Email list segmentation has a huge impact on opens, click-throughs, and conversions. Here’s the lowdown!

ABC and XYZ are two popular clothing brands. They have set up email marketing programs to engage with their subscribers and delight them with new content, information, and offers. The email subscriber lists of both brands include their primary target audience – single professional women under the age of 40 and living in major U.S. cities – as well as other parties, including men in their 50s, married women between 30 and 60, young adults, and rural residents. Brand ABC segments its subscriber list to ensure that its emails reach only its target audience. Brand XYZ doesn’t bother with segmentation and sends standard emails to every subscriber on its list.

Which brand is likely to get more email opens, click-throughs and sales?

If you said Brand ABC, you are absolutely correct.

With email marketing, email segmentation is the vital “secret sauce” for better audience engagement and sales.

Here are 3 facts about email segmentation that every customer-focused brand should know.

Segmentation is the Key to Connecting with Your Audience

Opens and click-throughs are a good indication of subscriber engagement. A segmented email campaign can increase open rates by 14.31% and clicks by 100.64%, compared to non-segmented campaigns.

In our story, Brand ABC has managed to understand the needs of its primary audience. It has segmented its subscriber list to ensure that its emails – especially ones with new offers, product recommendations, and sales notifications – reach only these subscribers. It thus connects with its audience and enjoys better open and click-through rates. It keeps its subscribers interested, engaged, and “sales-worthy”. Brand XYZ, on the other hand, has completely missed the plot.

Segmentation is Critical for Personalization

Email personalization can also help you increase your email open rates, engagement, and even conversions. But to do it right, you must segment your email list. Email personalization is the primary purpose of list segmentation.

By segmenting your audience based on factors such as their gender, geographic location, shopping preferences, etc., you can create personalized emails that resonate with recipients. When subscribers receive relevant and personalized emails with information that they want, they’re more likely to take the step you want them to take (e.g., “Shop Now”). This then leads to more conversions and more purchases.

Here’s a re-engagement email sent by Email Uplers to the segment of dormant customers:

Segmentation Starts with Data

Without data about customers’ demographics, browsing or shopping behaviours, purchase frequencies, familiarity with your brand, etc., you can’t understand who they are, what they want, or what they expect from your brand. As a result, you can’t create the right segments or send targeted, personalized messaging that impress subscribers and lead to conversions and sales.

This is why data is critical for email list segmentation. Keep collecting user data via sign-up forms on your website or your social media pages. Build user profiles, and update them as you get more information about subscribers’ preferences and behaviours. Provide incentives like limited-time offers, contests/prizes, or free resources such as buyer guides or white papers to encourage more sign-ups. Also, pay attention to users’ browsing preferences and the types of keywords and ads they respond to enrich your understanding of them further. All these data-driven strategies can help you improve your list segmentation.

In Conclusion

Email list segmentation can help you understand your audience – and their needs – and align your email messaging to match those needs. Segmentation is also critical for email personalization, a tactic that can deliver 6X higher transactional rates compared to generic emails. A number of tools and email specialists are available to help you segment your key audience with minimal effort and maximum ROI. Take advantage of these resources, and see the impact of list segmentation on your email marketing program in next to no time.

Author Bio:

Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest-growing custom email design and coding companies, and specializes in crafting professional email templates, PSD to HTML email conversion and free responsive HTML email templates in addition to providing email automation, campaign management, and data integration & migration services. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.

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