Constant Contact's CEO discusses quick email marketing tips for small companies to market like the big guys.
Dividing your email list based on what your subscribers have in common -- including interest categories, purchasing behavior, demographics, etc. -- is critical in targeting your audience with relevant email campaigns. Targeting increases the likelihood of a response to your message or offer. Whether you're a small business or enterprise-level corporation, list segmentation and targeting efforts pay off in higher open and clickthrough rates, enhanced customer loyalty and increased sales.
Letting your customers tell you what they want and delivering on their requests is key to successful email campaigns. First you must divide and conquer your in-house list by segmenting your customers into targeted groups-- ensuring readers receive information that is relevant to their needs and interests.
Relevant communication is especially important for small businesses that need to stay competitive in a global marketplace dominated by big-box stores, internet shopping sites, and blanket advertising campaigns. More and more small businesses are doing this by creating a targeted, more meaningful connection with customers-- nothing makes this easier than segmenting your email subscribers.
Businesses often make the mistake of measuring email campaign success by exposure and the size of their email list. High exposure actually has little to do with the amount of subscribers-- it's the number of "opens" and clicks on call-to-actions that count. The only way to ensure your customers will open your campaigns is to make your messages are relevant to their interests and needs. The best way to accomplish this is by effective segmentation that helps you target your communications-- letting your customers believe you have written each and every word specifically for them.
Here are some best practices for effective segmentation of your in-house list:
Use what you already know about your customers
Organize the information you already have about your customers and prospective customers. Data including their location, demographics, buying behaviors, shared interests, last purchase, and last contact with you is useful in forming segments based on what customers have in common.
Get that critical data you don't have
For what you don't have, ask! Empower your customers by letting them tell you what is important to them. The longer the relationship, the more information a customer will provide for you. Explain how this information will be used to help you send them relevant, useful information. And, always be sure to tell them how you are protecting their information-- post your privacy policy when collecting, this way they know their information is safe.
Define your interest categories
Divide your list into basic interest categories. If you don't have information for some contacts, leave them in a general category. Send email campaigns that are relevant to the interest categories. Send the general interest group emails with multiple topics and see what they read-- now you can move them into more specific interest categories.
After a series of campaigns, review how you defined the categories-- as you learn more and watch the behavior of subscribers, often you will want to edit or merge categories.
Remember, if you have more information than just an email address, bring it in. You can use it to continue to personalize the campaigns to your target market.
Quick Tip: If you use Outlook for your contacts, use the import tool for a quick transfer of data.
Design your campaign
Now that you've segmented your customers, it's time to create relevant, timely email campaigns.
- Use your identified topics of interest to shape the content of your campaign
- Establish campaign goals and use the "call-to-action" to measure these objectives
Review your campaign
Review your campaigns and then use the data to adjust and/or maintain your interest groups. Did it perform and appeal to your interest category as you wished?
- Monitor how many people looked at the campaign
- Spot trends on days and times this segment tends to open their emails
- Identify what campaigns were most and least appealing to any particular group
- Respond to the behaviors and consider adjusting appropriately, such as dates and times of distribution, content, or call-to-action
A good email marketing service will provide tools to make reviewing campaigns easy.
Maintain your interest groups
It's important to keep your categories up-to-date.
- Schedule a regular date to review your segments. Then, review the reasons why each interest category was created-- merging groups with the same audience
- Look at your subscribers. Review what campaigns they've been opening. If they have not been viewing your emails, ask yourself: should they belong to a different category? It might help to invite them to choose their own interest categories and update their own subscriber details. Some email marketing services offer easy tools to do this
Gail Goodman is CEO of Constant Contact. Read full bio.