A systematic approach is key to the success of any project. This stands true when it comes to email marketing too. For achieving desired outcomes from email campaigns, email marketing specialists need to have a defined and systematic approach. Email segmentation is an effective marketing strategy and it can improve an email’s open and read rates and overall conversion.
Email segmentation is the practice of categorizing your email list into parts or segments essentially based on some key parameters such as age groups, interests, geography, etc. The emails are targeted at each segment with the appropriate content. Each stage of email segmentation considers the challenges that the target audience faces and why they opted in for your email marketing list. With email segmentation, the target group is smaller in size. Hence, the content can be designed to reflect the unique needs of the group. This increases the possibility of the emails being read and their following engagement. Moreover, with a segmented list, the likeliness of sending emails that are not valued by most of your subscribers can be avoided.
Why do email marketers prefer a segmented email list?
Aren’t the merits quite clear? The content pushed to the subscribers, or potential customers is custom-built to their preferences, which is linked to their past activities, location, and other variables. There isn’t a standard fit for all of the customer types regardless of the products/services offered, as various groups of people would be at different stages of the buying cycle.
As a practical solution to this, the marketers can segment their lists in a number of ways depending on the amount of information gathered from the customers during the initial sign-up. The range of information could vary from gender, age, income, employment status, geographic location, interests, relationship status, and several other variables.
Check out this email sent by Penguin Random House.
Source: Inbox
This email is sent to gather information about the subscribers’ interests and preferences, which will help them send better book recommendations and content. It will help the brand understand the genres each subscriber is interested in and create more content around their favorites for better engagement.
Sending such emails asking the customers to set preferences and learning about their demographics, psychographics, geographic details, interests, etc., is the first and the most crucial step in email segmentation.
Key benefits of segmenting email lists
Improved Engagement
Upon segmentation of the email list based on the subscriber’s information, the contents shared would be as per the interest of the subscriber, which would help in grabbing their attention. Once the brand catches the subscriber’s attention, it will lead to meaningful engagement and gauge more accurate interests and requirements. This would eventually help in coming up with a suitable end product.
Increased Conversion
As the email content is specific to the reader, the rate of engagement would be higher, eventually leading to a higher rate of conversion. A higher rate of conversion validates the approach and methodology undertaken by the brand.
Improved Reputation
The emails and the campaign would be considered credible as they would be relevant and highly personalized to the customers’ needs and interests. This will save the emails from being reported as spam or being unsubscribed as normal mass emailing lists. This would add to the reputation of the campaign and the brand sending emails.
Refined and Quality Content
The content seems to grow and mature over the period of the engagement and would be seen leading the way to a well-shaped end product. With a clear understanding of the customer segments and all relevant information required to create personalized and useful emails, the brands get to develop quality content to match the segmented list’s requirements.
Though email segmentation may sound like one of those things everyone is venturing into, in reality, many marketers ignore this tactic, and some others don’t understand how it could improve their marketing results. Since most marketers are looking ahead of this strategy, it has a continuing effect on the readership of the content pushed by their organizations. While looking at it from the team’s perspective, it is rather an unorganized effort to venture out for potential clients, which could bear meager results. To develop a good team environment and for client retention, the management must adapt to a methodical approach and long-visioned strategies.
Wrapping Up
With email segmentation, you are not just opening up to learning another fad but rather adopting an approach that unlocks a whole new level of success for your campaigns. Hence, there is no denial regarding the benefits of email segmentation. It is the best way for email marketers to provide highly personalized and relevant content relatable to the vast number of subscribers/ potential consumers. Regardless of the size of the business or the depth of the marketing budget, email segmentation should be a non-negotiable part of every email marketing strategy.
Author: Kevin George is the head of marketing at Email Uplers, that specializes in crafting Professional Email Templates, PSD to Email conversion, and Mailchimp Templates. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes & jazz, and he breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on email marketing blog.
