List Segments

Now that you know the best ways to build a list, are you ready to send out your email marketing? Well, yes, in the same sense that if you have a refrigerator full of food, then you're ready to cook. It helps if you have a plan, no? And it helps if you don't serve everything to everybody all at once. Think of this refrigerator full of food in a kitchen that serves food to animals in a zoo and you might start to know what we mean. Some animals might have different diets, some babies might be new to food, some older animals might like to eat more often, and some might get angry if their food doesn't come a certain way. Those zookeepers should probably divide those animals into segments so that they prepare the right food for the right animals.

Now the folks on your list surely aren't animals (unless you're a veterinarian), but you'll market more effectively if you can segment them into unique groups of people with unique needs. Good email marketing software will let you easily do this. Here's a short list of segments that new email marketers should consider when organizing their customers: This is probably the most obvious. If you ask your customers where they live as they sign up or subscribe, you can cater specials, news and community outreach to particular neighborhoods. Mentioning landmarks and points of interest that only someone in that community would care about is a great way to endear yourself to these customers. If you know your customer's birthday, why not welcome them back to your store or restaurant with a small giveaway? They'll be happy you thought of them and they'll probably bring friends. It's easier than you think to send a birthday email. If you're manually building your list (with permission, of course), then you might also be able to input the customer's consumer behavior as an entry. Maybe you have a list segment for your big spenders and one for infrequent customers. You might decide to send specials to reward those who buy often, or you might go the other way and try to entice those peripheral purchasers. Our discussion on target marketing might remind you of the many categories that any client can be segmented by. If you set up these different fields before you build your list, you can identify unique needs to capitalize on.

Getting the hang of the segmenting idea? Great! Try these out and really focus your marketing in a way that makes sense. When you track who opened your email and clicked back to your website for a purchase or visit, you can segment this population of your list and target specific marketing to this fertile, valuable part of your list. Those that are new to your list might need to hear about information that would quite frankly bore your long-time subscribers. Segment them and give them the attention that they deserve. It's also possible to analyze who opened your email marketing, but then did nothing else. You might want to try a different approach to get action out of this half interested portion of your list. If you have people that never even open your emails (but delivery tracking tells you they've received them), then you might try some different methods to get their attention. You might eventually decide that these addresses are a waste of your time and resources.