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Email Segmentation: What It Is and How to Get Started
In the quest to make email marketing a precise and personal experience, it’s crucial to lay the groundwork for effective email segmentation.
First, we’ll discuss basics like how to determine the right criteria for your segments, collect necessary data, and use it to create relevant, expected email experiences.
What is email segmentation?
Email segmentation is the practice of dividing your broader email list into smaller, more specific groups based on set criteria. This contrasts with traditional email campaigns where you would send one message to the entire list.
Segmentation allows for more targeted communication, tailoring messages to specific groups, resulting in higher engagement and conversion rates. It's about delivering relevant content to the right people, rather than one-size-fits-all messaging.
Identify your segments
The key to effective email segmentation lies in identifying criteria that are both meaningful to your business and highly relevant to your audiences.
This involves understanding your customer base, and taking segmenting them based on characteristics, preferences, or behaviors that align with your marketing goals.
Here’s how to identify criteria for segmentation:
Analyze Customer Data: Dive into your customer data to identify common characteristics and behaviors. Look for trends in purchasing patterns, product preferences, or service feedback.
Example: If data shows that a particular region has a high demand for certain products, you can segment your market geographically and tailor your marketing to fit those local preferences.Welcome Customer Feedback: Engage with your customers through surveys or feedback forms. Direct input from customers can provide valuable insights into their preferences and needs.
Example: A post-purchase survey surfaces opinions that many customers are seeking more variety in nail polish colors, specifically pinks and blacks, leading to a new segment focused on color-driven marketing.Conduct Market Research: Stay informed about broader market trends and consumer behavior in your industry. This can help identify new segments or emerging opportunities.
Example: By analyzing industry reports, you might discover a growing trend in healthy living among your target customer base. You could then create a segment targeting health and wellness enthusiasts, promoting products like organic snacks or fitness gear.Test and Iterate: Experiment with different segmentation criteria, including A/B testing, and monitor the performance of your campaigns. Analytics can reveal which segments are most responsive and profitable.
Example: Suppose you run an A/B test on two different age groups with the same product but different messaging. One uses a more traditional approach, while the other uses modern, trendy language. The results could show a higher engagement rate with the younger demographic for the trendy messaging, indicating a profitable segment to focus on.
Collect first-party customer data
Zero-party data—information that customers proactively share with your brand—is a goldmine for email segmentation. It includes details such as customers’ preferences, interests, purchase intentions, and direct feedback, which you can use to tailor your messaging accordingly.
Why zero-party data matters
Direct from the Source: Since this data comes straight from your customers, it’s highly accurate and reliable. It reflects their current interests and preferences without you needing to do guesswork.
Builds Trust and Transparency: By asking customers to explicitly agree to provide their information and preferences on how they want to be contacted, you show that you value their input and respect their privacy.
Enhances Personalization: With zero-party data, you can tailor your content more precisely, leading to more relevant and engaging email communications. This can increase open rates, click-through rates, and ultimately, conversions.
Collecting zero-party data requires a strategic approach where the value exchange is clear—customers share their data in return for more personalized and relevant experiences.
Whether by conducting surveys, asking questions during checkout, offering rewards for sharing data, or implementing a customer preference center, create opportunities for customers to share zero-party data, empowering them to tailor their interactions with your brand.
Leverage first-party data
While zero-party data comes directly from customers, first-party data comes from your interactions with customers and prospects. This includes data from your websites, apps, CRM systems, email interactions, and any other direct engagement with your audience.
Unlike zero-party data, which customers explicitly provide to you, you instead gather first-party data from the behavioral footprints customers leave when they interact with your brand. Leveraging this data is crucial for gaining deep insights into your audience and creating more effective email segments.
Strategies for leveraging first-party data for segmentation
Data Integrations: Integrate data from all touchpoints (website, CRM, email automation tools, etc.) to get a comprehensive view of your customers. The more first-party data you have, the more accurate and dynamic segmentation you can perform. For any business that sells products or services online, it’s critical to connect your email tool to your e-commerce storefront, whether that’s Shopify, WooCommerce, or another platform.
Segmentation Based on User Behavior: Create segments based on behavioral data such as most viewed products, frequency of purchases, or average spend.
Personalized Content: Use first-party data to tailor product recommendations or content in your emails. Customers are more likely to engage with emails that resonate with their past behaviors and preferences.
Executing your email segmentation strategy
Once you've gathered and understood both zero-party and first-party data, the next crucial step is to put your data to work and your segments into action.
Executing your email segmentation strategy effectively means structuring your segments in a way that aligns with your audience's data and behaviors, and then tailoring your messaging to these distinct groups.
11 ways to segment your email audience
Demographic Segmentation
One of the most straightforward ways to segment your audience, divide your email list based on demographic data such as age, gender, occupation, or education level. For instance, a clothing brand might send different email campaigns for men’s and women’s apparel based on gender segmentation.
Geographic Segmentation
Tailor your emails based on the geographic location of your recipients. This is particularly useful for localized offers, event promotions, or regional market differences. For example, a company could send weather-appropriate clothing suggestions depending on the recipient’s location.
Behavioral Segmentation
Segment your audience based on their first-party data interactions with your brand. It can include purchase history, email engagement (such as open and click-through rates), and website browsing behavior. For instance, you might create a segment for customers who frequently purchase a particular type of product and send them targeted offers related to that product.
Psychographic Segmentation
Segment your audience based on their lifestyles, interests, and attitudes. This can be gleaned from survey responses or inferred from their interactions with your content. For example, a travel agency might create segments for self-identified budget travelers versus those who say they prefer luxury vacations.
Customer Journey Stage
Segment your audience based on where they are in the customer journey. New subscribers might receive welcome emails, while long-time customers might receive loyalty rewards, and lapsed customers might receive re-engagement emails.
Purchase History
Segment customers based on past purchases, which can reveal patterns and preferences to indicate items they’re most likely to buy next. For example, customers who frequently purchase a specific shade of nail polish might want to receive an email letting them know when it’s back in stock or on sale.
Abandoned Carts
Tracking cart abandonment helps in identifying customers who showed high purchase intent, but didn’t complete the transaction. Tailored emails can be sent to these segments with reminders or special offers to encourage them to complete their purchase.
Lifecycle Status
Segment customers based on their lifecycle stage, such as new subscribers vs. active customers vs. lapsed customers. Tailor your emails to be relevant to each stage, from welcome emails for new subscribers to re-engagement campaigns for lapsed customers.
Engagement Level
Categorize your audience based on how they engage with your emails. Segments can include active users who regularly open and click through emails, occasional readers, and inactive users who rarely engage. Tailor your content accordingly, perhaps sending re-engagement campaigns to inactive users.
Purchase Frequency and Value
Segment your customers based on how often they purchase and the average value of their purchases. This allows you to identify and target high-value customers or frequent buyers with special offers or exclusive content.
Event-Triggered Segmentation
Use specific actions or events to trigger segmented email campaigns. This could be based on actions like signing up for a special offer, a birthday, or downloading an app.
Craft compelling creative elements for each segment
Once your audience segments are clearly defined, the next step in your email segmentation strategy is to develop the creative elements that will resonate with each specific group. By thoughtfully crafting creative elements for each audience segment, you create more personalized and compelling email content.
Tailor your copy
Adjust your tone to suit the characteristics of each segment. For example, a more direct tone might work for older audiences, while younger audiences might prefer a more casual and conversational approach.
Craft segment-specific subject lines and preheaders that grab attention and promise relevant content. Test different variations with A/B testing to see what resonates best with each group.
Remember that the exact copy of each message should be tailored to the relevant audience. The point of segmentation is to deliver more personalized, relevant messaging, and that comes down to the words your email contains.
Customize images
Choose images that reflect the demographics or interests of each segment. For instance, lifestyle imagery for a segment interested in outdoor activities or professional graphics for a corporate audience. While customizing images for each segment, maintain a consistent visual brand identity across all segments to build brand recognition and trust.
Offer segment-specific promotions and incentives
Design offers and promotions that appeal specifically to each segment. For example, you might offer exclusive discounts for high-value customers. Similarly, you could offer a first-time purchase discount for new subscribers.
Use language and tactics that create a sense of urgency or exclusivity in your offers, like limited-time discounts or VIP-only access. Incorporate interactive elements like polls, quizzes, or clickable CTAs that are tailored to the interests of each segment to boost engagement.
Keep tabs on your segmentation success
After implementing your segmented email campaigns, it’s crucial to monitor and analyze their performance. Tracking critical indicators such as open rates, click rates, spam complaints, and conversion rates for each segmented list offers valuable insights. These metrics help in understanding the effectiveness of your segmentation strategy and guide you in making data-informed decisions for future campaigns.
Key metrics to track for segmented email campaigns
Open Rate: This measures the percentage of recipients who opened your email. High open rates generally indicate that your subject lines are resonating with the segment and that the timing of your emails is effective.
Click-Through Rate: The click-through rate assesses the percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links contained in your email. This metric is crucial for understanding how engaging your email content is and whether your CTA’s are compelling.
Spam Complaints: Keep a close eye on the number of spam complaints your emails are generating. A high number in a particular segment could indicate that your content is not relevant or that recipients did not willingly opt into your emails.
Conversion Rates: Perhaps the most critical metric, the conversion rate measures how many recipients completed the desired action (such as making a purchase or signing up for an event) after clicking a link in your email. This metric directly correlates to the ROI of your email marketing efforts.
Unsubscribe Rate: Monitor how many people are opting out of your emails post-campaign. A high unsubscribe rate in a segment can signal that your content is not aligning with the interests or needs of that group.
Bounce Rate: Track both soft and hard bounces to understand email deliverability issues. A high bounce rate may indicate problems with your email list quality or issues with email servers.
How to analyze and adjust your segmentation strategy
Segment Performance Comparison: Compare the performance of different segments to identify which criteria and approaches are yielding the best results.
A/B Testing: Continuously test different elements (like email subject lines, content, design, and CTAs) within your segments to see what works best, and optimize accordingly.
Feedback Loops: Encourage and analyze feedback from your subscribers. Direct feedback can provide actionable insights and help in fine-tuning your segmentation.
Revisiting Segmentation Criteria: Based on performance metrics, revisit and adjust your segmentation criteria. As your audience evolves, so should your segmentation strategy.
By meticulously tracking these key performance indicators, you can gain a deep understanding of how well your segmented email campaigns are performing. This ongoing analysis is essential for tweaking and perfecting your approach, ensuring that your email marketing continues to deliver maximum engagement and conversions.
Best practices for ethical and legal compliance in segmentation
In the world of email marketing, ensuring compliance with legal and ethical standards is not just a best practice; it's a necessity. As you segment and target your audience, you need to also navigate the landscape of data privacy regulations and ethical considerations. This includes respecting customer preferences and providing clear, straightforward avenues for opting out of marketing communications.
Become familiar with privacy laws relevant to your audience, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union or the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States.
Offer options to unsubscribe or opt out of marketing communications. By tracking and managing your opt-outs, you keep your marketing campaigns compliant with privacy law requirements, reducing the risk of legal consequences and fines.
Make sure that you have explicit consent to collect and use data, especially for segmentation. Regularly review and update your consent collection practices to keep them in line with legal requirements.
Above all else, respecting your customers’ preferences is key to maintaining a positive brand image and building trust. Once a customer opts out, your responsibility is to make sure they no longer receive marketing messages, or else risk frustrating them and damaging your reputation.
Automate opt-outs with Bird
It’s easy to manage unsubscribes and opt-outs within Bird. Automate the opt-out process by including an easily accessible, compliant unsubscribe link in every email. When a recipient opts out, Bird automatically updates your email lists for you so that you don’t accidentally send emails to unsubscribed users.
Opt-outs aren’t a bad thing; they make it easier for you to segment audiences more effectively. You can separate opted-out individuals from your active audience, and create targeted campaigns based on user engagement levels. You’ll be sending relevant emails only to those who are genuinely interested.
Transform your email strategy with advanced segmentation
Email segmentation turns generic email blasts into more personalized conversations. Harness the full potential of Bird to effortlessly:
Segment your audience based on rich, multidimensional customer data.
Create tailored, impactful email campaigns that speak directly to diverse customer groups.
Connect your e-commerce platform to your email marketing for more personalized campaigns.
It's time to move beyond the one-size-fits-all approach and step into the era of personalized email marketing with Bird, today.