According to Brian Kurtz, author of “Overdeliver,” good copy contributes 20% to the buying process, 40% comes from the offer, and another 40% comes from your list. While all are vital elements, we’re here to break down the list component and look at 8 powerful email list segments that you can use to achieve the best results with your email marketing
Segmenting your email lists
If your email marketing isn’t working, the chances are you are not meeting your audience where they are. Every subscriber on your list has their own journey. Some of them just joined your list, some of them would like to buy your product but are hesitating, and others have bought your product many times. We call these experiences, the “customer journey.”
Keeping the customer journey in mind will help you create relevant messages according to where your audiences are in the buying process and what matters to them at any given moment. Thanks to advancements in data tracking, you can pretty easily apply the customer journey concept through segmentation to offer a more personalized experience.
8 email lists segments to get you started
Through testing with over 20 eCommerce brands, I found a handful of segments work well across the board. Let’s jump right in!
- Geography
It’s likely you’ll have multiple audiences from different places. Whether it’s country, state, or even just city, you can still segment your email lists based on location.
This is a great segmentation if:
- Your logistics and offers are highly tied to your prospect’s location
- You want to give a free shipping offer to specific locations
- Gender (Predicted or not)
If you don’t have gender-based data some apps like Klaviyo can predict your audience’s gender based on their name. If you have offers that can be split based on gender, such as clothing in some cases, this feature and segment could benefit your business.
Because gender can be fluid and some names are gender-less, you can always cater to the assumed gender first, but cover your bases by including items for them all.
- Bounced profiles
Bounced emails can hurt your deliverability. But you can be proactive in solving this before your domain is penalized. One way to handle them is by creating a segment of bounced emails and excluding it whenever you’re sending out email campaigns.
- Non-buyers
It’s likely you have a group of people that are on your email list but haven’t bought any of your products. It might be that they have interest but are still hesitating and haven’t made up their mind yet. These customers are at a different stage of the customer journey, so they need to be treated differently. You’ll need to focus on building relationships with them and winning their trust.
What to send them:
- Educational content about your brand or product
- Testimonial email or case studies
- Brand story and “feel-good” content
- Discounts, promotions, and incentives to purchase
- Buyers
These are the people that have already bought from you at least once. Meaning they know the brand and they’ve used your products. So it’s a good idea to keep nurturing and building relationships with them.
What to send them:
- Discount email and purchase incentives
- Educational content and tactical promotions
- New products and launches
- VIP
This email list segment is your top audience so you want to pay special attention to them as customer retention delivers a better ROI than other segments.
You should be genuine with your VIP list and show them that you really appreciate their contribution.
What to send them:
- Big promo emails
- Appreciation content
- VIP discounts and incentives
- Company and product updates
- Early access product launches
- Unengaged
They are subscribers who have not opened your emails for the last 180- 250 days. Keeping them on your list will increase your ESP cost and hurt your deliverability.
Ideally, you want to get their attention back and re-engage them. But if you can’t get them back, it might be better to get them unsubscribed from your list.
What to send them:
- Customer win-back series
- Sunset unengaged series (if they keep ignoring you)
- Engaged
This email list segment should be made up of subscribers who open your email consistently but haven’t bought your product. They clearly have an interest in your brand but need a little push to get them to purchase.
What to send them:
- Discount and incentive email
- Testimonial email or case studies
- Educational content about your brand or product
Goal-driven email list segments
In the end, you want all your email list segments in your account to have a clear purpose. I’ve seen lots of email accounts with hundreds of segments, and most of them are not used.
Keeping them simple is the key. Start with the basic segments first. Then add the advanced segments one by one.
If your email marketing isn’t performing and you’re looking to improve, click here to schedule your free in-depth email audit with Saket at Rathi Media.