmentation will enable you to provide relevant content that leads to a higher click-through rate. Research from DMA found that marketers who used segmented campaigns saw a 760% boost in email revenue. All of the above improves deliverability and engagement, but most of all, it keeps your guest positively connected to you.
