Email marketing is here to stay. Just think about your own inbox and what persuades you to click to buy more of what you love – or what your business needs. The best marketing emails are the ones that are instantly relevant to you. And that’s down to the email marketing service, which will be sending you emails based on the data it has about you. So, if it works (and you know it does), why not use the same principles for your own email campaigns?
What is email segmentation?
People who manage email marketing to businesses or consumers know that they are competing for inbox time and attention. We’re all used to marketing emails, and we’ve become expert and deciding what to open and what to delete. Pschologically, we make those decisions based on who the email is from and what’s in the subject line. If it’s from an organisation we trust and have bought from or had value from before, we might be more likely to open it. If the subject matter hits the spot, we’ll also open it.
Getting your email to hit the spot is part of the secret to success. And that means knowing who your customers are and what will make them sit up and take notice. So the more data you can associate with the email addresses on your mailing list, the more likely you are to be able to send out more personal, relevant emails that will generate the interest you’re looking for – and that could transform your business.
Tips for managing email segmentation
Your email system – when it comes to email marketing, small businesses can do just as well as the big boys. You need an email system that supports segmentation so that you can send out different emails to different audiences – but this isn’t expensive and can support you as your business grows. This helps you to keep control of your initial segmentation and then add to it or change it as you need to.
Choosing your segments – to begin with, your segmentation might be quite straightforward:
- People who have bought certain products or services from you
- People who have visited certain pages of your website
- People who have enquired about a particular product or service
As you are able to get more data, you might also want to segment people by profession, location, historical spend and more.
Getting your emails delivered – successful direct email marketing services are also reliant on your emails being delivered. Emails that end up in spam or junk folders are never going to get opened, so you want to make sure that your email campaigns are following the rules. This makes it more likely that your email deliverability stays high.
The right content for each segment – once you know who you’re talking to, you need to make those emails really relevant. Talk about special offers, events and discounts if you’re product-based. If you offer services, send relevant advice, add some value with free templates or checklists and offer loss-leading consultations. Look for the content that you know your segment is going to be interested in.
Review, review, review – the beauty of email marketing services for small business owners is that you can change your campaigns at any time, based on the results you are seeing. Your email campaign system will show you open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribes and more, so that you can see what’s working – and do more of it – and stop what’s not going so well.
Segmenting your email allows you to have much better, more pertinent conversations with your customers. It can increase open and click-through rates, prevent unsubscribes, encourage more sales and build better relationships with the people who buy from you and refer you.
If you’re unsure about where to start, or short on time and need help with your email marketing service, feel free to call us on 0800 994 9016 or use our contact form in the menu above.