Separating your email list subscribers into different segments of your audience is the process of dividing up your subscribers or customers into other flows or email sequences. When subscribers sign up to your email list, they will not receive the same emails as everyone else at the same time as they go along with the email campaign. Thus, segmentation allows you to better market and communicates to your new potential customers and readers.
Most lists are organized based on three different factors: demographics, geographics, and behavior. Depending on your niche and marketing goals, you will need to organize them differently. However, the most popular way to segment lists includes how they behave on your websites and with your emails.
Once they are opted-in to your campaign, readers are then divided based on how they interact. Do they open more often than others? Do they click-through links frequently? Then it would be good to put them on a different path than those who are less likely to open or click-through your emails. They likely don’t need an aggressive approach and are clearly interested in your products or information.
Reasons list segmentation is an important step of the email marketing process:
It Allows You to Send More Targeted Information
Most businesses will have more than one buyer’s persona, which means not every email you send needs to go to every lead or customer on your list. It also means you likely have more than one goal in mind when it comes to email marketing. Segmenting allows you to pick certain keywords or information in order to organize and better target them with different key pieces of content.
For example, readers who have bought your products are more likely to get content about the products they purchased or new products to try. While new subscribers who have not purchased a product will be reading content on why the products benefit their life and possibly information about you and your business or other emails to get to know them better to further convert them into paying customers.
To Increase Overall Conversions
List segmentation better targets your readers, which allows you to communicate more effectively. When you understand at what point of the buyers’ journey they are on, then you have a better chance at maximizing your opportunity.
To Improve Engagement and Reputation
Clear communication and understanding your audience are key to increasing your conversions and running a successful email campaign. Better communication provides more value to your customers, further building your reputation and improving your engagement—two important metrics for running and creating a sustainable business.
As you can see, the key to list segmentation is to ensure the right emails are being sent to the right people to achieve your email marketing goals better. If everyone receives the same emails and you ignore primary information about your target audience, you are likely not communicating to them effectively enough to produce results.