It is the one thing that unites us all; all of us who are successful that is. If you don’t segment your email marketing lists you are condemning yourself to lower returns on your investment.
One of the most frequently asked questions is how to go about it and, like much in email marketing, the answer is; it depends. The two major limitations are obvious. You cannot separate subscribers using metrics which you have no access to or that you can’t depend on.
This leads us to the first basic requirement of segmenting email marketing lists:
1/ Gain as much dependable information on your subscribers as you can
The success of an email marketing campaign depends on how accurately targeted it is. The number and accuracy of your metrics have a direct relationship with how precise your targeting.
The second point is just as essential. If you have a range of items that appeal to various age groups then you need to know the ages of your subscribers. This leads us to the second requirement:
2/ The metrics must be relevant to the subject of your marketing email
To state the obvious; if you sell shoes, you need to know the size of your subscribers’ feet. More subtly, a person’s education might define the vocabulary and familiarity of copy they respond to.
The third point means you have to check and modify your metrics all the time.
3/ Refine your information
If you sell clothes for children then the person who bought babygrows a year ago will not still be wanting them. Then again, the person who was middle management might now be in charge of their department. It is easy enough to ensure that you can move subscribers from one segmented email marketing list to another as time goes by.
The last metric is obvious but often missed
4/ Find what they like
Follow your subscribers when they browse your website. If they look at a particular page, the odds are that there’s something there they like. Better still, it might be something they are looking for. The same goes for the marketing email. If they click through to specifications they are not afraid of details.
We’ll cover how to refine your metrics in further blogs.
