You’ve heard it over and over, email is the one marketing tool that continues to produce consistent results. But you’re not seeing it with your email marketing efforts! In fact, there are a number of your peers in the industry that are either going to quit using email or they already have. And, maybe you’re at that point, too.
Don’t Quit!
Would you like to see an increase of over 100% in the click rate for your email campaigns? MailChimp research shows that users that segmented their lists saw an increase in clicks from their emails of 100.95%!
It’s important to know that by structuring your email marketing communications the way that I’m about to describe, it can really happen.
Segmentation works because of relevance. Today’s consumer, your customer, will not engage with your marketing if it’s not relevant to their interests at the exact moment that they’re exposed to it.
By segmenting, you’re delivering unique messages to each segment and each unique message is then highly relevant to each segment.
What Segments Should I Use?
You can divide up an email list a lot of different ways, all of which should be based on your business’ customer profiles or personas. What follows are some of the more common segments that are used in B2C marketing.
- Demographic: This is one of the oldest ways to segment customer audiences and though its use has diminished over the years, there can still be times and applications that segmenting along these lines makes sense.As an example, if you have a product or an application of a product that a female customer would be more interested in then a male customer, then segmenting your list this way will make perfect sense.
- Geographically: For the most part, you probably do business “locally” but locally for you may include different communities. And, if that’s the case, you may find that the communities that you service have different interests.Maybe one of the communities that you sell to is more affluent than another. In this example, the product that you promote in the more affluent community will be different than what you promote in the other communities.
- Interests: For B2C, segmenting on a person’s interests is one of the most valuable ways to sen marketing messages.Here’s an example. What if, every week you could send out a promotional email to everyone that visited your showroom the previous week and offer them a promotion based on the floor covering that they were interested in.
Maybe half-off grout for the people that were interested in tile.
- Behavior: It used to be that people would come into your showroom for an education and for ideas. Today’s consumers have told us that they prefer to get their ideas and their education on their own, online. In fact, they don’t even want to talk to you until they’re about 70% of the way through their buying process.With that being the case, you’re probably asking yourself how can you deliver relevant marketing messages? Based on their behaviors and engagement with your website and all marketing email messages or offers that you’ve sent them in the past. These touch points are the behaviors that tell you where they are at, in their buying decision.
As an example, if someone downloads a guide on the pros and cons of engineered flooring, guess what type of marketing message you should send them!
- Purchase History: You’ve worked hard to get the customers that you have. it’s devastating to have them go to your competition the next time that they need floor covering.Many businesses don’t include “keeping the relationship” as part of the marketing plan. By properly segmenting your current customers, you can continue your relationship with respectful and relevant marketing messages that are delivered sporadically and on-point with information that they will be interested in.
Conclusion
Email marketing is one of, if not the most powerful tool that you have in your marketing toolbox if it’s used properly. Then, when it’s combined with a robust marketing automation platform that includes a CRM feature you’ll see amazing results to your marketing efforts.