Delivering the right message at the right time to the right audience has always been at the core of email marketing success.
According to a recent BtoB Magazine survey, marketers see “delivering content relevant to a segment” as the most important tactic to improving email marketing performance. Nearly half of all marketers feel this tactic will help them improve their email marketing results.
Along with this, list segmentation was recognized by 30% of BtoB marketers as a tactic to improve marketing performance.
By combining list segmentation and segment-specific content, marketers could see a dramatic increase in the quality and performance of their campaigns.
If marketers want to create more personalized, relevant messaging, then why aren’t more of them implementing segmentation strategies?
From what we’ve seen in the industry, many don’t know how to get started or which data to use to identify marketing segments. With this in mind, here are some basic segmentation strategies:
List Segmentation Strategies
The four basic market segmentation strategies are based on behavioral, demographic, psychographic, and geographical differences.
Behavioral segmentation should be central to your segmentation strategy. Recipients can be broken into groups by engagement metrics. Those that frequently open messages, click on links, and generate conversions are likely to be the most valuable contacts in your marketing database. Treat those records with utmost care and give them the attention they deserve. You may even want to consider VIP programs or special offers specifically for this segment.
Those showing little or no activity might be segmented out for a re-engagement campaign. Surveys, contests, sweepstakes, special offers, and polls may provide enough interest to re-awaken these connections and spark an increase in engagement.
Demographic, psychographic, and geographic segments can be determined based on commonalities, and content can be produced to speak to those common elements. Breaking apart your database into segments based on gender, interests, or region and writing content specifically for those segments can lead to highly personalized campaigns and quality results.
Review Your Metrics
Metrics are a marketer’s best friend. B2B marketers can glean significant insight by determining what content users found interesting and drove them to action. Which articles in your newsletter received the most clicks? Which call-to-action led to a site visit? Which ones resulted in a download or sale?
When you break this out by segment, you can get a clear understand of which messaging generates the best results.
Once you have a better idea of what your recipients find interesting, you can customize your content so it speaks directly to their interests.
Just do it
By combining list segmentation with custom content and frequently reviewing campaign performance, email marketers can determine what kind of content produces the best results for the various types of contacts in their marketing database.
Tactics and Strategies for BtoB Email Marketing Segmentation is a post from the Mass Transmit Broadcast Blog. Subscribe to receive blog posts via email. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+!
