Email marketing, if used properly, is an extremely cost effective digital medium to contact your current and potential customers. However, if not used properly, unsolicited emails can quickly evoke the word “spam,” which has become a very dirty word and instantly irritates email users with just the mere mention of it.

But don’t let this get you down. By applying email best practices to your campaigns you can assure your emails will not fall onto deaf ears (or blind eyes? …you get the point).

With the increasing number of companies implementing their own email marketing initiatives, it is important to apply industry best practices and creativity to stand out, all while steering clear of being labeled with the afore mentioned dirty word.

So how do you do this? Simple. Deliver relevant information that actually interests your target audience. The real question is how do you know what information is relevant to which audience? Enter: segmentation and targeting.

Segmentation and Targeting

When referring to email marketing segmentation, we’re talking about the ability to slice your contact list into specific pieces that are determined by various attributes of your customer. By doing so, your email marketing becomes more targeted. And when your audience is specifically targeted with relevant content, your efforts are more effective and efficient, and your emails will generally be well-received.

Benefits of Using Segmentation

If you’re not completely sold on the whole segmentation idea, don’t fret. We’ve only scratched the surface. Apart from delivering relevant information to an actual potential customer, segmentation lets you:

• Learn about user behavior
• Identify your most valuable customers
• Create relevancy for your audience
• Develop more business from sub groups
• Identify underperforming sub groups
• Position your products/services to specifically address customer needs

Sounds good, huh? Now that you’re interested and want to start applying this idea to your own marketing efforts, you’re not sure where to begin. No problem, we’re here to help.What to Segment

• Lifecycle of customer
  • Where are they in your funnel?
• Purchasing habits/History
  • What can/should you contact them about?
  • What do you have that they need?
• Demographics (A big Duh! But you would be surprised how many broadcast email campaigns currently flood inboxes)
• Business to business

How to Apply Segmentation to Your Email MarketingOnce you have segmented your email lists, it’s time to start applying it to your existing data. Determining which key attributes to use for each list is very important.

Segmentation is not a “set it and forget it” process. It requires constant testing and reevaluation over a period of time to make sure that your lists are clean and accurate. From a customer’s point of view, nothing is worse than receiving an email that is trying to sell them a product they just bought. This is irrelevant to them and it might even be at a lower price than they paid for it.

This type of mix up is going to do one of three things

1. Annoy your customer and probably upset them
2. Prod them to quickly unsubscribe from future mailings
3. Cue another click of the spam button for quick deletion

Track the Behavior of Your Lists.Gather as much information as you can from your campaign. You will be able to sort through and apply what you’ve learned to future campaigns.

• Identify who is opening your emails.
• Who is clicking through, and where they are going?
• What copy worked to prompt that click?
• Track subscribers and unsubscribers.
• Ask unsubscribers why they left. Track these conversion factors and benchmark as you go through the process.

Segmenting and targeting potential customers in your email campaigns probably involves a few more steps than you’re used to. But the end result is reaching people who will actually read and be interested in what you have to say, and ignoring those who will banish your poor emails to the desolate and depressing world of the spam folder.For more information please visit Email marketing Segmentation Targeting.

For more articles on digital marketing please head over to http://www.alterimaging.com/blog.

- David Wells