How to Create a Segmentation Strategy – Part One Within the first of this two-part guide to how to create a Segmentation strategy as part of our Marketer’s Challenges Series, we look at a wide range of different ways in which you can segment and target your email subscribers. To make this as interactive as possible we have included a worksheet that you can download and print in order to plan the ways in which you can segment your own email subscribers. Download the Worksheet. New Subscribers Firstly a great way to start segmenting your email list is by your new subscribers, these are typically the subscribers that are most engaged with your content. So it’s an important segment to engage with, as there is a high probability of making new sales and building a loyal following. To engage with new subscribers you can use an email welcome series, which can be launched automatically as soon as they subscribe. This really helps automatically scale your outreach to your new subscribers. To discover more details about how to implement a successful Welcome Email Series download our Best Practice Guide to Welcome Campaigns. Interests Segmenting your subscribers based on their interests is an ideal way to personalise your messages and help increase conversion rates and engagement as the content will be relevant to their interests. For example a travel agency can segment their subscribers based on the holiday destination or types of holiday they are interested in, be this skiing, walking, beach holidays, or location based such as Spain, Egypt, New Zealand etc. Offering such tailored, personalised content based on their interests is a surefire way to keep your subscribers engaged and buying from you. Discover how personalisation can supercharge your marketing with our Best Practice Guide to Website Personalisation. Locations The location of your subscribers is also an ideal way to segment, this means you can tailor specific content based on their geographical location that’s relevant to them. For example if you’re a clothing brand that provides a range of seasonal or activity-specific products i.e. if the subscribers are based in a mountainous, cold area, products such as hiking boots, thermal jackets maybe more relevant then the subscribers who live in warmer coastal areas. Specific locations may also have different average incomes, therefore targeting different subscribers with higher or lower value products can also help with personalising the content you email them and the chances of higher conversions. Open Rates Using the analytics from your email open rates gives you insight into your most engaged and unengaged subscribers. You can use this information to segment your subscribers, for example specifically target your unengaged users who have low open rates with a timely discount to try and re-engage and ‘wake them up’. As you know your subscribers with high open rates are already engaged and interacting with your content, so they may not need to receive such a discount as they are already actively buying from you. On the other side you can reward your highly engaged subscribers in order to keep them loyal and coming back for more with exclusive access to new products and other benefits. Lead Magnet/Landing pages Using a lead magnet or landing page which is tailored to a specific campaign, can be an ideal way to segment your subscribers based on their interests or particular campaign. For example you may have a landing page that is only accessible from a Twitter post, this way you know that these subscribers have a Twitter account. You can then target these subscribers by email letting them know that you are having a Twitter Q&A session or running a Twitter competition which will help grow your following and further grow your subscribers. Again much like a welcome email subscriber series, you can launch your own email marketing series based on the type of content they sign up to from the landing page, this will help offer a personalised, segmented experience to this particular segment of subscribers. Types of content Using the insight into the content your subscribers interact with is ideal to create segments with, in order to personalise your messaging based on their interests. This for example could be a specific White Paper the person downloads, using this information to segment your subscribers allows you to trigger follow up emails taking them on a journey based on the content they interacted with. Abandoned Forms 81% of people have abandoned a form after beginning to fill it out and more than 67% of site visitors will abandon your form forever if they encounter any complications; only 20% will follow up with the company in some way, therefore segmenting and re-engaging with these subscribers will massively increase the likelihood of conversions. For example if you have a demo request page and a person completes half of the form and then abandons the webpage you can then re-engage with them in order to arrange the demonstration. Using particular software you can automate this process to email the person just after they abandon the form in order to bring them back to your website and increase the chance of conversions. Abandoned Shopping Carts Almost 70% of online baskets are abandoned. Similar to form abandonment, segmenting your subscribers based on their shopping cart abandonment allows you to specifically re-engage with your subscribers, based on the specific products and items they had in their baskets but did not complete the transaction. You can offer incentives to these segments such as discounts, timely offers or reinforced with social proof to help increase the chance of purchase. Purchase History A powerful type of segmentation is by your subscribers purchase history. This gives you an idea of the types of products they prefer, their average budget and purchase frequency. With this information you can build a profile of their personas, that you can segment and target with personalised emails, upselling and cross selling opportunities. Amount of Purchases Knowing which subscribers and customers spend the most is your best opportunity for repeat sales. Segmenting your top purchasings customers gives you a huge opportunity for up and cross selling. Use this segment to boost your regular sales, give exclusive sales, nurture them, ask for guest blogs, reviews and ensure they become an advocate and continue to buy from you or use your services. Type of Purchases Being able to segment your subscribers based on the historical types of purchases they have made, is a gold mine for marketers. This is ideal for upselling and cross-selling, as well as replenishment emails for example if they order protein powder from you, you know that lasts around 6 weeks, so you can re-engage with them around 5 weeks later to try and resell the product. Purchase Frequency Segmenting your items based on the frequency they purchase from you is a great way to drive repeat sales and customer loyalty. If you know a segment of subscribers usually purchases from you every 2 months, ensure that you email them at least every 6 weeks with targeted campaigns. Ensure that you personalise your emails so you are offering similar products they have previously purchased, or replenishment emails. This is an ideal opportunity for upselling and cross-selling, based on their previous purchases. Buyer Satisfaction Level Gathering insight into the satisfaction of your customers is a really opportune way to build segments. If you use a regular customer satisfaction or an NPS survey, ensure that you reach out to these happy customers and ask if they can leave you a review, as social proof is a proven way to increase conversations. Target your happy customers with exclusive offers, early access to products or solutions plus more in order to reward them and increase customer retention. Segmenting your customers that may be dissatisfied will allow you to nurture them, learn from their feedback or offer an enhanced service to improve their perception of your brand. Take your time to map out your segments using our downloadable worksheet, you do not have to implement all of these segments at once. Identify which segments you think would work best for you and test, test, test. Using personalisation and email automation will take a large amount of work away from you, as all of these segments can be easily implemented and automated using our all-in-one AI Marketing Platform, so please feel free to reach out to us for a chat about your requirements. In the second part of this segmentation guide coming out shortly, we look at additional areas in which you can segment your subscribers.