What parameters do you use to segment your email lists?

Author: Gautam Mane

We spoke earlier of how important email marketing campaigns are to your overall digital marketing strategy. We also discussed that without proper segmentation, the efficacy of an email marketing campaign can’t be assured.

There are various ways in which segmentation data can be selected. Let us take a look at some of the most common (and useful) parameters used for email list segmentation.

Past History:

If this is not the first email campaign you are carrying out, then you would have data about how the recipients reacted to your campaign.

Ranging from outright rejection to polite interest to complete adoption, there could have been a number of responses from the people you sent those emails to. That behavior should be the first parameter for your segmentation of the present or planned campaign.

Location:

The place where your business is situated, and the locations which you are targeting would determine how you would segment your audience. For instance, if you have one physical store and a website to complement it, then it might not be very useful to target people in other cities, states, or countries.

But if you have an online store with deliveries done in multiple locations, then you would need to target people in all those locations and also beyond.

Social Media:

If you are using emails to promote your business, it is safe to assume that you would have a website and social media profiles as well. If you do not, then you can ignore this point and move on for now. But try getting social media profiles in place at the earliest. In case you have social media profiles, then customer response to your posts would determine in which segment you would place them.

Data Points:

Depending on which sector or industry your business is, there are specific data points that could be very useful parameters for segmenting your email lists. The purpose and timing of the email campaign would also decide which of these data points would be useful. Some examples of data points are birthdays, first names, telephone numbers etc.

Consumer Interest:

The response of present and potential customers to the other aspects of your digital marketing tools would determine the segmentation of your email campaign.

Marketers prefer to break down such targets into those who were ‘hot’ (very interested), ‘warm’ (moderately interested), and ‘cold’ (not at all interested) in your products and services. Marketers usually run different campaigns for each of these three segments, with different content and messaging for each.

Business Model:

The nature and structure of your own business would itself be a very important parameter for carrying out your segmentation exercise. For example, if you are a company that manufactures trendy clothes for teenagers, then you would have one segment directed at the teenagers, and another segment directed at their parents, who were likely to be the purchasers. But if your product or service was directed at 40-year olds, you need not have multiple segments for your email campaigns.