Monday, March 3, 2014

How to Segment Email Marketing Campaigns to Boost Online Traffic, Conversions, and Sales

In every relationship, there is a slump. You start thinking, is it me? Is it you?


The same applies to marketing efforts. Things get routine, standard, even boring.


Maybe it’s not you. Maybe it’s your email.


This year, our company did some soul searching and realized certain strategies needed to change. We incorporated new technologies, streamlined operations, and made some important decisions. The most critical related to our marketing efforts.


We overhauled our content strategy, hired strong writers, and segmented our marketing approach to focus on growing our online presence, strengthening our domain authority, and expanding our business’s online market share. In a few short months, The Expert Institute saw a dramatic change, successfully setting record numbers for website visits, conversions, and monthly sales.


While social media may be the focus of many marketing departments, email marketing is the more effective strategy. Email marketing can drive serious revenue for many online businesses, both B2C and B2B. “[E]mail has nearly three times as many user accounts as Facebook and Twitter combined.” Moreover, “customer acquisition via email has quadrupled in the last four years.”


To improve your email marketing campaigns, segment your subscriber list to provide content that is valuable and relevant to your audience.


Customers are not all the same; they have different interests, problems, and needs. Capitalize on the data embedded in your analytics and structure your email campaigns to provide pertinent and informative material to your audience.


There are a variety of methods to accomplishing accurate list segmentation.


1. Attain Data


Collecting information from email subscribers during and after the onboarding process is critical in segmenting an email campaign. Creative newsletter sign-up forms, such as a multi-staged sign up mechanism, enable greater data collection during the sign-up process without overwhelming or annoying the subscriber. For example, after the user contributes their email address, offer something of value, such as a white paper or informative guide, in exchange for additional information, such as business practice areas, reading interests, and buying preferences. You’ll be able to collect more data from your subscribers without sacrificing the user experience.


2. Analyze


It’s important to slice and dice your subscriber data to gain insight. Based on this analysis, you’ll be able to gauge your readers’ preferences and partition your subscribers based on subject matter interest.


  • Interaction and Purchase History: Analyze previous email campaigns for click history and open behavior. Formulate a scoring system to keep track of emails opened and links clicked. Mining your database for purchase history can help you pinpoint buying tendencies and allow you market related material. These practices will enable you to spot trends and understand subscriber preferences.

  • Geographic location: Tailoring email campaigns according to region may prove to be an effective strategy. Many email service providers are able to provide this information based on the IP address of the subscriber opening your emails. Location-specific campaigns demonstrate a personalized communication by incorporating messaging with regards to events, weather, language, and lifestyle.

3. Preference and Unsubscribe Centers


Email preference and unsubscribe centers provide the opportunity to learn the interests and email receipt preferences of subscribers.


ESP platforms enable marketers to customize preference centers. By selecting the questions and options presented to subscribers, businesses can gather pertinent and insightful data critical to successful email marketing campaigns. For example, user selection of subject areas of interest enables marketers to segment email lists based on interest preferences.


Email subscription customization not only improves the efficacy of each email campaign, but it also helps reduce a campaign’s subscription rate. Unsubscribe centers enable marketers to provide subscribers with a variety of options before they actually unsubscribe.


Source: B2C_Business



How to Segment Email Marketing Campaigns to Boost Online Traffic, Conversions, and Sales

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