What is behavior based segmentation? It’s a method of market segmentation that groups customers according to their behavioural patterns. Specifically, their patterns of behavior when making buying decisions. The groupings can be based on spending patterns, use of product, first time buyers, repeat customers, use of website habits or buyer readiness stage.
You can use your email marketing platform for this purpose, creating various groups and tailoring the messages you want to address to each group for the greatest impact. Alternatively, you can store the information in a spreadsheet and then manage your email campaigns manually. But that is time consuming and doesn’t allow for automatic feedback and list cleaning.
How best to use behaviour based segmentation for an email campaign?
Firstly, to use this method you need data. You need to know who has surfed your site, put things in a shopping cart and then abandoned it. You need to know who the loyal customers are and the customers that buy from you frequently. Who are the customers that are always browsing and never moving beyond that stage of the buying process? How about the customers who never open your marketing emails or never click on the calls to action? Each of them can be placed in their own behavioural segment and each segment needs its own specific approach to act as a goad to move these customers through the buying process.
Once you have your information and you have segmented according to behaviour then it’s time to target these groups appropriately. Here are a few suggestions. Those who never even open your marketing emails need to be encouraged to break that habit, possibly by sending out messages with subject lines containing tempting offers or discounts. The loyal customers could be asked to act as brand champions, to provide positive feedback to help promote your business and offered incentives to do so. Lapsed customers could be tempted back with information about new lines and exciting products. First time buyers might be contacted to offer them the chance of free upgrades or other products that might interest them.
The key to all this is to be relevant and timely. Giving each segment an impossible to resist benefit that they’ll appreciate and act upon.