Your email list is likely to contain customers of various ages and occupations, based in a number of locations and holding diverse sets of values. It will also feature people who have signed up to your emails at different stages of the purchasing process.

Segmenting your email list and providing tailored information for each group you define will help you to communicate more effectively with your customers. This has been shown to prompt higher click-through rates and, ultimately, improved sales.

The benefits of email segmentation are clear. But how to go about it? Here’s an overview of the 3 steps.

1. Collect information

First, you need to collect the information on which you’re going to base your segmentation. There are various ways to do this:

• Sign up Forms: You can ask customers to give you information about themselves when they sign up to your emails.
• Surveys or questionnaires: You can ask customers to fill in a questionnaire about their interests and the topics on which they want to receive emails.
• Website analytics: With the correct analytics setup it’s possible to track the buying stage and habits of your customers – whether they buy from you regularly, what items they usually buy and how much they usually spend.
• Email management system: Your email management system can tell you who usually interacts with your emails and what links they click on. It can also help you identify inactive users who never open anything you send.

2. Decide how to segment

You can segment your email database along a number of lines – location, demographics (age, gender, income, occupation), psychographics (interests, values, lifestyle) and behavior (buying stage, user status). The more data you collect, the more precise you can make your segmentation.

How you choose to segment your list will depend upon your company. Consider what it is about your brand, product or service that appeals to your different customer groups. For instance, a hotel may provide romantic suites designed for couples as well as family friendly rooms. As a simple first step, the hotel could segment their email list based upon whether customers have children.

3. Tailor your emails

The possibilities for tailoring your emails are endless. You can send suggest products within a particular price range or aimed at a particular gender, follow-up with customers who have dropped off somewhere during the purchasing process or even try to specifically re-engage inactive users. You can adapt the tone, the appearance and the content of your emails to engage that segment of customers and promote sales.

Segmenting your email list makes your email marketing much more effective. It can also crystalize your understanding of your customer profiles, learn more about your customers’ requirements and adapt your business accordingly.

If this work seems too daunting to you, you can of course outsource it to a digital agency. And yes, we do that, contact us here if you’d like to discuss.