6 Ways to Segment Your Email List to Improve Your Success

When you create emails, do you send them out to everyone on your list? If so, you’re suffering from “bulk email disease.” This very common digital illness occurs when small business owners send every email to every single contact on their list.

Common symptoms include low open rates, poor conversions, and confusion about what to do next.
Well, If you’re ready to conquer this condition once and for all, you’ll need a healthy dose of segmentation. This includes dividing your larger list into small, targeted subgroups and coming up with a content strategy for how and when you’ll send emails to each list.

A method with proven results, as illustrated in the chart below, segmentation can increase your open rates by nearly 39 percent. It can also help boost your leads by 24 percent which is much higher than average growth statistics.



Here are six ways you can segment your list and get it back on the mend:

1. Geographic area
Segmenting lists by geographic area is one of the most popular methods and can be helpful for many reasons. This method gives you the opportunity to communicate with and talk to your customers where they are, increasing their ability to relate to your business.

Remember though, there are some businesses like cleaning or meal delivery services, which are limited to a geographical region. For these businesses, splitting contacts into even smaller segments, such as cities or towns, is useful.

2. Demographics
Similar to location, segmenting your list by demographics may work well for a single email or future email campaign series.

Let’s say you run a retail business that caters to women ages 30-60. When you release a new item that appeals more to the under 35 crowd, you can increase your chance of creating buzz with an email specifically for the people on your under 35 list.

The standard business demographics that are frequently used include age, gender, and income level.You can collect this information from customers by including it on a signup form and embedding it on your website or blog.

3. Loyal customers
Everyone likes to be rewarded for their loyalty. You’ll find that your customers are no different.  With a marketplace overflowing with options, repeat buyers are a much smaller segment than they once were.

Use this to your advantage through emails that show your frequent customers you appreciate their business. Consider making a ‘Loyal Customer Promo’ or send out an email inviting 15 of your most loyal customers to a sneak peek of a product. You can make the deal even sweeter by giving them a chance to buy it with a select percentage off the final cost.

4. Brand advocates
Every business has a group of customers that advocate for their business without being asked to do so. This is also known as benefiting from the power of word of mouth marketing. Create a segment in your email list for this group. Much like your loyal customers, it’s important to reward those who spread the word about your business.

How do you identify a brand advocate? Look for customers that sing your praises on social media. Customers that have referred friends to your business, or reached out with positive feedback should also make the list.

5. Inactive customers
From those who champion your brand to the group that is nowhere to be found, you’ll need another segment of your list that’s dedicated strictly to inactive customers.

You shouldn’t let inactive customers go without a fight. Okay, maybe “fight” is a strong word, but you shouldn’t let them go without making a targeted effort to bring them back into your sales fold.
Consider sending a promo email to those inactive customers. Use a message titled, “We miss you!”
or “It’s been a while, how have you been?” to reestablish contact and attempt to connect with them again. You can also send a survey asking for insight on why these customers have strayed away from your business. Through the survey results, you could make improvements to keep others from straying.

6. Role or position of contact
It goes without saying that to be effective, an email has to land in the right inbox. If an office supply store, for example, sends a promotional email to a CEO rather than the office manager, it’s probably going to be ignored. For this reason, it’s important to break up your list by positions, if possible. By doing so, the right person gets the right email, which leads to increased sales.

A few words on implementation
Curing bulk email disease can take some time. In fact, we suggest starting with only two or three segments listed above. If you overdose on segmentation, you could get frustrated and make your email marketing strategy more complicated than it needs to be.

Need extra guidance? Luckily, we have a resource guide to help you segment your list in your VerticalResponse account. Check out the step-by-step segment instructions to get started.


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Reasons to Ditch “Batch and Blast” and Get Started with Email Marketing Personalization

We all like to believe we’re special. Or as anthropologist Margaret Mead wryly put it, “Always remember that you are absolutely unique — just like everyone else.”  
That belief (or state of denial) is why so-called “batch and blast” email is usually less effective than email campaigns customized to your unique market. In a recent study of marketing professionals by Experian Marketing Services, 62 percent said a personalized email subject line is crucial.
The study also revealed that personalized promotional emails generated transaction rates and revenue per email six times higher than non-personalized emails. The personalized mailings had 29 percent higher unique open rates and 41 percent higher unique click rates. For triggered email campaigns (in which emails are triggered by a calendar event, a business action or an action taken by a website visitor), personalization doubled transaction rates.
Because today’s email marketing services allow for more detailed data about customers, users can implement some pretty impressive personalization that likely wouldn’t have been possible a couple of decades ago. Logistics like fully optimized mobile applications and time-delayed messaging are now par for the course, as is message micro-customization based on consumer behavior.  
“With so many available tools, businesses of all sizes can now employ the best email strategies for reaching customers,” writes Jayson DeMers in the Huffington Post. “When used correctly, these tools let businesses of all sizes compete with even the largest corporations. As more marketers discover the value of personalized marketing, businesses that don’t personalize their efforts will likely find their campaigns are largely unsuccessful.”



“To get started with such customization, conducting customer research is imperative,” explains Vertical Response Senior Content Marketing Manager, Linzi Breckenridge. “Your success with email marketing lies in understanding as much as you can about your contacts so you can better communicate with the groups of people likely to find your message relevant,” she says.  
Since personalizing messages for a world’s worth of potential customers is probably still out of technology’s reach, here are tips for identifying whom to target in your next campaign.  

• Identify your target market(s), segmenting the groups of customers most likely to buy your goods and services. Think about which segment of the population has a problem your product is able to solve. Narrowing that down keeps you from wasting time and energy, and maximizes your chance of gaining and keeping customers, growing profits and expanding market share.
• The most common ways to segment are by demographics, geographic location, purchasing behavior and/or psychographic segmentation (interests, hobbies, lifestyles, values and attitudes). The most common demographics used are age, gender and income level, notes social media blogger Lisa Furgison, all of which can be collected from your customers and embedded for reference onto your website or blog platform.
• To help you form your messages, some marketing professionals recommend identifying common themes among your best customers and conceiving of actual “personas” that represent them in their various forms — including their shopping objectives and possible objections to buying.
• Further fine-tune your target market by analyzing email data to identify customers who answered calls to action, like clicking to open windows announcing new product arrivals. “Knowing if, when and how contacts engage with your email is useful in determining which contacts find the message relevant,” notes Breckenridge. “You can continue the communication with those who respond, and tweak or completely change the message for those who don’t.”
• Limit your target market to a manageable size. Warns Furgison: “If you overdose on segmentation, you could get frustrated and make your email marketing strategy more complicated than it needs to be.”
• Consider rewarding loyal customers with discounts or special sneak peeks of products. “With a marketplace overflowing with options, repeat buyers are a much smaller segment than they once were,” Furgison notes.
• Identify, target, and maybe reward brand advocates — customers who praise your products on social media or provide you positive feedback.  
• Make an effort to bring back inactive customers, possibly with a promo. Such emails have titles like “We miss you!” or “It’s been a while,” notes Furgison, who also advises that surveys should find out why customers have strayed.  
• Place the customer’s first name or user ID at the top of the message to quickly capture attention, advises Kevin Gao on targetmarketingmag.com. “If the user took the time to register with your business, then there is some implicit trust between both of you,” he says. “Remind them of your relationship by promptly showing their names. This tactic is especially important for consumers on mobile devices as the limited space means brands need logical personalization right away.”
• Ask customers for information so you can provide even more apt customization in the future. “But avoid being greedy,” warns Gao. “Customers don’t want to spend time with a detailed registration page that asks for demographic data or other personal information. Ask for the minimum, use that in personalized emails, and expand your data as the relationship grows.”
• Messages to customers triggered by real-time behaviors — such as reminders that items have been left in a “shopping cart” — can be very effective. “Even if the visitor receives it minutes after leaving the site, it does help the brand to stick in their mind,” states Gao. “Personalization should also be included in standard messages, such as shipment confirmations, where companies can suggest additional products or services, perhaps at a discount.”
• Consider customizing email messages to arrive at the optimal times for your customers depending on demographics and time zone. For example, emails to student customers could arrive in the evenings when they’re most likely to be browsing via computer.

Lastly, always test your email campaign before sending. Having more than one pair of eyes review the email reduces the chance of suffering from an error. After making the effort to boost open and click rates with personalization and segmentation, the last thing you want is to waste it on a typo.

Conclusion:  Move beyond the old-fashioned and ineffective approach of “batch and blast” to get the best results with email marketing.

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The Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing

Email Marketing Best Practices

So you’ve heard the buzz about how easy and cost effective email marketing can be for your business. But, you might not be sure where to start?  We’ve put together this handy guide of email marketing best practices to help you get started in a snap.

Build your email marketing list

If you’re just getting started with email marketing, your list might be fairly small. That’s okay. Everyone starts somewhere, and you’ll grow your list over time. Just make sure you’re collecting email addresses, and especially that you have an opt-in form on your website, blog and applicable social networks so new people can sign up to join your list.

It is a email marketing best practice to include information along with your sign-up form to let your new subscribers know exactly how often you plan on emailing them (whether it’s once a month or twice a week, or another timeframe), and what type of information you’ll be sending. That way, people know right away what they’re signing up for when they sign up, and expectations are set, so there aren’t any surprises.


It also allows you to offer an incentive for subscribers, whether it’s special email-only discounts and deals, or information about new products and specials before they’re released on your website.

Start small

Not sure how often to send email? It’s better to start small, emailing subscribers once or twice a month, or more often if that is what you offered when they signed up. It’s important to only send what you promised. If you need to increase the frequency later, or during a busy season like the winter holidays, you can email your subscribers and let them know in advance what to expect.

A word of warning: Don’t add anyone to your email list without their permission. If they’ve entered a contest or drawing or you’ve gotten their business card, make sure to drop them a line to ask if they want to be on your email list – instead of adding them directly.

If you need ideas of what to send, we’ve got 50 unique ideas for you here.

Segment your list

Even if you only have 20 or 30 people on your email list, it’s not too soon to start segmenting it based on the type of information people are looking for. Local customers interested in events or workshops may go on a different list than those who live out of town. You may offer three different products for three unique groups – in which case it’s a perfect time to begin tailoring your marketing to specific groups of people, offering information specific to them instead of a one-size-fits-all approach.

Do what’s right for your subscribers

You may get emails from chain clothing stores each day, telling you what to buy and what’s on sale. “That’s how they do their marketing,” says Jill Bastian, our own Training and Education manager. “For them it’s pretty successful, but for small businesses, people have different expectations.”

If you try too hard to emulate big companies, you could get in trouble. People may get annoyed with a high volume of emails. “Pay attention to your stats,” Bastian advises. “If subscribers drop off, look at your content. Are you sending the right information? Are you sending too often? Too many messages saying ‘Buy! Buy! Buy!’ can be really off-putting to people,” so make sure to intersperse useful messages with informational content in your email marketing.

Find your voice

As a small business owner, your tone may be able to be a bit more conversational than an email sent from a big business (depending on your industry or type of business, of course). Spend some time finding your company’s voice to ensure your messages hit the mark.

Be consistent

A rookie email marketing mistake is to simply send an email when you have something to say. But it’s better to email on a regular basis. Disappearing for even a couple of months can confuse your readers, who may forget about your business before you hit send nine weeks later.

Quality content

Another common mistake is to only send sales pitches to your readers.  “There’s more to sending out an email than putting some pictures of your product and saying, ‘okay, go buy it,’ because people won’t keep looking at the email if you don’t spend a little bit of time writing it,” says Bastian. Instead, post highly valuable content your readers are interested in and which they would benefit from, whether they use your product or not. Things like how-tos, tips and product help are popular types of content.

Make it readable

You’ll want your messages to be easy to read, no matter what device your readers are on, or how much time they have. Using bullets and subheadings makes your email easy to scan, even, for example, if someone’s quickly checking messages on their phone while taking the subway to work.

Also, make sure to break up longer paragraphs into shorter ones to make your material more digestible.

Proof and edit

Have a co-worker glance at your message before hitting send to avoid typos, broken links or other errors after the emails hit your subscribers’ inbox.

Testing

A simple web search on online marketing can present you with a dizzying array of often contradictory information on the best way to market to your readers. The thing is, there’s no one approach that works for every business, let alone each specific group of people. And since nobody can offer you the perfect blueprint for your unique email list, the most important thing is to test.

You’ll want to analyze your data from time to time, with a special look at the following:

• Subject matter. Are there specific topics people gravitate towards? Look at the open rate on your emails to see if there are any surprises. In some industries, people are always asking about a specific topic, but the open rate for emails addressing it is low. Sometimes people think they’re interested (or not interested) in reading information about certain topics, but the data shows otherwise. Keep an eye on which types of emails are read most often, and which aren’t, so you can modify the subjects you cover appropriately. Your readers may even change their interests and preferences over time.

• Subject line. What does better for you, emails with lots of information in the subject line or those with just a bit? If you have 200 addresses or more on your email list, A/B split testing can help you analyze two different subject lines for the exact same post to see which one gets a better response. There may be specific subject lines for your list that you’d like to test as well.

• Email length. There’s no cookie-cutter answer for what the best length is for your emails. It may vary by message depending if you are sending a newsletter, an offer, an invitation or another message. And you can also mix up your email length, if appropriate, with some short and sweet messages and some longer, more comprehensive reads.

• How often. Sending to your list on a regular basis is the best recipe for success. Stick with what you promised when the subscriber signed up and change it as needed as your business dictates.

• Counting clicks. Including links to products or areas of your website can help you see what your readers are interested in – just look at the number of clicks per link.

It’s tempting to feel like you’re done after the email you crafted is delivered to your email list, but it’s really just the beginning. Bottom line: Your email marketing campaign isn’t done when you hit send. Spend some time seeing what your customers or readers like and what they’re interested in – which products they look at or buy, which links they’re clicking on, which articles they’re reading, and so forth. Keep giving them the kind of information they want. If you’re not paying attention to the people reading your emails, then your email marketing won’t be successful.


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4 Sure Fire Ways to Win Back Customers with Email

 Every once in a while, a few subscribers stray. It’s natural. But that doesn’t mean they’re gone forever. We’ve got some tips to help you bring ’em back.

First, you’ll want to segment your list and send an email to those who haven’t opened your recent messages. The goal of this email is to re-engage with your subscribers.

What should this email say? Linda Pophal, who helps small businesses with online marketing through her company, Strategic Communications, advises the following:

1. Offer an incentive 

An incentive is marketing 101. Subscribers are more likely to come back if they have a reason, and saving money is a good reason. The email below offers a 20 percent discount as an incentive. The incentive doesn’t have to be a discount; it can be free shipping, a free white paper or a small gift with a purchase.

If you do offer a special promotion, give it a sense of urgency. Notice this particular deal is good for 30 days. Encourage customers to come back sooner rather than later by creating deal deadlines. 

2. Remind customers what they get 

To bring back an inactive customer, it’s a good idea to remind them how useful your product or service is. Netflix does this in the example below. Check out the bulleted list. It highlights all of the features that Netflix offers for a low monthly price. The “what you get” section makes up the majority of the text. It might be just the kind of nudge a customer needs to sign up for the service again.

“Consumers engage with a vast number of organizations on both a personal and professional level, and [they] can’t retain information about all of the benefits and features of those companies,” Pophal says. “That’s why reminding customers like this is a good idea.” 

3. Ask customers to update email preferences 

People change, and so do email preferences. If you notice a group of customers are inactive, send them an email asking them to update their preferences. It’s a great way to re-engage with customers. Wondering how to phrase it in an email? Check out the example below. L.L. Bean’s email acknowledges that its emails are going unopened, tells customers what they’re missing, and asks them to update their preferences. VerticalResponse offers this capability within your emails. 

4. Send a variety of emails 

Of course, one of the best ways to keep customers coming back is to prevent them from leaving in the first place. To do that, it’s best to send a variety of emails. From newsletters to promotional offers, you want to keep customers interested. Here’s a quick list of popular emails to send:

• Newsletter. A newsletter keeps customers in the know. From company news to upcoming events, you decide what to share with your customers.
• Educational emails. Teach your customers something about your product or service with well-written educational emails.
• Welcome email. Once a new customer places an order or signs up for your email list, send them a little note to welcome them to the crew.
• Promotional email. Encourage customers to place an order with a promotional email.

 For additional help, check out our guide: The 9 Emails Your Company Should Send.

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From subject lines to email templates, it’s time to spring clean your email marketing efforts

Spring is officially here, heralded by the spring equinox yesterday. The sun is peeking out and it’s spring cleaning season — time to air out closets, clean house, and switch your wardrobe for warmer weather. It’s also the perfect time to air out your subject lines and freshen up your email campaigns with seasonal flare.
Just as you’re ready to be done with being bundled up in a winter coat, hat, and scarf, the folks on your email list might be getting tired of the same old subject lines. They’re probably also ready for something light and refreshing in their email inboxes after the months of hard selling they endured during the lead-up to the end-of-year holidays. Spring gives you a chance to breathe new life into your email campaigns. You can do this with subject lines that capture attention as well as the spirit of the season, and with compelling campaigns that capitalize on what people are experiencing as the seasons change.

Breathe fresh air into subject lines

Anyone who’s ever engaged in email marketing — or opened a promotional email, for that matter — knows subject lines make all the difference in getting your message opened and read. An eye-catching, curiosity-piquing subject line convinces recipients to open your email. Dull ones mean the recipient will delete your email before the next one in the queue loads on the preview screen!
Spring clean your email subject lines with these four tips:

1. Lighten up with some humor

The dark days of winter are slipping away and the bright colors, sounds, and scents of spring are here. People are feeling lighter, and they’re ready to enjoy a chuckle — or a belly laugh. Give it to them by infusing humor into your subject lines. You can do this in a number of ways, from connecting together two things that don’t normally relate, to poking fun at current events. For more advice on how to infuse humor into your subject lines, check out our blog 25 Comical Subject Lines + Tips for Funny Writing.

2. Try out some new action words

All marketers have their go-to words that they rely on to create interest and excitement in their subject lines. You probably have some too, but spring is a great time to try out some new action words. Active verbs and vibrant nouns capture the reader’s attention and encourage recipients to open up your email. Need some ideas for fresh word choices? Check out our blog on choosing words that sell.

3. Tug on their heart strings

Sure, Christmas gets the accolades for being the most joyous time of year, and Valentine’s Day is all about love, but spring is also full of some very emotional cultural events. With Easter, Mother’s Day, graduations, and Father’s Day piling up throughout spring, speaking to recipients’ emotions is a great way to freshen up your subject lines during this warm, fuzzy season! (Pro tip: Check back next week for a whole post on springy subject lines!)

4. Move things along faster … or better

Spring is a great time to practice making your subject lines shorter and pithier. A Marketing Sherpa study found that subject lines of 61-70 characters (about 15 words) get read the most. However, the second-highest read rate goes to subject lines of 91-100 characters and 51-60 characters, and the third-highest for shorter ones of 10 characters or less. What do these wildly divergent results tell you? Generally, brevity is better but if you’re going to go long, be brilliant! Just be sure to double check you’re not writing a “subject line sin.”

Spring ahead with seasonal email campaigns

Whatever your product or service, chances are there’s a seasonal element to your business. If you’re in retail, maybe your emails in the last quarter of 2015 were full of special offers and sales pitches. If home repair is your bag, you might have spent the end of last year sending informational emails on common winter maintenance tasks. If you’re an accountant, you probably barely have time to read your email, let alone send any out, between Jan. 1 and April 15; but once tax season dies down, you might turn your attention to financial education.
Spring means it’s time to seasonally adjust your email campaigns to give recipients information that’s relevant to them at this time of year. Here are three ways to spring ahead with seasonal emails:

1. Update the look

Email providers like VerticalResponse offer a variety of templates to choose from when you’re crafting your email campaigns. If you’re still using the same template and colors you chose for winter promotions, why not switch things up by trying something new? A clean, fresh design in brighter or lighter colors will fit well with seasonal content. We took a look at our six most popular email templates if you need inspiration.

2. Offer something relevant to the season

What’s on your customers’ minds this spring? Are they thinking of buying or selling a house? Getting a child ready for graduation? Enjoying some time outdoors on their decks or working in their yards? Finding just the right gift for Mother’s Day or Father’s Day? Tie your email campaigns into what’s going on in their lives this season. For example, an email newsletter with spring cleaning tips or an offer for a Mother’s Day discount on select merchandise will appeal to customers with information that’s relevant to them at this time of year.

3. Work on freshening your mailing list

Spring is a great time to freshen up your email list to make sure you’re sending to valid addresses and to ensure you’re reaching the right customers with the right offers. If your website doesn’t already have a page where new and existing customers can sign up to receive your emails, it’s time to add one. If you already have one, review how well it’s doing. Is it compelling? Is it easy to find on the site and does it make enrollment simple? Check your open, read, click-through, and bounce rates. Weed out bouncebacks and send out a ping email asking subscribers if they’re still interested in receiving email from you.
It’s also a good idea to revisit how you segment your list. Are there new ways to crunch customer data and organize customer groupings to reach new groups with fresh information? Consider targeting based on different common demographics, from geographical location to buying habits.

Before you know it, the light, refreshing days of spring will sizzle into summer. Taking steps now to freshen up your email marketing efforts can help ensure you won’t have to sweat to get results come summer!

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The 5-Step Guide to Email Marketing Personalization

Personalization goes far beyond a custom name field. Personalization means relevance and that’s why it lies at the heart of effective marketing communication. In today’s article I’ll show you how to use marketing automation in order to send the right emails to the right people at the right time.

The shocking truth about the state of email marketing personalization

According to the State of Email Marketing by Industry report:
58% use personalization techniques
4% of marketers use layered targeting, incorporating informed and behavioral data to send relevant, personalized email messages to their audiences.
42% of marketers don’t segment and send the same message to all of their database

It’s bad news for the subscriber – there’s almost a 50/50 chance that the subscription program they sign up for isn’t designed to meet their preferences.

On the other hand, if you’re a marketer, this data shows you the way to keep ahead of your competition. There’s no time lose, so start personalizing!

I’ve prepared the following 5-step guide to email marketing personalization to show you how easy it is with marketing automation. You can use conditions, actions, and filters in order to collect valuable information about your subscribers and run highly targeted email marketing communication. Here’s how you can achieve relevance:

1. Establish business goals and target audience needs.

A personalized email marketing program delivers value to subscribers and revenue to the business. That’s why you should set clear business goals and thoroughly research your subscribers’ needs first.

Business goals usually boil down to increasing revenue and reducing costs – luckily, marketing automation can help you achieve both of these goals. You can easily track conversions, calculate the return on investment, and create a business case for more budget and resources.

As far as subscriber needs go, you can start with finding answers to the following question: what do my subscribers need in order to purchase my product or service? If you run a B2B business with a complex sales cycle the question might actually go like this: what do my subscribers need to know in order to make a decision to purchase my product or service?

If you want detailed insights into customer needs, you should develop buyer personas. According to the Buyer Persona Institute “(…) a buyer persona tells you what prospective customers are thinking and doing as they weigh their options to address a problem that your company resolves.” Actionable buyer personas reveal insights about your buyers’ decisions and help you answer their information needs at individual stages of the customer journey.

2. Create marketing automation workflows.

The relationship between business goals and subscriber needs provides context for automation workflows. You will clearly see the overall purpose of a whole workflow as well as its individual elements: webforms, landing pages, surveys, and emails. The context will help you choose the right CTA and get rid of the nonessential (perhaps unnecessary?) elements of each resource.




An abandoned cart workflow has a well-defined purpose.

3. Segment your list.

Use the elements of your marketing automation cycle as a series of touch-points that allows you to find similarities and differences among your subscribers and segment your email list accordingly.

There are a lot of ways to segment a list. For example, you can segment by:
demographics (age, sex, geography)
customer lifecycle
customer value
activity

A simple marketing automation workflow welcoming new subscribers and rewarding subscribers who opened the email with scoring points.

And when you want to send relevant messages, you should use multiple segmentation techniques. To learn more about layered segmentation, read the following article on email segmentation and targeting options.

4. Turn data into actionable insights.

Check your statistics and go beyond the obvious. For example, instead of relying on open and click-through rates, analyze what makes people open and click the links in your emails. Is this information relevant to a particular segment? What type of content is most engaging? What is the optimal frequency for these subscribers?




An email with links to several pieces of content. By checking the statistics you can see works best among your subscribers and use it to segment your list by interest.

5. Analyze and optimize.

As you well know, one of the essential skills in marketing is the ability to adapt to change. Marketing channels, buying cycles, customer preferences – everything changes over time. And the pace of change is constantly increasing. That’s why you need to stay focused on customers and constantly optimize your efforts.

Analyze your marketing automation workflows and see if they effectively convert prospects into buyers. Ask yourself questions like: What data do I need in order to send relevant communication? What conclusions can I draw from these subscribers’ behavior?

Run A/B tests of complete workflows, sections, or single elements (webforms, landing pages, emails, etc.) in order to find new ways of increasing conversion. In the case of email marketing processes, the sum of incremental changes can result in a massive performance increase.

This is how you can A/B test a preheader. What do you think, which leads to more opens?

Over to you

How do you personalize your email marketing? Would you add anything to the 5-step guide?

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Getting Smart With Email Marketing Segmentation

There is a fierce competition for attention in your subscribers’ inbox. Now! is the perfect time to make your emails effectively deliver more value.

Segmentation is a seemingly simple but extremely powerful mechanism. Many are already segmenting to some extent, but how about taking advantage of more advanced email segmentation?

Email marketing segmentation: The art of thinking in groups

Email marketing segmentation is the art of thinking in groups. You have to realize that your email list consists of different kind of people, with different behavior, profiles, and interests. But if your subscribers are so different, why treat them all the same? The solution is splitting your email list into groups that are alike (let’s call them segments).

Now we can approach each email segment in a way that is right for them. An insurance company, for instance, would have very different emails already only based on age, family composition, and car ownership. Each group deserves a different email stream, with proper content and offers. No need to talk about car insurance if you don’t own a car. That is what basic segmentation allows you to do, as long as you have the groups identified.

So far, so good; Email marketing segmentation is emailing to groups.

Better email marketing segmentation means that you look beyond what you think is obvious. For example, instead of making the emails fit with the current place of your subscriber in the customer lifecycle and what they are currently buying, it can also be made to appeal to their future or aspirational self; the person they want to be seen as – a tactic that has shown big success for many Luxury brands. Another example is using negative data, a preference in Brand or topic X that indicates a disinterest in Y.

The main business drivers behind segmentation

So what are the main drivers to start with smarter segmentation? Of course, subscribers appreciate getting better targetted and tailored emails. If an email is relevant, it makes for a better customer experience. But we also want to see business goals being met. More profit!

Segmented campaigns perform better. According to DMA, marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns. This makes perfect sense: The more relevant the message, the more likely your subscriber is to act on it.

So, segmented and targeted email campaigns generate a much higher uplift compared to the results of a blanket, spray-and-pray email campaigns. This image from a research by Optimove shows how that works. Imagine segmenting and targeting all customers and then calculating the average customer value.

The segmented group had an average of $42 per customer, compared to $28 when unsegmented. What you see in this overview of (RFM) segmented groups is that the group VIPs is the most profitable with $150, very different than the “recently churned” group with $3. Not all groups are created equal. By naming the groups you understand that it is pretty silly to send everyone the same campaigns.

Because of email marketing segmentation, the average value per customer goes up. This results in a far more successful email marketing program. The research from Optimove found that the smaller the target group, the larger the uplift. For example, targetted campaign to groups with up to 150 customers had at least a $1.90 uplift per customer, while target groups of 1,500+ had an uplift of at most $0.50 (almost a 4:1 ratio). This makes me eager to Shrink my Segments, the ultimate goal of the elusive “segment of one”.

Look beyond segmentation for increased results

There is an overwhelming number of ways you can segment your list. Still, it is not only the segmentation that is going make the impact. If your marketing messages are highly segemented but badly executed, they will end up being highly segmented highly targeted lousy emails.

Segmentation Model x Execution = Combined Impact

Making your email segmentation more sophisticated is one of the ways to make a better match between your email campaigns and your subscribers. Crafting a sharper email or better use of the segmentation data (for instance more creatively) can be another. The end goal is to bring a plus to the bottom line, while retaining ROI. So the segmentation model needs to have enough impact and represent viable groups of sufficient size.

Pillars of Segmentation: Layered email marketing Segmentation Models

Email marketing segmentation doesn’t stop at selecting group A or B. Once you start layering segmentation criteria, the possibilities are almost endless. It is only limited by the available data. That is why we create segmentation models. All the data in your database – or even combined, derived or external data – can be used to create these segmentation models. There are what I like to call the Pillars of Segmentation – these describe the types of Data and Segmentation that can be used and then combined to create your models.

Segmentations can be based on all types of data, including:

Geographics (Location and related data)
Demographics and Profile (age, gender, social status)
Psychographics (lifestyle and AIO, meaning Attitudes, Interests, and Opinions)
Behavioural (Purchases, opens, clicks, website browsing, etc)

Attention all email marketers: If you have behavioral data available, it is extremely important not to let this go to waste. It might be a bit harder to get that data prepped for marketing purposes, but once it is set-up it can be a great indicator for future interests and behavior. By sorting past orders and purchases by category, price range, etc a whole new plethora of segmentation options opens up.

7000% increase in email marketing revenues

An example of huge increases in revenue by segmentation comes from Totes Isotoner Corp. They noticed that a lot of online shoppers repeatedly visited just a single product category: umbrellas, gloves, or boots. They decided to pitch these consumers with segmented email marketing campaigns focussed on the categories that were visited. The email offers brought many of the “lookers” actively clicking and buying.

Data can be combined or layered to achieve the level of targeting needed. For instance sending an invitation for a popconcert, we select the people that live close to the location and have indicated that they like that type of music. We add a focus on one of the artist that is performing at the concert if they bought a song or browsed the artist’s page recently. Of course we send a very different promotion to the group that is more interested in very different type of music.

Advanced email segmentation

More advanced email segmentation campaigns make use of combined or derived  data to go a step further. For instance segmentation on Customer Lifetime Value, crafting Buyer Personas or propensity modeling.

Segmenting on Customer lifetime value

For instance the customer lifetime value can be a segmentation criteria. It takes multiple pieces of purchase, costs and profile data to make such a calculation. But after you have calculated customer lifetime value it is possible to target your best customers, exclude your worst customers or craft specific campaigns for the part of the email list with the highest potential for growth.

Buyer Persona’s and customer behavior
There are different types of clients. Sometimes these buyer types are typecast as personas, but it can on a different (more practical) level too. By selecting the people that were high spenders and have seen a decline in spending the last months, you are looking to spending patterns. Looking back at previous behavior it is possible to identify and craft your messages to fit this group.

Predicting future behavior with propensity models

A group of statistical methods and scorecards that is used to predict future behaviour of customers. This behaviour includes the likeliness to respond to different types of offers, risk of churn, cross and upsell possibilities, etc. Now you might be thinking: how advanced and sophisticated should I make my segmentation? This differs from case to case. Let me give you an example.

An example of email marketing segmentation

An online fashion retailer for instance, can get great results segmenting on gender. Showing the men’s items to men and women’s’ items to women. But if they combine it with size and style preferences they can level up to even better results. Offering the right sizes on the landing pages and excluding sizes not in stock. Offering casual, business, and other styles the recipient is most likely to buy.

Adding the amount someone is likely to spend can furthermore increase results. Send sales emails to coupon clippers and VIP invites to exclusive high end shoppers.

Excluding the ones that just recently purchased and offering them an alternative makes those email more effective for that group.

Choose your segmentation model based on impact

Now which of those (or combination) has the highest impact per recipient effected? And which has the biggest impact on bottom line total revenue? Yes, some segmentations can be very costly to realise.  If you are playing around with segmentation models, try creating grid of segmentation options, costs versus their impact to find the “Quick win” and “build upon” segmentation models. Then test and improve upon it before making it your base and your running further segmented campaigns.

Segmentation as a part of the email marketing plan

Every time you select a group from your email database, it’s email marketing segmentation. This is a seemingly simple but extremely powerful mechanism. An email marketer can slice and dice his list and craft messages that fit the segments, ultimately lifting results. Segmentation should therefore be a part of every healthy email marketing strategy.

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The Top 5 Reasons People Unsubscribe From Your Marketing Emails

The Top 5 Reasons People Unsubscribe From Your Marketing Emails

Hey there, Eager Marketers! Getting people to sign up for your marketing emails requires a lot of effort. Once you’ve managed to capture a lead, you want to do whatever you can to keep them signed up.

If your unsubscribe rate is higher than you’d like it to be, there’s probably a reason.

Read on to learn the top 5 mistakes email marketers make that cause people to unsubscribe.

1)You send too many emails.

Polls by Litmus and Marketing Charts both found that sending too many emails is number one reason people unsubscribe:

But whenever people ask me how often they should send emails for their niche, my answer is the same:

It depends.

OutboundEngine found that sending one to four emails per month is a good guideline, but that may not apply to your unique audience.

The best way to know is by asking them. Break down your opt-in form to include a frequency option:

• All the latest news and updates
• A weekly digest
• A monthly newsletter 
• Etc.

Then you’ll know exactly how much email your audience is interested in receiving and optimise for that.

2) Your targeting is poor.

25% of people unsubscribe because they found the content irrelevant.

Even if your website visitors are interested enough in your product or service to sign up for your marketing emails, I recommend you take advantage of the unique interests and needs of your contacts in order to be as relevant as possible.

According to DMA, segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue.

Send out the most relevant messages by segmenting your list based on demographics, behaviour, interests, point in the sales funnel, and other insights you might have. Doing so can result in both higher open rates and lower unsubscribe rates.

3) Your content is boring.

Litmus found that 49% of people unsubscribe because the content became repetitive or boring over time.

While some of your messaging should be focused on moving leads down the sales funnel, offering variety will keep subscribers interested and help you segment even further.

Strike a balance between:

• Sales material and discounts
• How-to articles and related content
• Industry news and events

People sign up to email lists for different reasons. You may find some subscribers are more likely to engage with your how-to articles than industry news. Pay attention to open rates, click-through rates and other metrics for your content, and turn this behaviour into a segment so you can send more of the content they like.

Oh, and don’t forget to be funny, interesting, unpredictable, and exciting, like JCrew:  

4) Your emails aren’t mobile optimised.

If you’re not ensuring that your marketing emails are mobile-friendly, I recommend you start now.

53% of emails are opened on mobile devices in 2016, and 70% of consumers will immediately delete emails that don’t render well on a mobile device.

Here are some quick tips for mobile optimisation:

• Use larger fonts

At least 14 px for body text and 22 px for headlines.

• Use a single column layout

This simplifies reading on smaller screens and improves the user experience.

• Use touch-friendly buttons

Make your call to action visible and clickable (at least 44 px by 44 px).

• Use alt text

Many mobile device platforms don’t load images by default. Alt text will appear to show what the images are about.

Pay attention to all mobile optimisation best practices to avoid this problem:

5) You’re forgetting to personalise.

Personalised email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14%, and deliver 6x higher transaction rates.

Here are some simple ways you can personalise with a big impact:

• Use their name in your subject line and body content
• Celebrate their birthday
• Cater your message to demographics (gender, age, home situation, etc.)
• Create exclusive offers and discounts based on their purchase history

Luckily, all of these problems can be tackled with a little research, planning, and the help of an advanced email automation tool. Sign up for a free trial of Sendlane™today to get started.

What’s your main reason for clicking the “unsubscribe” button? Tell us in the comments!

Also, please help us spread the word by Sharing this post on facebook or any other social networks. We appreciate it! 

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