Email Marketing Segmentation 101 April 06, 2021, | Posted by Guest

For brands new to email marketing, it can be tricky to learn all the ins and outs and tricks of the trade quickly enough to make them work. One of the trickier propositions for many email newbies is that of segmentation: breaking down your audience into smaller groups based on factors like demographics, buying history, geographic location, and so on. It can seem easier to just send the same email to everyone; but it’s actually less effective and even less efficient than doing even just the most basic segmentation. Site Impact’s experts are big on segmentation, and today we’re giving you a primer.

Step one: Identify the relevant segments

Segmenting your email marketing audience won’t do you much good if you use the wrong criteria for segmentation. The whole point of segmentation is to tailor and target specific messages to specific parts of your audience; if you choose the wrong categories, the specificity won’t work. To make matters more complicated, there are likely to be several valuable ways for you to segment your audience. For example, it may be worth segmenting by geographical location, depending on your business--but it may also be meaningful to segment by hobbies. What’s important is that you identify the groups within your broader audience, and sort them out. When you’re working with an email marketing agency, you often use that list of relevant categories to choose your selects when leasing or buying lists. If you have your own lists, identifying your segments is still valuable--you need it to target specific groups with the right content at the right time.

Step two: build specific strategies for each segment

Once you’ve identified the correct groups within your target audience, it’s important that you develop specific strategies that appeal to each group separately. There’s no point in segmenting your audience if you don’t act on those segments; each group should have at least a slightly different approach. The way you tailor your message to one demographic group shouldn’t be the same as you do another group. These strategies aren’t just about content or creative, either; time of day, frequency of sending, all play a role and should all be slightly different based on what you know about the different segments you’re sending email marketing campaigns to. 

Segmenting for the first time can seem like a daunting task, but it’s a cornerstone of effective email marketing efforts. Knowing how to segment your audience and your prospects will help you to step up your email marketing game, and get better and better results. It will also help you in testing your messaging, and building better strategies. By segmenting your audience properly, you can ensure that you will get the results you’re looking for consistently. It also helps you when you’re ready to reach out to email marketing agencies and other providers, and when leasing or buying lists.  Contact Site Impact to learn how we can help you reach new audiences and target the right segments.