3 Things To Know About The Best Email Segmentation Strategies For 2022
Surprise! While 2022 may be far away, the joke is this: The strategies from last year, STILL WORK!
Email is not dead *throws fist up in a rebellious way*.
No really, it isn’t. So if you are new t email marketing, get on it. Here are the 3 best, most proven ways to segment your email list for higher click-through, open, and deliverability metrics… oh, and sales.
Wait: If you’re too lazy to read it all, here it is in video form:
Number 1: Segmentation by Behavior / Lifecycle
Your customers just like humans have a life cycle. Not just from baby to adult to human raisin, but also from prospect to customer, to purchased multiple times. AND just like your baby self and adult self need boobs for different things, your customers in different parts of the lifecycle can require different things from your email marketing strategy.
The classic first email a customer should get when they sign up is the welcome series. Offer them an incentive to give them your email, something like a 10% discount, an e-book, a free audit, and then funnel them through your automated email welcome series. Yes, that means the emails go out automatically once they sign-up. This allows you to funnel all the good info about your company to them immediately. The welcome series can educate your customer about your company and your product and increase the connection they have with you and thus the likelihood to purchase.
But there are more other great emails that you can take advantage of by utilizing your customer’s position in the life cycle.
Think about the classic abandoned cart email, which notifies customers once they leave their cart without completing their checkout.
Did you know that according to statista.com 67–84% of carts are abandoned?
No wonder my shoes have abandonment issues…
The good news is, about 45% of abandoned cart emails are opened, out of the opened emails 21% received click-throughs, and out of those 50% resulted in a purchase. That’s automated money while you sleep.
Source: https://moosend.com/blog/cart-abandonment-stats/
And what about the people that did purchase?
Purchased once? Sent them a purchase again email if it’s something replenishable. If not, cross-sell or up-sell them to further products.
Ask them for a review, UGC, or a referral.
Check out this amazing email by the Dollar Shave Club incentivizing customers to add more to their recent purchase
Number 2: Segmentation by Demographics
You know what feels great? When someone guesses your age and is far below how old you really are. You know what feels even greater when your emails guess your demographics right and advertise to you what you want.
Use your demographics wisely and send women advertisements for your products targeted at women & vice-versa. No man wants to know about your latest lingerie.
Anyway, a great example of segmentation by gender is Adidas with their Rita Ora & Pharell campaign.
You can do the same for age. Think about the promised land Target. Everyone loves Target, but my mom and I love it for different reasons. I love the snacks and nail polish, she loves the vacuums and cookware.
Fine, I love everything there but my point is segmenting by age can support you in figuring out what your customers are interested in.
Another cool option is to segment your users by location if you are available in multiple cities. Why not target your offering to current events in those cities or even the weather? In November, someone in Boston is probably going to appreciate your cool winter jackets a lot more than someone in LA.
Check out this awesome example by Lyft:
Number 3: Email Preferences
You already have your customer's permission to send them emails. That does not mean that all your emails will interest them and leave them satisfied.
But now that you know that your customers want your emails, wouldn’t it be powerful to ask which ones they like how? ;) (*HINT* *HINT* *HINT* Works in relationships too!).
Ask your customers and girlfriends what they want. How often do they like to receive emails? Or which kinds do they prefer? Are they into the recipe emails you are sending or are they really just looking for discounts? Ask them, segment, and target your magic to those open for it.
That’s about all I have in terms of inappropriate and bad jokes explaining email marketing. So leave your comments, thoughts, and questions below, and make sure to take a peek at the video above explaining all this good stuff!
Melanie Balke
CEO & Founder, The Email Marketers
