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Use customer information, segment lists and personalize emails to increase responses and ROI
The trick is to first know what content is relevant to them, then divide your email list into groups of people interested in the same information. Don't know what that is? Ask them. Send your customers only the information that matters to them, and watch your response rates rise.
Divide and Conquer
Once you know what content your subscribers find relevant to them, divide your list into segments that make sense to your company or business model. You are probably already used to segmentation in your traditional marketing efforts, but many organizations overlook segmentation in their email initiatives. Some typical strategies for segmentation include:
Geography
This is an easy, fairly obvious segment. For example, your customer in Florida is likely not interested in a snowmobile. And your customer in Minnesota probably isn't interested in a jet ski-not in the winter, anyway. Geography can also be an indicator of buying patterns and other influences on the purchase cycle.
Demographics
This is another easy one, and can make a lot of sense. For example, we know men and women can interpret information quite differently. Younger vs. older audiences take in information in different ways as well.
Job Title and Function
Are you emailing potential users with no - or all the - buying power? An owner or CFO may want to know about ROI. A middle manager may just want to make his or her job easier. And an engineer or programmer wants to find better ways to work. And so on.
Purchasing Frequency
Less frequent purchasers may require a time-sensitive offer to encourage them to act. Or maybe you want to reward frequent buyers with exclusive privileges via email.
Monetary Spending
Adjust resources so you're dedicating your efforts toward customers who spend the most money with your company.
Customize to Maximize
When you've segmented your list according to what works for your business model, maximize action and conversion by sending customized messages to your different audiences. Customize the message content, customize the offer, the subject line, the time of day you send, etc. - all in a way that is directly relevant to the audience you're sending to.
Measure & Modify
This should be nothing new since you're already tracking your email campaigns for response and conversion rates. Certainly your overall response rate should rise when you send relevant messages to carefully selected audiences. If a particular segment isn't responding as well as the others, review and make adjustments to improve response. If you don't see a significant overall increase in response rates when you send to segmented lists, then save resources by only sending one email.
Easily Get the Information you Need
At signup, Collect information and ask your subscribers what is most useful to them while they're signing up to receive emails from you. This can be handled in a couple of ways.
- Make the info required to sign up. This is advisable only if the information is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, you risk losing signups.
- Include the additional fields but make them optional to sign up. However, be careful not to add too many fields or the mere length of the form may scare people away.
- After they've signed up, ask them to provide additional information on a separate page to avoid losing signups.
Re-register, If you've been publishing for a while, ask subscribers to re-register. Advise them that you want to make sure their info is up to date. This is also a good way to make sure your list is fresh.
Survey, Send an email and ask subscribers to complete a short survey. To increase response, offer a premium or fun prize.
The options are endless!
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