One of the biggest mistakes any advertiser makes during the course of an email marketing campaign is to use one-size fits all approach. This sends out a single, mass message to every addressed saved in an email list. The problem sits with not all potential customers look for the same product. They have different backgrounds and have purchased varying services from the business. Due to this, the very best email advertisers use what is known as email segmentation. In fact, it’s possible to increase a click-through rate by over 600 percent, simply by adding two new emails to a marketing campaign.
Email Automation
Most emails are collected through an automated system. Someone visiting a website wants to earn a special deal or cash-back offer inputs their email for the discount code. Others might come to a landing page via social media, while some customers may simply look for different products and services. There are so many variables at play when it comes to customers arriving on a website. With all the variations in customer backgrounds, it’s necessary to implement email automation when collecting email addresses.
Now, a large majority of companies segment emails in some ways. They may store the addresses of visitors who come in from a specific advertisement or social media post. However, it’s important to dive in deeper. The very best email segmenting breaks document what individual visitors are interested in (especially if a website offers a wide range of products and services).
Why Understanding A Visitor’s Interest is Important?
The more information a company or website knows about visitors the easier it becomes to marketing material specifically to these customers. When a business knows these specifics, it can produce marketing material with the individual customers in mind. Without knowing these aspects of a customer, the created advertisements may not connect with the prospective client. If a business fails to connect with an email subscriber, it opens up the potential for the subscriber to either send future messages to the spam folder or to completely unsubscribe from the email list.
The more a business knows about these email subscribers, the easier it becomes to create relevant marketing material. This way, the content isn’t written for all website and blog visitors but instead for specific visitors. The companies can specifically craft blog posts dedicated to what a customer’s interest center on.
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Asking For Information
Blatantly asking a visitor for more information often doesn’t pan out well. A customer needs to feel as though they are receiving a service instead of providing information at no benefit of their own.
One of the best ways to do this is for a company to send out an email to subscribers and ask the recipient what’s important to them. Within the email, a different topic contains different links. For example, if a sports website wants to know more about its email recipients, it may ask what sport the individual is most interested in, and then provide links leading to football, baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, and others. By clicking on the individual link, it instantly informs the company what sports the individual is interested in. This kind of request works for anything, ranging from a news site asking what kind of news a subscriber is interested in, to a beauty blog asking what kind of beauty topics intrigue the recipient.
Every link needs to send the subscriber to a corresponding landing page. The landing pages can further segment the recipient. If the individual selects a certain sport, the landing page then can provide individual team links. All of this is designed to provide as many insights as possible.
The email segmenting then adds the subscriber’s email address to the specific list. In future emails correspondence, it becomes that much easier to make sure recipients receive information best based off of their individual interests.
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Sending Out Multiple Emails
The biggest flaw with email marketing, in general, is not all subscribers click on a received email. There’s no way to force a recipient to click on an email. Furthermore, of those who do click on the email, fewer will click on a link within the email. This reduces the amount of information a business collects from the email marketing segmentation campaign.
Some of those who receive the first email may simply have missed it. By sending the second email it helps reach those individuals who didn’t see the first email. The second email should provide the same basic information; only have a slightly different heading. It’s necessary to change the heading paragraph within the second email, as there will be some who clicked on the first email and decide to click on the second message. If they believe it to be the exact same email there likely will be no change and they’ll avoid clicking on one of the included links. Instead, by indicating the recipient hasn’t yet indicated their favorite topics, it points out it isn’t the first email sent.
While no amount of emails will prompt 100 percent of an email list to click on one of the included links, it will help boost the click-through rate. With the help of email segmentation though, it’s possible to make sure only those who didn’t initially open and click on one of the included links receive the message.
In a way, this works as an automated email marketing drip campaign. Those who did open and click on one of the included links will receive additional emails based on the link they selected. Those who didn’t click on a provided link will receive secondary emails to prompt them into selecting one of the original links.
Example of a Segmented Email Campaign
The very first email a company or blog should send out is a welcome email. This email welcomes new subscribers and provides them with helpful information. Some insights may include how often the newsletter goes out and what to expect from forthcoming emails. This particular email should go out as soon as the individual subscribers. It should also go out to all subscribers.
The second email needs to ask the subscriber of his or her interests. A company may offer a free gift, such as an eBook, shopping discount or another perk for clicking on an interest-based link. This email, ideally, should go out a day or so after the first email. Again, this email should go out to all subscribers.
The third email goes out to those who responded to the second email, providing subscribers with valuable insights and content based on the category they selected in the previous message. This email should go out another day or so after the subscriber responded to the second email. Some businesses may decide to send out a fourth email to those who responded to the original messages. The fourth email can provide additional material, insights, discounts and special promotions. However, this isn’t always the best practice. A business needs to understand its customers and the frequency for which emails should go out. Sending the fourth email in as many days runs the risk of a recipient feeling spammed, which in turn can lead the individual to remove themselves from the subscriber list. There’s always a fine line between the right amount of emails and over-spamming recipients.
For those who did not respond to the second email, a separate “third” email should go out. A company may decide to up the ante on the kind of free products or services the recipient receives. This can include additional free eBooks, free shipping or a larger discount code. By providing a larger incentive it not only helps bring in those who missed the original second email, but it increases the chance of those who did see the second email clicking on an included link within this third message.
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What to Do With Current Subscribers?
The segmented email list works for brand new subscribers. However, unless a business is just starting up, what should the company do with current subscribers? The illustrated drip email campaign only works with new subscribers, yet it’s important to know what current subscribers are interested in.
A company can use a similar approach with current subscribers as it does with new subscribers; it just requires a slightly different heading and information request. The business can indicate it’s always on the lookout to improve the kind of services it provides its customers, and then to ask the current subscriber what they may have specific interests in. The body of the email can include the exact same links as the new subscriber emails. This way, the business doesn’t need to create alternative landing pages for new and current subscribers. Additionally, current subscribers are more likely to respond to such an email request. With that said, following the same three email approach should occur, in order to improve the click-through rate of current subscribers.
Offering a free gift to current subscribers helps illustrate customer appreciation (even if it’s the same gift new subscribers receive). Current subscribers don’t know what others receive though, so it will help boost the email’s click-through.
Multiple Selections
Most of the time when a subscriber responds to the email, they will click on one link. However, there will be times where the subscriber clicks on multiple links (such as returning to the already opened email and clicking on a different link). When this happens the marketer has a choice to make.
The first choice is to add the email address to multiple segmentations. This means they’ll receive twice the number of emails as a standard recipient. While this does provide added information to the subscriber it also runs the risk of spamming them, which increases the chance of them removing their address from all subscriptions.
The second option is to only accept the latest link click. This means if they click on one link, then return to the email and click on a secondary link, the secondary link overrides the original link selection. It’s up to the business marketer to determine what works best for them and which will provide the greatest level of customer service without spamming the email recipient.
For companies sending out emails for both segmented lists, the best course of action is to separate the emails sent by at least a day. This way, subscribers on multiple lists are not bombarded by several emails on the same day, but instead, receive different information on different days.
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How To Best Take Advantage of Email Segmentation and Engagement
It doesn’t take much to boost an email’s click-through rate. With a few subtle adjustments it becomes possible for any business, regardless of the produces or services it offers, to see a dramatic improvement in the CTR.
First, the email marketer needs to write out two additional emails and add these emails to the drip automation series of the welcome messages. At the end of each email, it needs to provide a series of questions and answers. The basic FAQ should include insights including how often the emails will arrive once completing the subscription process. Then, each of the included answers should come with an accompanying hyperlink. These individual links can head to specific product pages, blog posts or landing pages. Wherever the links send traffic to, it’s important to capture the email information in order to create future segmentations for marketing practices.
From here, all future emails should revolve around these automated emails and link selections. By following these basic principals it becomes that much easier to not only boost the click-through rate of subsequent emails but to increase the chance of new sales with the boost in this CTR.
In Conclusion
Not all customers come to a website or blog post from the same demographics. Additionally, not everyone arrives at the site through the same inbound marketing link. Due to these variations, it’s important to segment the collection of email addresses in order to take note of these differences. By separating these different addresses, it’s possible to better reach both potential and current customers with future marketing material based specifically on these differences. It doesn’t take much work, but by implementing slight blog redesigns and how email addresses are saved, any email marketer will experience a substantial boost in an email click-through rate and potential sales. All without increasing expenditures or man-hours, once the new email segmentation is in place.
