With the large number of marketing emails we receive from brands each day, it’s almost become a habit for us to ignore them unless they really stand out. So, what is it about the emails that catch our attention that make them stand out? The answer is simple: they’re relevant to us, appealing to our specific struggles, needs, and interests.
This means that the sender understands our needs and pain points clearly to send those personalized emails. Behind the scenes, savvy email marketers follow a process called email segmentation to get this done.
Email segmentation allows you to create amazing campaigns — the kind your leads won’t want to unsubscribe from.
In this blog, you’ll learn about the benefits of email segmentation, how to segment an email list from scratch, and how to use monday sales CRM to bring in more results.
What is email segmentation?
Email segmentation is the practice of separating your master email list into smaller groups based on set characteristics. Marketers and sales professionals segment email lists for many reasons; but mainly, because doing so allows them to better communicate with their customer base through personalized content.
Email segmentation allows businesses to cater to distinct interests by creating highly personalized marketing campaigns and improving customer lifetime value (CLV).
Compared to traditional batch-and-blast email marketing, segmentation leads to better results and higher ROI. You can create simple segments based on general customer characteristics or advanced segments for a highly specific audience through extensive research.
What are the different types of email segmentation?
Email segments are based on different characteristics. Here are some of the types of segments you can create from your email list:
Demographics: includes information such as age, gender, and location.
Sign-up source: based on how they’ve been added to the email list.
Engagement: based on how subscribers have engaged with your brand previously.
Purchase history: based on products ordered or order value.
Inactive subscribers: refer to disengaged subscribers – like those who haven’t opened your email in a long time.
Why does email segmentation matter?
Email segmentation is one of the main ways marketers optimize campaigns and make sure they send out the right kind of content to the right people. In fact, a recent survey by Hubspot found 78% of marketers agree that email segmentation is one of the most effective strategies for email marketing campaigns. Let’s look at why email segmentation is vetted by many marketers:
Increases ROI: Segmentation increases open rate, click-through rate, and conversions of emails. This will ultimately bring in more revenue.
Builds long-term customer relationships: You gain the opportunity to create emails that personally appeal to customers, thus increasing customer loyalty.
Improves your business: Segmented emails bring in specific results which you can use to gain insights into customer behavior which you can use to improve your product/service.
Boosts email deliverability: Segmented lists reduce the risk of inboxes flagging your attempts as spam.
The process of segmenting your email list
Let’s look at how you can effectively create email segments to increase ROI in four easy steps.
1. Decide criteria
The first step is to decide the criteria that will determine your segments. This will depend on your goals.
For example, if you want to engage new leads, segmenting them based on demographics, signup source, or engagement will be more appropriate so that they get relevant content through emails. If your goal is increasing customer retention, you should try segmenting by purchase history and purchase amount/value.
2. Leverage data
After deciding on the criteria for segments, you need to gather data if you haven’t yet already.
Good data will result in effective personalization, which is the goal of email segmentation.There are many data points you can collect from your audience and many sources to consider. These will vary from company to company. If you’re a B2C brand, knowing things like age, gender, and birthdate may be useful for segmentation. On the other hand, a B2B brand will need details such as company size and budget.
You can collect details from your audience through forms, events, lead magnets, website analytics software, and audience research tools. For example in this in-website subscription form by Livestorm, website visitors are required to fill in the details before subscribing:
Source: Livestorm
With this information, they now have the opportunity to personalize the emails they’ll receive based on what’s most relevant to them.
Collecting and organizing such data will be easier with a tool like monday.com. Use monday forms to collect details through a survey form and watch your new data instantly populate in a visually intuitive board. This toll and other integrations are available within monday sales CRM so you can consolidate all your audience details in one place, that your whole team can access.
If you already have a large email list, another way to collect data is by sending survey emails. For example, Sleeknote sends an email to new email subscribers to understand what they’re interested in. Users are asked to select an option that best describes them.
Source: mailerlite
With monday sales CRM, you can seamlessly connect all your new and existing data in one place. With all your data organized, you’ll have the perfect foundation to start creating segments.
3. Set up segments
You’re now ready to create segments. For this, you’ll only need two major tools: an email marketing tool and a CRM. Ideally, you want a CRM that integrates with email marketing tools (like monday sales CRM).
A good CRM software can help you automate segmentation and create effective campaigns. There are many such tools in the market. When choosing one, you should consider if it has these key features: automated workflows, personalization features, and integrations.
With monday sales CRM, here’s how you can easily create segments:
Integrate with your email marketing tool.
Create custom audiences by setting lead scoring criteria and adding them to specific lists. Even use custom colors and statuses to differentiate each audience.
Set up email sequences according to each specific list and automate the workflow.
Measure key metrics to gauge the success of your mass email campaigns.
Pro tip: Use monday.com email marketing template to plan, design, ad execute campaigns with a drag-and-drop workflow builder.
4. Monitor, adjust, and repeat
Once you start sending emails, you need to continuously track performance and use the data to refine your process. Track metrics like click rate, open rate, and spam conversion rate. Use these findings to run future campaigns.
For example, if a segment of subscribers clicks more on blog post links, send them more such content. If a particular segment has low open rates for promotional emails, you can understand they’re top-of-the-funnel leads and need more nurturing.
You can also run A/B tests — experiments to find out the best.
Streamline your email marketing process with monday sales CRM
Once you have a strategy in place, monday sales CRM can give you a leg up in creating email segments and running campaigns.
Lead scoring – Consolidate your leads from different sources into one centralized location, where you can easily score and qualify them by assigning attributes.
Integrations – Sync your favorite email marketing tools, like MailChimp, to monitor your data in the CRM and ensure campaigns run smoothly.
Dashboard reporting – Track email campaign metrics with a customized dashboard and reporting widgets on your board so you can best understand your data and draw insights.
FAQs
How do you segment email lists?
Understand customer preferences, purchasing behavior, and other characteristics. Based on this, label your contacts. Classify each label into a different group. You can either do this manually or automate it with the help of a CRM or email automation tool.
What are some email list segmentation ideas?
You can segment emails based on your goals. Here are some ideas: demographics, engagement, sign-up source, cart abandonment, inactive users, preferred products, and purchase history.
What is a segmented email campaign?
A segmented email campaign is sending personalized emails to specific segments which are created based on criteria. This will allow you to deliver relevant content to your email list subscriber. Segmented email campaigns have more success rate compared to traditional email campaigns.
Create segmented email campaigns and watch your results flourish
By segmenting your email list, you can send the right offers and content to the right people. Don’t be discouraged if there are a few hiccups along the way, just keep experimenting with your audience until you find what works best.
If you have a huge email list, segmenting it can seem like a challenge. But with monday sales CRM, you can take much of the manual work off your hands. Through simple segmentation, you’ll be able to better understand your audience and produce the type of personalized emails they’ll actually want to read.
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