Have you ever had that feeling when reading the latest ‘in-depth’ report on email marketing that ‘I knew that already’? Some conclusions would have been remarkable only if they’d said anything different. Yet even the expected results can make you exasperated.
A recent report stated that fewer than 50% of companies segmented their email marketing lists for a campaign. In effect, this means that they send identical emails to all their subscribers. One wonders why companies turn their backs on the most effective way of increasing returns.
In many ways, this is good for the rest of us. We have a distinct advantage from the start, with over half the competition not being bothered to apply themselves.
One might sympathise with the response of a new company just starting up, with few subscribers to their email marketing lists. After all, many would have come via the same source and, presumably, would be similar in most aspects. What is the point, they might think, of segmenting when there is so much else to crack. There’s creating with the free email marketing templates, and so much more.
Look at it from the other direction. Imagine you have just started to build your email marketing list. Those on it will vary by just a few metrics: perhaps age, almost certainly location, and gender. It’s because there are so few variations that now is the time to start.
Segmenting is a skill which is easy enough to pick up as you go along. After all, you get an abundance of statistics in return, certainly enough to show whether you are going along the right lines. Whilst there is a certain degree of thinking outside the box required, certainly when testing, mostly it is just application.
However, waiting until you have thousands on your lists before you start segmenting means that you will be hit with a lot of data when your skills level is low. If you start when there are so few on your list you might know some of them by name, you will find it easy enough at the start. By the time you are in the big time, so will your skills level.
