Getting new email subscribers and looking after your mailing list are undoubtedly key elements in carrying out winning email marketing campaigns. This time we will show you ten smart ways to segment your mailing list – how to be more targeted and, in turn, achieve better results with your email marketing campaigns.
1. Location
The location could be one of the most natural ways to narrow down a bigger list. Most likely, you have already captured your subscriber’s location – a country or even a city. Use this information and make your emails more personal by sending customized campaigns to different geographical areas. For example, you can use imagery relating to that specific country or city. You can easily create different email templates and do some A/B testing to figure out which images work best with your audience.
You don’t have to write a different email to every one of your subscribers (otherwise, it wouldn’t be any different than using Gmail or Outlook), but you can do personalization with tags instead.
2. Age Group
Another popular way to segment your mailing list is by age group. Depending on your product or service, you might want to create different email campaigns to try and meet the expectations of the different age groups of your clients or prospects. For example, use a slightly different tone of voice, a different email message, or visual elements, or even test different email deployment times.
3. Client Type
If you have a bit more detailed database, you can create separate segments to match the information of your business client or prospect. Creating email lists based on your client’s or lead’s seniority in their respective businesses is quite a popular segmentation choice. For example, middle managers and executives could receive a different email than the business decision-makers.
4. Industry
You could be focusing on one industry, or you could be promoting your products or services across a variety of them. Why not create targeted email campaigns to address the different sectors more relevantly? Some industries would require a more technical and detailed email, while others might be more engaged with shorter but very visual emails.
5. Subscription Method
We have covered a variety of subscription methods in our previous articles. If you keep this information in your database, why not try and target these subscribers in different ways? For example, you might have gained subscribers throughout an event, then continue talking to these clients or prospects in the same manner. People who have subscribed via downloads, landing pages, or other lead magnets might not necessarily be very engaged, so sending them customized emails to learn about their preferences could also be a good idea.
6. Email Engagement Level
As mentioned before, some of your subscribers might be more engaged than others. Having such information gives you an opportunity to create more relevant emails and try to re-engage the non-engagers, convert the leads into customers, and more. You can create separate mailing list segments according to their engagement level, for example, open and click rates. For instance, customize your campaign to try and meet the needs of your subscribers who open your emails but never click on the links. These types of mailing list segments are great for A/B testing initiatives.
7. Content Preferences
You are most likely sending a variety of email types, such as your newsletter, a product update, a transactional message, and many others. If you have a preference center where your subscribers can select the email types, it will make your email segmentation much easier. However, you can also watch for spikes or drops in your subscribers’ engagement when sending out different types of content and customize your mailing lists and emails manually.
8. Referrers
If you run initiatives for subscribers to refer others to your business, you can run separate email campaigns to try and target them. It is an excellent way to get new leads as well as a perfect opportunity to show gratitude to your referrers.
9. Buying Behaviour
Segmenting your list according to your clients’ buying behavior is a beneficial practice. Narrow down your lists and create different email campaigns to target buyers and non-buyers. Look at their past purchases, purchasing habits or budgets, and even abandoned baskets. All this information is handy and will help you work on very targeted email marketing messages.
10. Store or Web Clients
If you own a physical shop and operate an e-commerce one, too, it could be advantageous to create relevant email list segments. You can promote your products or services more relevantly to meet the different needs of web-only clients or physical shop visitors. Remember that there can also be a crossover segment where a part of your clients can be both – buyers from a store as well as online purchasers.
Relevancy is Expected
Remember, having a healthy mailing list is very important if you are trying to send out successful email marketing campaigns. Don’t send generic emails to everyone – be relevant as much as possible, as nowadays, everyone expects that. Use the information you have about your subscribers and segment your mailing lists to send out targeted campaigns and optimize your future emails!
Just starting out with segmentation and don’t know how to proceed? Smaily offers more than 1000+ integrations with other apps and services, so you can import all kinds of third-party data to make better segmentation decisions easily.
Also, we are the only ESP that provides additional personal services and helps clients develop working solutions for email marketing and everything that’s related. Contact us for more information!
Next: Hacking Email Marketing Once and For All
Sending an email is easy. Pairing it with a great offer is another thing, and convincing the recipient to actually open the email is where the difficulty lies. In the next blog post, we are going to have a look at how to improve your Email Marketing Campaigns.
Make sure you check our blog regularly, and don’t forget to subscribe to our emails. Or you may want to follow up on the last blog post on How to Get More Email Subscribers and Look After Your Email Database if you’ve missed it.