It is all too easy to use the same old metrics when segmenting your email marketing lists. After all, the way you slice them has worked in the past, and you are testing them all the time. They obviously work but the question to ask yourself is whether they could be better.
Many of the old dependable metrics have inherent weaknesses. Age, for instance, is a demographic that has changed somewhat over the years. Whilst I don’t necessarily agree with the research that concluded the ‘new middle age’ starts at 60 years, there is some evidence to suggest that the old demarcations are no longer dependable.
If age is not a valid metric for the product, then the returns from your next email marketing campaign will not be optimum. The same applies to gender as the old certainties are no longer relevant. Everything changes, and incredibly quickly.
This means we have to find other metrics that might be of use. Might is the operative word here as you and I will not know until they are tested. For instance, blogs should be much more than just SEO generators. Are there blog titles that attract readers who have nothing else in common? This group might appear disparate, but there’s something that binds them.
The title will have something to do with your products; you should play fair with your readers. When you are planning an email marketing campaign that has some connection to the title subject, see if this group reacts better than the norm.
You monitor the visitors to your website and marketing email click-throughs to discover what seems popular. However, going deeper into the stats can help. Are there those who go directly to one specific page? If so then they are missing out on your other products. The temptation in your next email marketing campaign is to concentrate on their particular favourites, but why not present some of your other offerings to them?
I was bemused with the success experienced when a company split their email marketing lists according to their ESP. Those using a large provider such as BT, Sky and Virgin, were split from those with gmail and similar. The company pushed premium items to the former, and cheaper ones to the latter.
The benefits were minor but significant. Although these results might be product specific and of little use to you, it shows that taking a chance – it’s hardly a risk – can pay off.
The way to segment your email marketing lists is to base them on metrics you have and can depend on. You will increase your metrics as time goes on, and, just as importantly, refine them. In the meantime, work with what you’ve got. Don’t look for ways online. They will not be specific to your lists. Check your data, see what other information you have that you are not using and base your segmentation on that.
It’s a truth of email marketing; you can always do better with the information you already have. Give an unlikely idea a go. What have you got to lose?
