Is Email List Segmentation Necessary for Your Marketing Efforts – Taking a Closer Look

Where it used to be that marketing and advertising campaigns relied on traditional avenues such as newspapers, television, and radio ads, times have changed in the past few decades and today, marketing has taken on a digital approach. With that said, businesses have come to the realisation that one of the most effective marketing routes is to create an email marketing campaign that is targeted and specific.

If your company has been using an email marketing campaign but you aren’t exactly seeing the results you had hoped for, or you’re looking to expand it further, then it may be time to segment your email list, often referred to as email list segmentation. This practice isn’t exactly new, but it’s also not something that all companies are familiar with. Here, we’ll dive in and take a closer look at what email list segmentation is, what its benefits are, and how to go about it in an effective manner.

Start Thinking in Groups

Typically, most businesses have a list of email addresses that they send their marketing content to. The same content goes out to each person on that list, so when you think about it, that content isn't going to be relevant to each and every person. Email marketing segmentation challenges businesses to start looking at their list of contacts in terms of groups rather than one large pool of addresses.

The whole idea is that you recognise that each of your subscribers are individuals with their own needs, wants, and interests, allowing you to better target specific email marketing campaigns for them. You are basically creating different segments within your list of subscribers.

Why Aren't More Companies Doing It?

While it makes perfect sense to divide subscribers into different segments, the fact is that it takes more work. With today's software, it's so easy to create an email that is then blasted to an entire database. It takes a lot more effort to put together more targeted emails. The problem is that although the email blasts can save time, they aren’t necessarily going to get the results you’re after.

How to Segment Your Subscriber List?

In order to start using the practice of email list segmentation, you need to have an understanding of how you plan to segment and divide up your list, thereby creating different groups. Ideally, you want to group people together that have similar interests, needs, profiles, gender preference, country, language preference, behaviour, etc. together. You want to be as exact as possible during this process, as your results will be based on how well you’ve segmented your database.

Another tip is to segment your database relevant to where they first signed up for your email list. For example, group those together who signed on at a trade show, by e-commerce checkout, through a blog newsletter, or through your social networks. Those groups would share location as a similarity, so it can act as a natural group criterion.

What Are the Main Benefits?

In order to start making these changes and grouping your database, obviously, the results have to be worth it. So, what exactly are the benefits of email list segmentation? The most obvious is the fact you acknowledge that not all your customers/clients are the same. The one-size fits all approach just isn't effective and it's not going to allow your company to grow. If you look at the products and services you offer, there's a good chance that not all fit every customer's needs, so sending out an email blast to each and every one doesn't make sense.

Statistics actually show that segmented campaigns are more effective. This is because the message itself is targeted and, therefore, more effective. It is relevant to that particular customer/client. What this also means is that the email marketing campaign can prove to be more profitable.

Get Even More Precise

Once you start to see the results from email list segmentation, you can start to be more precise. This is sometimes referred to as the pillars of segmentation. What this means is that you take a group and then segment it further, getting more precise and targeted each time. The idea behind it is that it makes writing content that much easier since you understand that particular group’s interests and needs. It’s also less likely that it will be seen as spam since the contact will actually be interested in the content.

An Effective and Targeted Approach

Email list segmentation is an interesting technique that more and more businesses are becoming aware of as they look to send out more effective and relevant content. It’s a great way to connect with your database in a more targeted way that can lead to an increase in profits.

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