How To Effectively Segment Your Email List

Author: Johanna Rivard / Source: Marketing Insider Group We all know that email marketing isn’t dead. But before sending a single email,

Author: Johanna Rivard / Source: Marketing Insider Group

We all know that email marketing isn’t dead. But before sending a single email, businesses need to understand the importance of segmenting email contact lists. Yes, segmentation can be tedious but consider this, DMA says that 77% of email marketing ROI came from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns.

Furthermore, MailChimp reports that email opens and unique opens of segmented campaigns were 14.31% higher than non-segmented campaigns. Clicks from segmented campaigns were also more than 100% higher compared to non-segmented campaigns. Finally, when emails are segmented, there are 9.37% fewer un-subscribers.

Most businesses are already implementing some form of segmentation when it comes to marketing communication, but it’s usually only based on demographic information. The truth is, the more you’re able to personalize messages, the higher your chances of engagement and conversion.

Here are a few ways to effectively segment your contact list and make the most out of your email marketing campaigns:

Segmentation by Demographics

The most basic way to start segmenting your contacts is to use demographic data such as location, age, industry, and job level. Demographics can tell a lot about what a prospect might want or need, so the more info you can get during a prospect’s signup, the more options you’ll have for segmentation. That being said, you should only be asking for as much detail as your sales team needs to qualify the lead. Anything more will overburden your audience and potentially send them packing.

Here are some common ways to segment by demographic:

Geography: Retail companies and location-based apps that make email offers based on location are particularly effective, but B2B and global organizations can also take advantage of geographical information. For instance, businesses can alter their messaging for US and UK audiences to address how some words are spelled differently in both countries.

Age: Are you targeting Millennials or Gen Xers? Segmenting by age will help you send the right message to the right people. Make lifelong customers by considering that their needs today may be different from their needs 10 years from now.

Occupation/Industry: If your product appeals to a wide range of audiences, it’s important to remember that they may come from different fields. A marketer and developer may both appreciate your automation tool, but the former will want to know how to use it and the latter how to integrate it into the current system.

Job Title: Similar to segmentation by industry, a company CEO will usually have different priorities than someone in a more technical role, even if they’re in the same company. Technical workers might want to know more about the actual usage of a product whereas upper management might only care about the bottom line.