The benefits of segmenting your email database
Wednesday 02 December 2009
TAGS: Databases | Email marketing
Last month, Louise James, Client Service Manager at Silverbean, discussed “Subject line – does size really matter?” and the importance of analysing your email database reactions to various subject lines. To delve into this further, Louise looks at the value of segmenting your database to achieve targeting communications.
Once you have cleared the hurdle of getting your recipients to open your email newsletter, you are then in a position to fully analyse and therefore segment your database to allow more targeted sends – and this in turn should offer a higher return on investment.
One Size Fits All?
It’s highly tempting to send a generic email to your entire database. However email marketing is not “one size fits all” and by adopting a blanket approach you could see lower conversion rates – and may eventually turn your readers off completely, moving towards opting to unsubscribe from any further communications. Not the aim you are wishing to achieve!
If you can present your readers with something you know will be of interest to them, you are more likely to encourage the open, the click and eventually the purchase. Segmentation also lends itself to the importance of building up trust and a strong relationships with your email database – improved relationships = an improved response to your email campaign!
Here’s just a few ways of segmenting your database – some may not of course be of importance to you own sector, but this will give you an idea of the routes you can go down…
Gender
If, for instance, you are a fashion website selling both male and female clothing lines it would be appropriate for you to split your database by gender and target females with your women’s wear collection and males with the menswear collection. Of course, there are certain times of the year where it is appropriate to include reference to both genders in your email – father’s day, mother’s day, Christmas etc are all great opportunities to cross sell your products via your email newsletters.
Previous Purchase History
Look back at what your customers have purchased in the past and target them with similar products, or money off their second purchase of a similar item. Why not advise your potential return purchaser that “Customers who bought X product, also bought Y product”?
Current Position on Purchase Journey
Do you have a number of email addresses on your current list who have signed up to hear more about your company/product/offer but have yet to make a purchase? Target these recipients with a strong offer/promotion to encourage the purchase – they’ve sown the seed of interest in signing up…so make sure you act on this. As a general guide, leave at least a month from sign up to target this type of recipient…a suitable amount of time to ensure your potential customer doesn’t feel hounded into buying from you, but long enough to trigger the thought in your own mind as to why the initial purchase has not been made.
If after a couple of emails in this vain, you have still not had a response from the recipient, why not encourage some feedback? Ask them why they have not decided to purchase – you never know their response could be mirrored in other customer feedback and could help move you towards a more successful customer experience.
E-mail Address
Take a look through your email address list and pull out those which are more likely to be home addresses (hotmail, googlemail etc) and those which could be work email addresses. Try targeting these email addresses at different times of the day (i.e work email addresses between 9-5 and home addresses after 6pm in the evening or at weekends). Analyse your open rates, click through rates and the time from click to purchase (if this does occur) and you will eventually have a fuller understanding of your database’s buying habits.
A Working Example
Here at Silverbean I manage and co-ordinate the email marketing campaign for BETDAQ. As a betting exchange, there is virtually unlimited scope for data segmentation including “registered but yet to place a bet”, “active bettor on football” and “dormant bettor who has not placed a bet in the last 3 months” to name just a few.
When I started this campaign for BETDAQ, I did send generic emails to the full active database – to give me a benchmark to work from moving forward.
BETDAQ and I then liaised to target by sport and started by focusing on football bettors who had been active within three months of the send. The email sent to these recipients was fully focused on the up and coming football fixtures and contained specific reference to either good odds obtainable or a promotion for the appropriate events. So…we were targeting an active audience with details on an event which they had previously shown interest in AND had given them a specific reason to interact with the client in question.
The Result?
Over a 200% increase in open rates compared to the blanket email which was sent to all members of the exchange – proof that if you target your email database appropriately, you can achieve fantastic results!
Louise James is Client Services Manager at Silverbean. If you have any questions or would like to discuss how Silverbean can help you achieve your marketing objectives through email marketing; please contact our resident email marketing services expert using one of the following.