How to use email segmentation effectively
One of the hot topics in the email marketing world at the minute is how to master the art of email segmentation. It can be a very complex concept and whilst there is lots of generic information for businesses to help them to use segmentation effectively, what there is a clear lack of are examples of how it works for specific industries or business types.
Whilst many of the high level principles are common across all industries, when you get into the more granular levels or segmentation, you want to know how to do it for your specific business. If you have a hairdressing business, then your segmentation methods will be slightly different than say, a construction firm.
The key principles like splitting your contact list depending on demographics, past purchases and patterns of types of products/services they are interested in stay broadly the same. However, when it comes to working out the best timing for email campaigns, or how to structure the email it will be very different.
If you take on all of the marketing tasks yourself, then you will need to be able to develop an email campaign and content creation plan that is suitable for your target audience. So going back to the hairdresser example, you can set the timings around events in the year. If you know when a client’s birthday is then you can target them with a set of products that you think they may be interested in a month before their birthday. This will mean that when people are asking what they would like for their birthday, they will remember that they got that email from you about the reduced price hair straighteners.
The same kind of approach should be taken leading up to Christmas. This is always a busy time of year, as you will get customers wanting haircuts for Christmas parties and New Year’s parties. However, you need to make the most of the marketing opportunity that it provides.
If you send out an email leading up to Christmas with a discount voucher for a product then they are 1, more likely to book an appointment with you for their Christmas haircut and 2, more likely to buy that product. What you should be doing as part of your segmentation is building a profile of the customer and what they are typically interested in. If you know that they buy straighteners every two years, or they like to buy a conditioning product, then use that information to attract their interest. The more specific the email, the more likely they are to buy.
This may well mean that you spend more time creating separate content for each type of customer but you will see that the success rate is much higher. Also, you can use the same generic template but change small things like the product name and image. This won’t take long to do once you get the first one set up and the increase in conversion will make it worthwhile.
