E-mail marketing is an important part of your business. It lets your customers and subscribers know what’s going on with your business and keeps them in the loop about sales, events, and other important news. However, it’s important to make sure that the right information goes to the right people. If you’re hosting an event on the West Coast, sending an email invitation to customers who live in Florida isn’t just illogical, it might be viewed as spammy and cause them to unsubscribe from your mailing list. Just the same, advertising a sale on shapewear isn’t going to do you much good if the email ends up in the inboxes of men in their 20s.

To avoid making these embarrassing and potentially detrimental email marketing mistakes, it’s important to develop an email marketing strategy that will help you get the right information to the right customers. The clear answer is email segmentation. Follow the tips below to develop a strategy that works for your business and start email marketing like a pro.

What is Email Segmentation?

Email segmentation helps you target your email marketing campaigns so that your message reaches the right customers. When you develop an email segmentation strategy, you’ll start by separating your subscriber lists into small sections. These sections can be determined by:

• Where they live: Use geographic information, such as state, distance to a specific location or zip code to sort your customer list.
• Buying behaviors: Base the marketing information you send to your customers on past purchases or interactions with your business.
• Psychographics: This process can be more complicated but if you have information about your customers such as their values, lifestyles, or opinions, you can sort your email list based on these characteristics.
• Demographics: This includes details about your customers such as age, income, and household membership.

By using these categories to segment your email marketing campaigns, you can get your message delivered to the masses without creating an annoyance for customers and subscribers that the information isn’t relevant to. And unlike email personalization, segmentation doesn’t require the added work that goes into creating unique recommendations for each of your customers.

The Benefits of Using an Email Segmentation Strategy

It goes without saying that putting together an email segmentation strategy requires more effort than simply sending marketing emails to your entire subscriber list. However, the benefits of targeting these emails carefully are plentiful. They include:

• Enhanced customer relationships: Consumers know when they’re receiving mass marketing emails — strengthen your relationships with the people you serve by sending emails that speak to their interests and lifestyles.
• Increased engagement: Engagement is one of those metrics that are crucial to your business performance. Email marketing campaigns that generate clicks ensure you don’t lose engagement from disinterested subscribers.
• Simpler market research: Understanding which target audiences respond to which advertising campaigns is an easy way to understand who your customer base is and how to further tailor your offerings to their wants and needs.

7 Tips and Tricks For an Effective Email Segmentation Strategy

Before you sit down and try to sort out your email list, review the tips below to ensure the process is hassle-free.

1. Work with an agency
Work with a reliable digital marketing agency that has proven experience and success in email segmentation. Rely on their expertise to help you determine how to segment your list and to execute the strategy effectively.

2. Use page-level targeting and lead magnets
When website visitors opt-in to your email marketing campaigns, it’s easiest if you have the information you need from them right away. Using page-level targeting helps you understand where they fit based on the webpage they subscribe from, while lead magnets are questions on your subscription forms that enable your subscribers to give you the information you need from the get-go.

3. Give your new subscribers a warm welcome
When someone new subscribes to your email list, set up your system to automatically send them a welcome message reminding them of why they’re there. Include some of the benefits of being part of your email list, give them the opportunity to engage and shop online, and remind them that their private information is stored safely.

4. Give your subscribers the opportunity to choose
Some of the best email subscription lists make sure their subscribers aren’t overwhelmed by letting them determine the type of emails they’d like to receive and how often they’d like to receive them. Make it easy for your customers to provide you with their preferences and if they do want to unsubscribe, don’t make it hard for them.

5. Use metrics to determine message frequency
If you’re sending marketing emails to a particular subscriber and they’re never engaging, that might be a sign that it’s best to dial back their email frequency or give them the opportunity to provide you with their preferences. On the other hand, customers who engage frequently are the best ones to reach out to when you have special events, coupons, or invitations to test new products or website features. Make sure to measure and track the performance of each campaign so you have access to this important information.

6. Follow-up on abandoned forms and carts
One way to segment your email list is by creating a special list just for those who started the process of subscribing or shopping on your website but didn’t follow through. Use the information they’ve provided to follow up on forgotten shopping carts or incomplete forms.

7. Analyze purchasing behaviors
Using purchase history in your marketing campaigns is a great way to keep your subscribers coming back. Remind them when sales are coming up on their favorite products, offer add-ons that might interest them, and remind them if they’re likely running low on products they buy often.

Target the Right Audience With Email Segmentation

Taking the extra time to determine which subscribers will be most likely to engage with your marketing campaigns is the best way to ensure higher levels of engagement and more importantly, higher conversion rates. Use an email segmentation strategy to target your email marketing to the right consumers.