How can segmentation help to increase your email deliverability?
Email segmentation is the first step to creating personalized, targeted emails that resonate with customers. Email deliverability is the ability to place the emails in the inbox of customers. In this post, we decipher the underlying but powerful connection between the two.
What is email segmentation?
Segmentation is the sorting of email IDs in a recipients’ list according to defined criteria. You can target a specific segment of the consumer base with shared characteristics to drive higher engagement. This helps deliver relevant messages to the right audience. Some strategies to segment the lists are:
Strategies to segment email recipients
Each business must identify the attributes that are valuable to grab the attention of the customers. Some common attribute groups are:
Demographic attributes
These include gender, age, income, education, marital status, etc. You can design personalized emails to promote products and services meant for specific groups.
Geographic attributes
These cover the state, region, country, community, etc. They enable you to target customers in different time zones, for localized events, and more.
Behavioral attributes
These consider spending habits, website behavior, search activity, customer journey, etc. They are helpful for promoting products that customers are already interested in.
Psychographic attributes
These span lifestyle, hobbies, needs, activities, interests, opinions, etc. They help gain a detailed and targeted categorization of customers based on their purchasing interests.
Purchasing power attributes
These are the markers for the purchasing capacity of the customers. This is helpful to identify potential customers according to the price range of the products.
Impact of segmentation on email marketing metrics
Segmented campaigns witness better user engagement due to the relevance of content and optimized sending frequency. The impact can be measured with metrics like:
Opens
Segmented emails have an edge over broadcast emails as these bring relevant and beneficial information to the customers. With the right segmentation and appropriate content, open rates are sure to rise.
Click-through rate (CTR)
Offering the right product or solution drives customers to click one or more links in the email. Segmented emails target specific needs of customers leading to higher CTR.
Unsubscribe rates
Considering the high cost of subscriber acquisition, minimizing unsubscribe rates is a wise thing to do. Use segmentation to share curated information, products, offers, solutions, etc., in the emails that keep customers engaged.
Spam complaints
Deliverability takes a hit when spam complaints rise. Segmented emails can help maintain deliverability by weeding out irrelevant and unsolicited emails that attract high spam complaints.
Sender reputation
When the above email engagement metrics show a positive trend, the sender reputation improves too. A good sender reputation score is crucial to increasing email deliverability.
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Segmented emails help strengthen customer connection and loyalty by providing personalized offers which lead to conversions. Longer association translates to continued purchases, thereby increasing the CLV.
ROI
Emails generate almost 36X ROI for marketers. When segmentation is added to the email marketing plan, this metric is likely to increase further.
How does segmentation improve email deliverability?
Email segmentation allows you to design and place relevant content in the subscribers’ inboxes. An obvious outcome is increased engagement. Email reputation gets a boost as the metrics improve, which leads to better inboxing. Hence, email deliverability shows an upward trend as emails opens and CTRs improve with segmentation.
How to begin your email segmentation journey?
Here are some proven tips and tricks to help begin your email segmentation strategy.
Start with the basics
If you are just starting, use the basic but effective strategies to segment the emails.
Demographic data
You can collect this data via sign-in or surveys. It gives insight into the needs and interests of the customers. If you offer apparel, for instance, gender proves to be an important segmenting strategy.
Geographic data
This data is important to send localized offers. Location can also be mentioned in the subject lines. For instance, if it’s snowing on the east coast, fashion retailers can promote offers for coats and jackets with local store details.
Behavioral data
This data gives deeper insight into the browsing habits of the customers. Specific page visits, time spent, on-page clicks, repeat visits, etc., can help you understand their interests. You can add pictures, testimonials, FAQs, and more to the content to engage customers.
Use A/B testing and multi-split testing
These tests allow you to send two or more different versions of the same email to different sample lists created from the master list. The better-performing version is sent to all the remaining recipients of the master list. The test helps you understand your audience better. Use this method to test the metrics, implement required changes, and eliminate risks.
Conclusion
Segmented marketing places emails in the inboxes of customers with a high propensity to engage. You can create a greater impact in the campaigns by replacing broadcast campaigns with segmented lists. You can generate more opens, clicks, and conversions with tailored products and offers for interested customers.
The upshot of segmented campaigns is increased email deliverability. Lead conversions happen next. A boost in the revenue generation is another expected outcome.
Netcore uses Raman, the in-house AI engine. Raman analyzes behavioral data and trends to predict which customer segments are most likely to perform a specific activity like purchase in the next 30 days. It provides insights based on historical as well as real-time activity to predict customer behavior. Below are some real-life success stories of companies that leveraged Netcore’s AI-powered segmentation to achieve marketing goals.