The FireLine – Six Techniques to Optimize Your Email Campaigns

Six Techniques to Optimize Your Email Campaigns

No matter the size of your organization, building a database of your current and prospective customers has become an integral aspect of your organizations success. The question becomes; what to do with all the data you have acquired and how can it help me generate additional revenue?
Email marketing allows for your business to control what, how, and when your message is received by your contact base. Sending a one size fits all message limits the effectiveness of your communications and prevents an organization from fully engaging your contacts and utilizing the valuable data you have collected.
Segmenting your contacts and customizing your messaging is one of the simplest and most effective techniques you can do with your email marketing campaigns. You can reward your contacts by providing relevant content as well as be able to control how they interact with your website and products/services.

To get a sense of the impact of proper segmentation take a look at these stats
from Emarketer:

	Increased Open Rates by 39%
	Increased Click-through Rates by 27%
	Increased Customer Engagement by 24%
	Increased Word of Mouth Engagement by 14%
	Decreased Unsubscribe Rates by 24%
	Decreased Complaint Rates by 15%

As you can see from the stats above, proper segmentation can in–turn provide considerable impact to your bottom line as well as your brand reputation. Let’s look at six simple ways you can implement these improvements:

Technique 1: Select One Category to Segment First
There are many data fields that can be used to effectively segment your contact base. To avoid confusion and being overwhelmed by the data you have accumulated on your customers; pick one data point to build your initial segmentation campaign. By selecting only one data set, you can focus your messaging as well customize your content directly to your segmented group. Overtime you will see the impact of this messaging, positive or negative. With this foundation you can easily modify or adjust your lists by expanding the complexity of your segmented groups.

Technique 2: Brainstorm Your Segments
A major benefit when taking on a segmentation project is to do a proper brainstorming session around what categories your contacts can be split into. Consider what data you are collecting currently and what data you would like to collect moving forward. Insight into the products and services you provide as well as your sales process should provide valuable insight on who your customers are and why they might need unique messaging.

Technique 3: Segment By Past, Current and Prospective Clients

One of the most basic and effective segmentation techniques is to split your contacts between past, current, and potential clients. All three segments require different communications with different calls to action. Past customers should be looked at as potentials to reuse your product or service, current customer communications should be centered on retention and referral communications, and potential customers should be led down your sales funnel to conversion.
Technique 4: Segment by Products and Services
If your company provides multiple products or services as most do, you should qualify contact interest and then use these interests as segmentation points. Relevance is key to strong email communication and what is more irrelevant then receiving information about a product or service you do not care about. Let your customers decided what they want and they will thank you for it by remaining loyal and referral generating patrons.

Technique 5: Segment by Geography
If your business operates in multiple regions, content should be segmented by those business areas. Understanding what a customer in Texas would be interested vs. a customer in Alaska will help you increase response rates as well as revenue for your organization.

Technique 6: Segment by Demography
Customers come in all different shapes and sizes. Understanding the demographics behind your current customer base will be essential to your product selection as well as overall marketing strategy. Utilizing those insights and customizing you’re messaging around the businesses core demographics will increase response rates as well as your overall email ROI.
If your organization has any question about how to best segment your list or how to update your current data capture forms, please contact one of our email specialists today for a free consultation.