Here are some tips for segmenting your contacts to make your email marketing strategy more effective
Segmentation is the key to every successful email marketing strategy. It’s a simple strategy that enables you to reach otherwise impossible ecommerce objectives.
What is segmentation? As we explained here, segmentation divides contacts on a mailing list into groups. The advantages include:
- A higher email opening rate;
- Fewer unsubscribes;
- A drastic decrease in reports for spam or abuse;
- A greater number of clicks on the CTA and on links in the emails;
- A much higher probability of retaining subscribers.
With Emailchef segmentation is a very simple operation, but you need to know how to do it. Here are 5 ideas to segment your contacts for ecommerce.
These are safe and tested tips, which are easy to execute and will give your email marketing campaigns more transactions.
Enjoy!
1 – Segment users by behavior
The first step is to segment users based on their behavior on your site. Start by asking how they reached your online store. Your repeat visitors might arrive through an advertisement on social networks (Instagram or Facebook), a link in your newsletter, or from a blog where you talk about your ecommerce site, or from desktop notifications if your site allows you to activate them via the browser.
New users could arrive via a search on Google (from organic results or paid ads), the advice of an influencer, an online coupon, an announcement on the main social networks or by word of mouth, perhaps at the suggestion of a colleague or a friend.
Once you have identified these two types of users, you can divide them in the following ways.
By visit frequency to your ecommerce site
Regular users might visit your site often but that doesn’t mean they are all regular customers. So you could also divide this segment by their degree of involvement.
You could create emails to keep alive the curiosity of those who already buy often while generating different ideas that can persuade others to increase their purchases and their involvement.
By registration process
Some users might not be active. They might have subscribed to your site but have never logged in or completed the registration process.
To increase their interactions, you could email them to suggest that they log in to find out about the latest offers, or remind them that they have not completed their registration.
Sometimes a small prize can create a positive stimulus. You could offer a discount, deduct shipping costs with the first order, or send a product or sample.
This is a great way to get acquainted with potential customers, allowing you to gain their trust in a short time.
By loyalty level
Users who return to your site regularly have given you their hearts. You have started a relationship based on trust. You will need to create email campaigns for them that maintain that interest and make them feel important.
Other users will be wary. They might not follow you constantly and their loyalty levels will be lower. But this isn’t a problem; it’s an opportunity. if you can conquer them with targeted emails you can expand your business and increase interactions with your ecommerce site.
By purchases
The customers of your ecommerce site won’t all have the same habits. Some will prefer to buy in the morning, others in the evening. Some will place frequent, big orders, others will prefer occasional, small orders.
You could segment your customers based on the time they make purchases and send your emails at exactly the right moment. Or you could segment them according to the number or size of purchases, rewarding users who spend more with bigger vouchers.
2 – Create a segment for users who have not made a purchase in the last 30 days
What happens if a user has not made a purchase in the last 30 days? How can you convince them to come back to your ecommerce site and spend money?
Send them an email!
Create a segment that includes customers who have not placed an order for at least 30 days. Write an email saying that you missed them and offer a promotion to welcome them back.
This is a great place to use Emailchef autoresponders. You could set a campaign to be launch automatically at 30 days from last purchase without having to check your contact list and send your email manually.
3 – Create a segment to reward your best customers
According to Vilfredo Pareto, a well-known Italian economist and sociologist, “20 percent of causes create 80 percent of the effects.”
How does this apply to your ecommerce site? It means that you can expect 20 percent of your customers to generate 80 percent of your earnings.
If you want your business to boom, you will need to reward that 20 percent of top users. Give them a discount coupon once a month, deduct their shipping fees or send them a free product!
Emailchef autoresponders are great here too. They let you send an email automatically, without having to set up a new campaign, create new lists, or set new sending times, etc.
4 – Create a segment for users who have not made a purchase in the last 3 months
Why is it important to be consistent in email marketing? To make users remember you! Imagine the surprise of someone receiving your first email months after signing up. They may not remember being your user and they might even report your communication as spam or abuse.
In addition to the email campaigns suggested earlier, you could also segment your list to group together users who have not made a purchase in the last 3 months. Your messages will remind them that you exist and are there for them.
You could report the latest news, invite them to visit your site, or update them on your latest improvements.
5 – Create different segments for B2B and B2C
If your ecommerce site serves B2B and B2C customers, you’ll definitely want to segment these two groups.
This process has several advantages:
- It makes campaign data more reliable and easier to interpret;
- It enables more effective communications addressed to more defined groups;
- It increases the number of conversions and your earnings.
Remember that B2B customers are a very different world. You’ll need to capture them with very special offers like free shipping and free products.
Conclusion
Segmentation is the ABC of email marketing.
With Emailchef it is really easy to divide your contact lists into specific groups, to build more effective communications and obtain better data to analyze.
Start with a few small segments then slowly add or remove members, depending on the results obtained.
Try our platform to send your email campaigns and discover how easy it is to segment your lists. With Emailchef you can use the most advanced tools at a very low cost.
