Building a robust email list is a big achievement for a small online business.
Once you've got it, though, the next step is segmentation.
Digital marketing is all about careful audience targeting, and email marketing is no exception.
Ideally, along with names and email addresses, you have some kind of demographic info about each person.
Knowing their age, their location, their gender, and other basic attributes can help you better understand what kind of groups your audience naturally falls into.
But basic demographics are only a small handful of the many ways you can slice and dice your email list into targeted segments.
Whether you're a B2B company or a B2C brand, you can find clever and creative ways to target individuals based on many different parameters.
In a recent blog post, Hubspot lists some off-the-beaten path ideas for email list segmentation and targeting.
Seniority Level
There are different job roles, and there are different levels of seniority.
Perhaps your contact said they work in marketing, but is she the VP of marketing, or a marketing coordinator?
Those two contacts will differ in years of experience, salary level, pain points, decision-making potential, and a whole host of other differences that make segmentation critical for effective email marketing campaigns.
Past Purchases
If a segment of your list has purchased from you before, use that information to send them emails catered to that which interests them.
Then make your bottom line bigger by identifying upsell opportunities with additional services or complementary products they'd enjoy based on their past purchases.
Buying Frequency
Segment your email list based on how often someone purchases.
Not only can you try to increase shopping frequency for some, but you can also reward frequent shoppers with an invitation to your loyalty program to make your brand even stickier.
Content Format
You may find that specific content formats are more appealing to certain segments of your database — some like blogs, others prefer ebooks, and some may only show up when you put on a webinar.
For example, in a recent HubSpot Research survey, 43% of respondents wanted to see more video content in the future.
If you know how certain segments of your list prefer to consume content, you can deliver the offer content in your emails via their preferred format.
Change in Content Engagement Level
Have you noticed an increase or decrease in the amount of time leads are spending with your content?
This is an indication of their interest in your company, and should be used to either reawaken waning interest, or move leads along through the sales cycle while they're at their height of engagement with your content.
Satisfaction Index
Many businesses use satisfaction indexes to determine how happy their customer base is — Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a very popular one.
If you're measuring satisfaction numerically, consider sending an email segmented based on your customers' level of happiness with your organization.
Those with a high NPS score, for example, might provide opportunities to gather reviews, referrals, or even upsells.
Those with lower scores, however, may get emails that give them access to educational materials that will make them happier and more successful customers.
Usage
Whatever it is you offer, there are some customers who you could consider “power users.”
These are the ones that totally get how to navigate your website, use every feature in your software, and make the most of their relationships with your service providers.
Then there are the rest of us.
Segment out the power users and the strugglers, frequent users, and infrequent users; then send email content that teaches them how to be more successful with your product or service.
The more customers use your product, the more likely they are to stick around: Bluenose found that lack of use was the number one driver of software customer churn.
You can find more smart ways to segment your email list over at Hubspot.
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