Email Marketing Series: 10 Effective Email Segmentation Strategies To Implement In 2020

An email marketing campaign is successful only when the analytical report displays growth in the email open and click-through rate. If you are looking to boost your email open rate, increase your click-through rate and decrease the unsubscribe rate. Then start using an email marketing segmentation strategy to pick out the best email that can benefit your business.

If you are looking to boost your email open and click-through rate then check our blog on 9 Ways To Boost An Email Open Rate & 10 Ways to Improve An Under-Performing Email CTR. 

One of the reasons why small and large businesses fail in their email marketing campaign is because they focus on building a big email list by buying it from people and sending the same promotional email again and again to subscribers. Expecting that users will show interest in their email and perform some action.

We know why companies opt for these types of false activities because every company wants to reach maximum user’s inbox to boost their sales. But In today’s highly competitive marketing world it is hard to grab a user’s attention on an email. That’s the reason why smart marketer segments their email list to improve the effectiveness of their email marketing campaign. 

So in this article, we are going to draw your attention to the email marketing segmentation strategy that you should implement to segment your email list and make your email marketing campaign effective and successful. 

What is Email List Segmentation? 

Email list segmentation strategy is a technique where the marketer segment email list to send a highly targeted email to subscribers by dividing them into different groups depending on their demographics, interest, a past purchase, etc. This technique will help you in crafting different content depending on the group you are going to target for your email marketing campaign.  

For example, if you are into the apparel selling business then you can segment your list depending on gender. Because it will look silly to send a promotional email to men telling them about offers going on in women’s clothing. 

Many companies assume that targeting the maximum number of email users can boost their sales and increase their revenue. Yes, some users might be looking for your products but it is not necessary that all the users out there will show interest in the particular product you are trying to sell through email. 

So, why to target all the users for a particular product and email. That’s why it is recommended to deploy email list segmentation ideas to get better results for your product and email marketing campaign. 

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Most of the time knowing about subscriber’s behavior and segmenting them depending on that helps in getting good email campaign results. As you can see email segmentation statistics from Mail-chimp that tell how companies are getting good results from the email campaign.after analyzing their subscriber behavior.  

Why should businesses focus on segmenting their email list? 

Email segmentation strategy is one of the best methods to increase email open and click-through rates to make an email marketing campaign productive and successful. Most of the time companies try to target and send their marketing emails like lead magnets, promotional emails, special offers to all the subscribers in the email list. 

Thinking that they will get a good response from the subscribers and their email marketing campaign will become successful.  Well, if your company is among then let us inform you that these types of emails can harm your email list and users may unsubscribe from your email list. 

So if you want to bring out the best results from your email marketing campaign, then you can use the email list segmentation strategy to divide your recipient into groups. And send them marketing emails depending on a previous email campaign data. And the type of marketing emails your subscribers opted to get from you. Email list segmentation is a tactic that every marketer should opt to make an email marketing campaign successful. 

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If you look at the email segmentation statistics from MailChimp then you can figure out that the segmented list gets 14.31% higher email open rate than the non-segmented list. And if you look at the click-through rate then you can analyze the effectiveness of segmenting an email list. A segmented list gets 100.95% higher clicks than a non-segmented list and your bounce rate, abuse report and unsubscribe rate will also decrease if you segment your email list before scheduling an email campaign.   

How to segment an email list? 

1. Demographics 

Demographics and Interests are the most important part of an email marketing segmentation strategy that every marketer looks for before segmenting their email list. Age, gender, company position, occupation, and industry are the information that helps marketers in identifying subscriber’s interest. It is hard to get each and every detail about subscribers during the signup process. 

But the more information you have about your subscriber. The more targeted list you can prepare for your email campaign.  Always be careful before preparing your opt-in form. Because too much information can confuse or irritate a user and they may not show interest in filling your form. Be precise about what type of information you are looking for and prepare your signup form depending on that.  

So, if you are planning to segment your email list then gender, age, timing, and occupation can help you can crafting highly target groups.  

Gender & Age

Knowing about the gender and age of your subscriber can help you in creating highly targeted groups. You can get the data of your recipient and segment them depending on their gender and age. 

For example, if you are into clothing retailing then your business can have men and women wear both. So,  if you want to advertise your product to your subscribers through email. Then you have to know about their age and gender because you can’t send a menswear offer to women asking them to buy that product. 

Timing

Your subscriber email open time can also help you in deploying an email list segmentation strategy. Not every subscriber in your email list needs to open your email at the same time. Your email open time may vary depending on the type of subscribers you have in your email list.

 For example, you may have corporate word people and college students both in your email list and their email open time may differ. So, you can analyze your previous email campaign data and segment your email list depending on that.  

Occupation 

If you know the occupation of your subscribers then it will become easy for you to segment them into groups depending on what they do. And it will also help you in crafting an email that can persuade them to take action in your email. 

2. Send Survey/Quiz related email and analyze datasfwpexperts.com-email-list-segmentation-ideas-product-feedback-survey

 

Nowadays most of the marketer and companies prefer to create a short signup form where they ask only for the user’s email id and name. Because in today’s competitive marketing world companies don’t want to lose their lead personal details. 

That’s why they create a short sign up form that takes less time and effort to fill in the details. 

Now the question is how to get subscribers demographics details? 

That’s where survey and quiz related email come into the picture. A survey and quiz related email not only help in engaging a customer but also helps in getting the information about their demographics and interests. If you want to get your subscribers info like their location, gender, etc then you can simply create a form and place it at the bottom or last page of your survey and quiz.  

You can offer some incentives like “EXCITING OFFER!! Play the quiz and get a 15% discount on new arrivals” or  “Fill the survey form and get a 15% discount on new arrivals”. By providing incentive you are encouraging your subscribers to take action in your email. And these types of email gets more responses from subscribers than other emails. Many websites can help you in creating a survey and quiz for you. 

3. Segmenting on Preferences sfwpexperts.com-email-list-segmentation-ideas

Most of the time small and large scale businesses make a mistake by not asking what their subscribers want after subscribing to an email list. Yes. I’m talking about subscriber’s preferences. 

Segmenting an email depending on your subscriber’s preferences will help you in making your email marketing campaign effective and successful. If you are looking to decrease your spam rate and unsubscribe rate then send your email depending on when your customer wants to receive it.

For example, if you are sending a weekly newsletter to your subscribers on different topics. Then you should be aware whether your subscribers want to receive the weekly newsletter or monthly newsletter. Once you are aware of the preference of your subscribers then it will help you in getting a high open-rate and low unsubscribe rate. These types of practices are also helpful in setting up a strong connection with subscribers. 

So, email list segmentation depends on your subscriber’s preferences. As you can see in the image how flowers.com is asking their subscribers to select the email frequency of email i.e weekly, monthly or all types of emails.  

4. Segment your email list depending on the engagement

By identifying your email engagement data like open rate and click-through rate you can segment your email list. There are times when subscribers are active but they don’t show interest in opening all of your emails. And there are other types of subscribers who aren’t active from the past 4 to 5 months. 

So, by analyzing the data of your previous email campaigns you can segment your email list. To craft separate content for active and inactive subscribers. If your subscribers are inactive from the past 4-5 month then you can create a re-engaging content for your subscribers. 

Another way you can segment your list is by identifying the engaging subscribers in your email list.  Because your engaging subscribers are the ones that show interest in opening and acting on your email. You can identify them by going through your previous campaign analytical report.

Or you can run an email campaign about the announcement of a discount or a new product. Subscribers who click and engage with your email can be segmented into an interested group and other subscribers can be segmented into different groups. And you can re-target them depending on the action they took on your email. 

Well, if a group of subscribers are opening your mail but not showing interest in performing any action then segment them into different groups. Because if you simply stop sending them mail then obviously you are going to lose them. Instead, you craft some separate content for them. 

5. Segmenting depending on customer lifetime value

Customer Lifetime Value is another aspect that you should consider for email list segmentation. It requires data like your customer’s multiple purchase history, costs, and profile to calculate the lifetime value of your customer. You can use the CLV calculation tool provided by exitintelligence to get the lifetime value of your customer. 

Once you are aware of the numbers then it will be easy for you to segment them into different groups. And it will become easy for you to target your best customer by sending them an email that can make them feel special. 

If you have an e-commerce platform then you need to send different types of emails like special offers, discounts, etc to your valuable customer. Most of the time customers shift to some other brand or store to buy the product because they didn’t feel special after being a loyal customer. That’s why it is important to segment an email list depending on customer lifetime value.

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6. Email List Segmentation Depending on location

Segmenting an email list depending on location helps in becoming more specific to the customer. Most of the companies have multiple stores or branches in different cities. And sending a location-specific promotional email to all of the subscribers in your email list can create confusion and it can harm your future email campaign. 

That’s why if your business has multiple stores in different cities and countries then you can segment your email list depending on the user’s location. It is recommended to send highly target promotional or offer related email to users depending on location. This type of practice helps in attracting more customers to your store. You can get your subscriber’s location by adding a drop-down label in your signup form.

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You can display the location name in the headline or in the subject line to tell your user about the offer or event details. Another technique you can use is by segmenting your email depending on the physical store buyer.  Some customers shop frequently in physical store so you can segment their email and encourage them by sending a special offer and discount. 

If you don’t have the exact location of your subscriber’s email location then you can use their Geolocation to send details about events or store offer. 

7. Customer’s Past Purchase 

If you want to optimize your targeting then segment your email depending on your customer’s past purchase. It is a very simple technique but most effective to boost the sales of a company. 

Your email may contain different subscribers, some of them may know about your product that’s why they show interest in buying your product. Whereas there might be subscribers who haven’t purchased anything from you. So, It will not be appropriate to send the same type of email content to everyone. That’s why marketers recommend segment email lists depending on past purchases. 

To segment, your subscribers into different groups you can start by analyzing your subscriber’s purchase behavior. By looking at their previous data like their purchase history, interest and time they brought your product. You can differentiate them into different groups and send them email content depending on their purchase behavior. 

You can craft a separate email related to the similar product they have brought in their past. And if you have a product that can be replaced, refilled or renewed then you can predict when your customers are going to need that same product. And send them an offer related email during that time to encourage them to buy that product. 

8. Segment an email list depending on buying frequency 

Another way to segment an email list is by checking your customer’s buying frequency. Most of the time loyal customers become frequent buyers because they start believing in the brand. So, you can analyze the data of your frequent buyers and segment them into different groups to send a special offer related email. 

For example, if you own cosmetic products selling companies then you have to focus on your loyal customers because there are competitors that might be trying to market the same kind of product to the customers. To make your loyal customers feel special first, you have to separate them from others by segmenting them into different groups. Then you can send some special emails to VIP customers by offering them a special discount or coupon code. 

9. Customer Position in the sales funnel 

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You can segment your email list depending on where your subscribers are in the sales funnel. Most of the companies make a mistake by sending the same type of email to every subscriber. If your company is among them then you should look at the image and analyze where your customers are in the sales funnel. For every business, it is important to send different types of email content to the subscriber that is on the top and bottom of the sales funnel. 

For example, if you have a list of new subscribers then you can’t send them an email related to an offer going on the product. First, you have to introduce yourself by sending them a welcome email. Then you can educate them about your product and at last, you can send them an email content that can encourage them to buy that product. 

If you want to increase your email conversion rate then try to segment your brand new subscribers and old subscribers into different groups depending on where they stand in sales funnel criteria. This type of practice will make your email marketing campaign successful and help you in generating good ROI. 

10. Segmenting email list depending on the Lead magnet 

Another underrated but most effective way of making an email marketing campaign successful is by segmenting an email list depending on the lead magnet your subscribers opted for. Every user has a preference in choosing the type of lead magnet they need. Some of them may like video content like live webinars, tutorial videos and others may like text related lead magnets like ebooks, checklist, whitepapers, etc. 

So, it is necessary to determine what type of lead magnet your subscribers opted for and segment them according to their preferences. If you try to pitch your ebook to the group of subscribers who opted for live webinar then they may not show interest in downloading your lead magnet. And it may affect your email marketing campaign.   

Conclusion 

If you want to get the best result from your email marketing campaign like a high email open and click-through rate. Then start implementing email marketing segmentation ideas in your email campaign. If you are finding it hard to segment your email list then you can contact SFWP experts an award-winning marketing agency in California.

With 8+ years of experience in creating an revenue-generating email campaign, our email marketing expert can help you in optimizing your email marketing campaign by segmenting your subscribers into different groups and creating an persuading email content depending on their previous behavior. 

Frequently Asked question: 

1. What are the different tips fro email segmentation?

Email list segmentation strategy is a technique where the marketer segment email list to send a highly targeted email to subscribers by dividing them into different groups depending on their demographics, interest, a past purchase, etc.

  • Email list segmentation depending on demographics
  • Segment your email list depending on the engagement
  • Your subscriber’s Preferences can also help in email marketing segmentation. 
  • Send Survey/Quiz related email and analyze data
  • Email List Segmentation Depending on location

2. Why email list segmentation important for an email campaign?

Email list segmentation is one of the best methods to increase email open and click-through rates to make an email marketing campaign productive and successful. If you want to bring out the best results from your email marketing campaign, then you can use the email list segmentation strategy to divide your recipient into groups.

3. What are the benefits of segmentation email list? 

  • Email list segmentation helps in getting high open and click rates. 
  • Reduces unsubscribe rate and spam rate
  • Allows to send more targeted emails to subscribers 
  • Helps in crafting separate email content depending on subscribers behavior
  • Segmentation email list helps in generating good ROI for an email marketing campaign. 
  • Helps in moving subscribers at the bottom of the sales funnel. 

4. What are email segmentation tools? 

Email segmentation tools help in segmenting an email list using previous data and different strategies. There are different email segmentation tools and software available that can help you segment your email list depending on your subscriber’s purchase behavior. 

  • AWeber
  • Mailchimp
  • ConvertKit
  • GetResponse 
  • Hubspot
  • Constant Contact
  • InfusionSoft

5. What are the different email database segmentation strategies?

If you want to segment your email database then 

  • Segment them depending on their age, gender, time, occupation, etc. 
  • You can segment the depending on their industry 
  • Email list segmentation depending on your subscriber’s purchase behavior.
  • Type of email account your subscribers use. 
  • Your subscriber stage in sales funnel can be included in email database segmentation strategies. 
  • Segment them depending on their purchase frequency