<3internet marketing

Do you know segmenting your email marketing lists can improve conversion rates?

Just look around. There are many success stories to back this up, like this one from Comcast.

The company joined forces with Amazon Music and HBO to offer students access to free media, like sports shows and TV programs.

Cheri Davies, Senior Director of Acquisition Marketing, said within a week of launching the offer, Comcast had a huge increase in traffic and a significant spike in conversions.

That’s just one example that shows how email marketing segmentation and effectively targeting specific consumers, can give your business a significant boost.

After all, if you’re offering your customers a product or service that’s more likely to appeal to a selected audience, the chances of them buying increase, right?

That said, figuring out the best way to create an email marketing strategy can be a huge undertaking.

To make it a little less daunting, this post shows you 14 quick email marketing segmentation tactics that you can start using today.

1. Demographics

Many marketers first begin their email segmentation strategy by using demographic data.

Age, gender, company position, and income level can tell you plenty about a person’s needs and interests.

The more information you can get about your audience in the sign-up process, the more options you’ll have for demographic segmentation. Be careful with this, though, because asking for too much information can scare people off from signing up.

Decide which metrics are most essential for your business and include those questions in the signup process.

For example, if you’re a B2B software developer, the company position would be an important demographic. If you’re a clothing retailer, then gender would be extremely valuable to know. Add 1-3 of your business’s most relevant demographic factors (or more, depending on the complexity of your segmentation needs).

2. Survey or Quiz Results

One of the simplest ways to segment by demographics is through your website forms. Your email marketing platform allows you to customize the email sign-up questions or use a plugin to create opt-in boxes.

If you use a tool like Campaign Monitor, demographic segmentation is a part of the email builder. Just select the content you want to segment and the demographic you want to show it to:

Some marketers are minimalists who only ask for an email address to sign up for their mailing list.

That’s fine – you can still access nuanced customer data by creating a survey or quiz.

However, a survey allows you to get valuable demographic information and insights into individual tastes, preferences, and beliefs.

There are many different ways to create custom surveys for your audience. If you’re on WordPress, you can use the Quiz and Survey Master plugin to create your custom survey. It also integrates with Mailchimp so that you can export your results.

Using Aweber, you can create a free survey with Google Documents, Survey Monkey, or SurveyGizmo, and then integrate them into your Aweber emails.

3. Email Engagement

Another simple way to segment your lists is by looking at your email engagement stats.

Open rate and clickthrough rate are the main metrics here.

You can segment by engagement by designating active vs. inactive users, such as someone who hasn’t opened your emails in three months. You can then create a specialized campaign designed to re-engage your inactive subscribers.

Alternatively, you can focus on subscribers who do engage and target them more precisely. For example, you send out an email announcing an upcoming sale, and you can categorize everyone who clicks through as “interested.” You can then create a special campaign to further target them as likely buyers from the sale.

If you use Mailchimp, segmenting by engagement is simple:

Just fill out the filters, click on “Preview Segment”, and you’re done!

That’s engagement covered, but what about location?

4. Geographic Area

Segmentation by geographic area is a valuable tool, especially for businesses where location greatly influences purchasing decisions.

Geographical segmentation is an approach global delivery and logistics firm Aramex uses. The business has a customer base in over 20 locations, so naturally, it wanted to get the location-specific details in front of customers in real-time.

Aramex used software to segment its audience into 20-plus different countries. From there it delivered prospects customized pages, locally relevant content, and personalized discount codes.

The result? An impressive 41.18 percent increase in conversions:

Other ways companies can use geographic data include:

• Time-based email messages. Stagger your emails to send them out at optimum times for customers in different time zones.
• Advertising regional promotions. Send focused emails for events in certain store locations.
• Live webinar or AMA (Ask Me Anything) invitations. Adjust event timing based on audience location.
• Personalized travel directions. Customize directions to a store or event based on the reader’s geolocation.
• Where a customer shops. Send out offers specific to the physical store a buyer frequents.
• Location-specific content. Use a location in your headlines or content to draw attention and offer a personalized experience.

5. Past Purchases

Another easy-to-implement email segmentation strategy is to look at past purchases.

When you know what appeals to specific customers, you can email recommendations for similar items or accessories that would go well with their previous purchase.

Alternatively, if a customer buys something that requires replacement, refilling, or renewal, you can send targeted emails to fulfill their potential needs.

If you’re using Mailchimp, you can use the Shopware plugin and filter by products purchased.

6. Amount Spent

If you sell a range of high and low-dollar items, the amount spent can be an excellent segmentation strategy.

Use customer expense history to determine which customers are likely to buy more expensive items and customers who show an interest in affordable, low-dollar items.

Then you can send targeted emails featuring products within each person’s budget.

An excellent example of this is recipe box delivery firm HelloFresh. On its website, it offers recipes for several segments, including:

• Premium meals for special occasions
• Family-friendly meals
• Budget recipes

You could easily transfer this approach to your email marketing segmentation, offering a range of products you base on typical spending patterns..

7. Position in the Sales Funnel

You can also segment your customers depending on where your audience is in the sales funnel.

Someone at the top of the funnel should receive different targeted emails than those at the bottom.

For example, for a group of brand-new subscribers, their emails should be more generalized, giving a range of the products or features you offer, such as a series of welcome emails introducing them to the brand.

However, suppose they’ve been on your list for a while now and only interact with certain email content (such as clicking through a link). In that case, you can use this information to determine your customers precise interests, and send more targeted emails on that product or service.

8. Website Behavior

Keeping track of website behavior is another simple way to get more information about visitors’ interests.

For example, you can start personalizing your emails around the specific pages they visited, but that’s far from the only option. The sheer amount of behavioral data you can gather now is pretty impressive. There are tools like:

• Kissmetrics: the tool provides powerful segmentation capabilities that allow businesses to break down user data into meaningful chunks and identify key trends in customer behavior.
• Google Analytics: users can track various aspects of their website, such as page views, visitor sources, and user behavior. Additionally, it offers detailed reports on visitors’ activities, including page views, session duration times, and location details.
• Adobe Analytics: this web analytics tool lets companies gain insight into their customers’ behavior and make better data-driven decisions. You can use the analysis to help increase engagement, conversions, and user experience.

Another tool is the ‘Goals’ feature in Mailchimp. You can also send out targeted emails based on website activity, such as:

• Pages people visited
• Pages they didn’t visit
• People who visited one page but missed another related page
• What videos they watched (and how long they watched them)

Set up Goal Autoresponders with Mailchimp, and you can send out automatically targeted emails based on the content people did or didn’t engage with on your website.

9. Time Since Last Purchase

Time since last purchase is a valuable email segmentation strategy; It doesn’t make sense to lump a customer who last bought from you months ago in with one who bought something last week.

Instead, you could split them up into two major groups:

1. Frequent Buyers

By segmenting those that are most loyal, a brand not only encourages repeat purchases but also develops relationships with its top patrons.

This group purchases something from you at least monthly. They like your brand and are interested in your products, so you target them by:

• Upselling products or plan upgrades.
• Offering promotional deals.
• Promoting new features or products.

2. One-time Customers

This group bought one of your products six months ago but hasn’t returned. Or maybe they used to be a frequent buyer, but fell off the grid.

The first step is to analyze the data you have on your customer base. For example, look carefully at when a buyer purchased a product and if they’ve purchased it since. You might also want to look at the products purchased, how much was spent, and when they bought them.

Then, you can target your emails by drawing them back to your brand by:

• Offering personalized discounts on former purchases.
• Highlighting the company’s positive attributes.
• Sending reminders to renew/repurchase.
• Offering upgrades/accessories

10. Personal Interests

This tactic is a little more advanced, but it’s still fairly simple to do with the right tools.

You can get detailed information about subscribers’ personal interests by creating user profiles on your website or using an email subscription center.

You can ask your audience to indicate their preferences when signing up and give them plenty of opportunities to update them by including a CTA in your emails.

By asking your subscribers to indicate their preferences, you can easily cut through the noise by targeting your audience based on their real interests.

You can create custom subscriber preferences with email marketing tools like Campaign Monitor.

Then, just add the preferences tags to every email you send out.

11. Abandoned Shopping Carts

This may be a less obvious email segmentation strategy, but why not target your customers by cart abandonment?

The Baynard Institute says the average cart abandonment rate is 69.99 percent. As the Institute states, there are multiple reasons for this, including:

• Browsers doing price comparisons
• Shoppers put off by extra costs (shipping, etc.)
• Consumers exploring gift options
• Buyers saving items for later

That’s where cart abandonment presents an opportunity. You can send out a follow-up email reminding them that their cart is still available:

Here’s a nice example from Design Bundles:

The email uses FOMO at the heart of its messaging to encourage users to click through without trying to sell too hard.

If you want to nudge your prospect over the purchase line, you could offer a small discount or other incentives like free shipping to encourage the shopper to buy.

Another way you could use marketing segmentation is using your data and analytics to understand:

• when customers abandon their carts
• what items they left behind
• how often it happens

For instance, if the data reveals that specific customer segments are more likely to abandon their carts after discovering shipping costs, you could offer free shipping for orders over a particular value or provide alternative shipping options.

12. Job Roles (for B2B)

By segmenting your customers by job role, you can easily personalize your messages to meet the needs of a specific audience.

The first step in segmenting customers by job roles is identifying which categories are most relevant for your target audience. For example, depending on the type of products/services you offer, you could focus on the following:

• C-suite executives
• entrepreneurs
• creatives

From there, you can create separate lists for each category so that every message sent reaches a specific audience with tailored content that matches their interests and needs.

13. Entry Point

Entry points refer to the initial way a customer interacts with your brand or service. It could be through:

• an advertisement
• a referral from another customer
• or a sign-up form on your website.

By segmenting customers by their entry point, you can tailor content that speaks directly to their interest levels and buying habits.

14. Purchase History

This is perhaps one of the most obvious e-commerce email marketing strategies. By viewing purchase history, you can understand what:

• your customers want
• they buy most often
• accessories/repeat purchases they might need

Using purchase history as a basis for segmentation also gives you valuable insights into each customer’s behavior: what they like, what they don’t, how long ago they last purchased from you, and more. You can use this data to create personal messages encouraging customers to buy again or even upgrade their current purchases.

Using Segmentation To Customize Your Emails

Email list segmentation can improve your conversion rate.

For instance, one case study from Sendlane describes how multi-platform entertainment Skybound improved conversions via email segmentation.

Initially, the company tried a re-engagement campaign to try and increase open rates. Despite these efforts, it still wasn’t getting the desired results, so it changed tactics.

It signed up to a new email subscription provider, segmented its list by interest, and added some personalization. The results are definitely worth shouting about, with a 70-80 percent increase in open rates.

There’s a simple reason why email marketing segmentation works: it gives a personal touch that meets your customers needs.

By sending targeted messages to your subscribersthat are customized to your customers’ behavioral patterns and spending habits, you can increase engagement rates, drive conversions, and foster long-term customer loyalty.

FAQs

Conclusion

Email marketing segmentation isn’t just for huge brands with limitless budgets. It’s a technique every business owner can implement just by analyzing their data.

The best part of segmentation? There are plenty of ways you can do it.

Whether it’s entry point, business contact, purchase history, or tunnel stage, you can target your customer base more effectively by segmenting your mailing list.

That’s excellent news for you.

The better you target your email, the more likely your subscriber is to convert, and every business owner knows that more conversions mean extra profit.

By using the ideas in this article, you can start targeting your audience with these easy segmentation strategies today.

To further increase your chances of success, combine these tips with some email best practices and learn to write emails that drive results.

Know of any other easy email marketing segmentation strategies? Let us know in the comments below.