5 Top Tips for Segmenting
Your Email Audiences 

If you have been using email marketing for a while now, or you are someone who just discovered email marketing, you must have come across the word ‘segmenting’. In terms of marketing, segmentation is the process of dividing a broad consumer or market base which usually consists of potential and existing consumers, into sub-groups (segments) of consumers based on some shared and common characteristics.

In terms of email marketing, email segmentation is the process of simply dividing your email list into smaller groups of consumers (existing and potential). These smaller groups of consumers might be based on certain information like demographics, age, and similar lifestyle, preferences on products or services, and common interests.

Now that you must have already segmented your email subscribers’ list into smaller groups of your potential and existing consumers, you can send more personalized and relevant emails to those specific groups, rather than just sending the same emails to your entire subscriber list.

Why should a business focus on segmenting email audiences?

If you want to boost your click-through rates, increase your email open rates, increase conversions, avoid spam filters, and decrease your unsubscribe rate, an email marketing company, through email segmentation, will help you achieve this, which can eventually improve the effectiveness and relevance of your email marketing campaigns.

It is why 82% of the marketers worldwide have reported an increase in the open rates through mail personalization (which comes from segmenting your emails), and yet 70% of brands worldwide fail miserably to use them!

It is quite obvious that you probably must be wondering how to segment an email subscribers list to meet your end goals. Having said that, figuring out the best way to segment your subscribers’ lists can be a huge task. Do not worry; it is not as daunting as it sounds. You have landed just in the right place.

So, with that in mind, let’s explore five of the main ways you can segment your email marketing audiences.

1. Target Users with Demographic Data

Demographic data may sound a bit superficial when it comes to segmentation of your email audiences, but this is the first place that almost all marketers look into when it comes to email segmentation, and for valid reasons too. Important information such as age, job description, gender, income level, the company’s position, and more can tell a lot about a person’s interests and needs.

You can get all the relevant information during the signup process. The more amounts of data you collect from your audience during the signup process, the more options you will have for demographics segmentation.

However, you should also keep in mind that asking for too much information may scare people from signing up at all, so you should be mindful when doing so. An email marketing company will help you target the users for collecting demographic data.

2. Email Engagement Data

Mostly every email marketing company provides basic email engagement subscribers’ list data to its marketers. The click-through rate and the open rate are the metrics that will be considered and help you create email segments on the data collected.

An example of this is when you create a separate segment by designing active and inactive users, someone who has not opened your mail for more than three months. By doing this, you can create a specialized set of campaigns for users who have been active and target them more personally, and create a redesigned campaign for the inactive users, to make them engage more.

This usage of email engagement data will help you get back your subscribers who have not been engaging with your mails and have lost interest in your brand and ensure that the more active subscribers on your list remain active and engaged enough to complete the buyer journey.

3. Use Quiz or Surveys

If you would not dare to ask your customers more than an email address, you can use surveys and quizzes to access more data than you want. A survey allows you to have the opportunity to get access to more valuable information about your customers.

Suppose you want to get a lot of responses and engagement after sending out a survey to your customers. In that case, you should keep the survey short, simple, and crisp and offer some incentive for completing the survey- such as giving them a free ebook. By doing this, you get more responses to your quiz and surveys.

4. Analyzing Past Purchases

Segmentation of email subscribers list based on past purchases is one of the most effective strategies. Here, you send out personalized email recommendations for similar products that will go well according to the past purchase made by the customer.

For example, if someone purchased a pair of high heels in the past, they would want to see the new collection available. In another scenario, if a customer has purchased something that requires refilling or replacement, you could send out a personalized, targeted email based on their required needs and preferences.

5. Target Geographic Area

You can use geographic area data in a lot of different ways. It is a valuable tool for segmenting your email audiences. It is a great option available for businesses where the location of the business is highly influencing the purchase decisions as it improves the further chances of closing out the conversion rate.

Other ways to target geographic areas is adjusting the timing of an event based on the location of your audience, sending out personalized emails for workshops and events in a certain store area, creating and sending a promotional newsletter that offers a discount to only people living in a specified location, or send out customized directions to your store or an event/workshop, based on the geolocation of the particular customer. By doing this, you can keep your customer in a particular area engaged than usual.