Does your business send a monthly or quarterly email newsletter? Do you see this mailing list as one of your most important marketing tools? What happens when someone signs up for your mailing list the day after your quarterly email was sent? Does this new signup get the previous days email or do they wait three months to hear from you?
While email campaigns are one of the most effective means of connecting with your audience, the techniques and best practices associated with email marketing are quickly advancing. According to Return Path’s November 2012 Email Intelligence Report, seventy percent of spam complaints are previously opted-in newsletters and offers simply no longer wanted by the subscriber. Because of the opt-in process, this isn’t necessarily spam, just emails not relevant to the receiver anymore. If you could determine what is relevant to individual subscribers and easily send only content that matched their interests, would your emails carry more weight with your followers? Epsilon says yes! Findings in their “Q2 2013 Email Trends and Benchmarks†points to 72.6% higher open rate and 152.3% higher click-through rate when triggered messages based on individual behavior are sent.
There are over 258 billion emails sent each year. Do your emails stand out?
As Forrester Research points out, there were 258 billion emails sent in 2012, an increase of 63% over the previous year. With so much information and noise out there, email marketers are constantly looking for better ways to get information in front of the right eyes. Marketing Sherpa’s “Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008,†points to a twenty percent open rate increase and a “double†the click-through rate when segmentation has been implemented. Email marketers are quickly turning to targeting and list segmentation to get improved results from their email campaigns.
Segmenting is the process of accurately grouping leads based on specific interests, buying history, behavior, and other industry specific factors. How to best segment your audience is specific to your business, but one thing to make clear is that behavioral segmentation is going to take you further than simple demographics. Having information about what motivates a specific lead will be much more helpful than working from demographically constructed assumptions. When working with email service providers, effective segmenting is very difficult. The biggest reason for this is simply due to a lack of data on leads behavior. If you have no means of tracking behavior, it is really difficult to segment in a useful way. Of course, the ability to segment your list may not even be possible with your current email service provider. You may simply not have the option with your current solution. Take a
Start Segmenting Today!
If your email list has been built without a segmenting mindset, don’t worry. Here are some suggestions for getting your mailing list beyond the single list mindset of years past.
- You can utilize a series of email campaigns to gather segmentation information on your existing mailing list.
- It is true that building and executing segmented email campaigns takes more time and effort than batch-and-blast campaigns. Of course, if executed well the additional effort more than pays for itself by delivering stronger, sales-ready leads.
- Segmenting does not mean every message needs to be segmented. If you have messages you want to send to all segments, this is easily accomplished and nothing is lost.
- Working with Genoo, the parameters of individual segments are extremely dynamic. Leads do not need to be placed in a single “group†but rather groups are behavior or actions each lead took. For example, anyone who downloaded a specific file could receive a follow up regardless of specific history.
- Take a look at our 2014 marketing preview, 5 Keys to Drive Your Online Marketing in 2014.
While behavioral segmentation is not a standard in email marketing today, signals indicate many businesses are looking at segmenting based on behaviors and interests rather than pure demographic based segmenting as the answer to understanding how to market in the ever-evolving digital world. For any campaign to be successful, the ability to measure results is essential. An issue with email service providers is it’s difficult to do the segmenting that will improve your results. Your results are limited to what you can accomplish through sending the same email to an entire list. It is very difficult to draw any accurate conclusions with the limited information provided.
Going back to our original question about your most recent email subscriber. Is it clear that you need to take the initiative and drive the buying process? Don’t let a lead just sit there for months before they forget about you and report your first email as SPAM. Take initiative and drive your lead generation. Take a look at our article, "The Six Commandments of Lead Generation," and learn some keys for generating and nurturing your leads. Allow Genoo to provide the online marketing tools necessary for your business to gain insight, connect with leads, and grow revenue and profits.
Resources
Marketing Sherpa - "Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008"
Forrester Research - "Email Marketing Forecast, 2012 to 2017"
Epsilon - "Q2 2013 Email Trends and Benchmarks"
Return Path - Return Path Study Reveals Marketers' Inbox Placement Rates Continuing to Decline"
