How To Have Email List Segmentation Strategies – So You Can Identifying And Work On It

It’s not enough that they are interested in your niche generally. It’s not enough that they are looking to solve a certain set of problems. By breaking down their specific interests in your niche, you can send them more targeted information that can lead to them buying more products. You can also segment people based on their purchasing behavior.

You are leaving a lot of money on the table if you keep most of your list members on your “general info” list. You can send update after update to this general list, and I can almost guarantee that the majority of the people are probably not going to buy stuff.

Wouldn’t it be a better use of your time to get this list of people to filter themselves by going on a buyer’s list? Once they are on your buyer’s list you can then send better-crafted or more targeted e-mails to get them to buy stuff.

Implementing Segmentation Strategies

To get people to filter themselves into sub-lists, send e-mail updates with links to more specialized e-mail lists. These lists target more specific needs.

Over time, as you send one update after another, these sub-lists will fill up with people. You then need to send specific e-mails targeting the particular interests of the people on those sub-lists. This increases the likelihood that people in the specialized list would buy something because you are pushing products and services that cater to their particular interests.

The second way you can segment is to get people to sign up to sub-lists from the beginning. That’s right. You’re not starting out with a general info list. Instead, when people go to your blog or your website, they see different ads for mailing lists.

These ads actually talk about specific issues and are very different from each other. When somebody clicks on a particular ad, they sign up for a list that only talks about the issues raised by the ads. They also only offer incentives that address tightly-defined specific issues.

This is a slower way of building lists, but it’s more targeted. With everything else being equal, the slow growth rate of your mailing lists can be offsetted by the higher sales conversions of people signing up to those specialized sub-lists.

The third approach you could take involves selling low-dollar items. You start with your generalist, and you send one update after another promoting a one-dollar product. When people buy these one-dollar items, they end up on your buyer’s list. Behind the scenes, they are automatically unsubscribed from your main list.

Given enough time, you should have a fairly nice list of people who had bought one-dollar items. You then should focus most of your time crafting high-converting updates that target your buyer’s list. This maximizes your return on effort.

Instead of sending update after update to your general info list, hoping that people will buy a $20, $50, or even a $300 item, focus all your conversion fire power on a list of people who are tried and proven buyers. This saves you a lot of time and effort. You should still send updates to your general information list; however, you should space these apart and focus on value. You should also advertise only lower-dollar items.

If you do this right, you would be able to save a lot of money while making a lot of money. How is this done? First, you can easily see, through your e-mail list management system, which of your list members are not opening your e-mails.

You then prune these general information list members by automatically unsubscribing people who have not opened your emails. Whoever is left still opens your e-mails, and you still have a chance of converting these people into buyers later.

If done right, segmenting your list into a general information list, then a buyer’s list not only saves you time, but it can also save you money later.

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Be Aware Of Your Competitor’s “Industry Standard” List Segmentation

At this point, you should have already signed up to your competitor’s mailing list. You should already know the topics that they send updates on. You should also be very familiar with the content of their updates.

Pay attention to the common features of these e-mails, and try to connect the dots. How do they segment their list members? Which of the general strategies described above are they using? Once you are clear as to their segmentation strategy, you might want to start there.

Again, this is the industry standard. You’re not exactly wedded to it. You can change it up later. You can make improvements based on how your list behaves.

Don’t neglect this segmentation strategy. Let’s face it; people do unsubscribe. This is a fact of life. Don’t think that just because you work hard to offer the right incentives to the right people that they would remain loyal to your list.

People do sign up, and after some time they unsubscribe; however, you can reduce your unsubscribe rate by simply asking people who wish to unsubscribe to change the update frequency of their membership on your list. Depending on your list automation software, you can offer list members a choice as to how frequently on your list will send them updates.

Don’t neglect this powerful tip because this can save your list. Instead of the vast majority of your list members unsubscribing after a certain amount of time, you can hang on to a large chunk of them, and possibly convert them into buyers later.

Why Segment Your Email List?

Why should you segment your email list? People find themselves in your mailing list for a wide variety of reasons. While they share a common interest in your niche, that’s probably the only thing they have in common. They can all agree on the one problem your niche focuses on. Despite this, they might have different related problems they need solved.

A problem, like weight loss, for example, has many different parts. Maybe some people are struggling with weight loss because of their metabolic rate. Other people simply eat a lot and have impulse control problems. Others tend to have a certain lifestyle. Whatever the case may be, these people agree on the common problem of weight loss; however, they may have different “sub-problems” they need addressed.

As a result, they might need different stages of the conversion process. Some may need more information before they commit to buying a product. Others are already clear on the solution, but they just need a recommendation they can trust. Obviously, you can’t send the same message to these people and expect the same results. It’s just not going to happen.

For every one person who is ready to whip out their credit card and make a purchase, there are probably dozens, if not hundreds of others, who are still trying to make up their mind. Maybe they are looking for more information. Maybe they already have an idea, but they need to know more about specific solutions. Maybe others trust a solution, but just need you to push them off that fence.
Do see the difference among these groups of people? This is where segmentation comes in. You need to set up a process where the people can be sent messages that would push them closer to the point of conversion.

I’ve already covered the three strategies you should use to segment your mailing list. The following segmentation strategies are more detailed. Implement them after you’ve done the three main strategies listed above. You can segment your list members’ e-mails using the following criteria.

Location

If you tend to attract list members from many parts throughout the country, and you send out offers that can be regionalized, this may be a good option for you. Send only updates related to a specific region to people who live there.

This makes the information more relevant to them, builds more local trust, and lead to greater conversions down the road.

Email List Activity Level

People who open your e-mails a lot have different expectations from people who casually open your e-mails. For people who are very big fans of your mailing list, you might want to ask them to sign up for another list in exchange for a reward.

When they sign up for this other list, you can send them more frequent updates, and you can probably get away with trying to push them harder to buy stuff.

They probably wouldn’t mind because they already made it a habit to open and read your e-mails.
Less frequent openers, on the other hand, can remain on your main list. You can send them updates at regular intervals.

Lack Of Activity

If people sign up for your auto-responder series, but don’t seem to open your e-mails, you might want to set up an automatic reminder system. Depending on the e-mail platform you’re using, set up the system to send a reminder e-mail asking the recipient to respond, or ask you a question. This lets you know whether the recipient is completely ignoring your e-mails.

If this is the case, then you can prune these list members. Since they’re no longer opening your e-mails, and you’ve already reached out to them to get them to open your e-mails, it’s probably a safe bet that you can delete them from your subscriber base without any negative effects.

Just Send Different Email Updates Based On Incentives Downloaded By The List Members

As I mentioned earlier, you can run different e-mail lists on the same blog or website page. When people click these ads to sign up to a list, they’re actually signing up to different e-mail lists. Usually, these different lists offer different incentives.

Increase the conversion rate of these different lists by making sure that your updates are guided by the incentive downloaded by the list members. For example, if the list member downloaded a video, chances are quite good that this person probably would want to watch other videos. On the other hand, if this person downloaded a graphics template or a graphics package, they’re probably more interested in similar types of content. Make sure that your updates speak to these different incentive preferences so you can maximize your sales conversions.

Separate Info List Members From Buyers Using Low-Dollar Product Offers

I’ve mentioned this above, but this is so powerful that I can’t help but mention it again. Depending on your niche, it may be unavoidable that you end up with a general information list. You work hard to offer incentives, get people to sign up to your mailing list, and at the end of the day you have a lot of people on this list. However, these people are generally just looking for general information on your niche.

They’re also all over the place when it comes to conversion ability. In this case, it’s a good idea to send regularly scheduled updates with low-dollar information product offers.

Personally, I would push for really cheap stuff. We’re talking about a one-dollar booklet, a one-dollar template package, or whatnot. Let your system send out these offers, and set up your e-mail on this management software to unsubscribe people automatically who buy these one-dollar items.

Here’s how you set it up. It’s actually quite simple. When you send out your updates to your general information list, these updates will contain a link to your sales pitch. When people click that link, they see a purchase button. When they purchase, they are actually taken first to an e-mail sign up page.

When they enter the same e-mail address, they used to get on your general information list, your e-mail management software system will automatically unsubscribe them from the general information list, and put them on the buyer’s list.

This way, when you send updates to your general information list, your tried and proven buyers will not see those updates. This is a good thing because you don’t want them to feel that you’re spamming them by sending them so many e-mails.

You should then pay more attention to your buyer’s list. Maybe you should send them updates with more in-depth solutions, or you should send them higher-quality information to get them to buy higher-priced products or services.

Segment Your Email List Based On Mobile Versus Desktop

This is really non-negotiable. Over 60% of internet users view the internet through a mobile device. The problem is that these devices have different screen sizes. Make sure your mailing list segments your list members based on their screen preference.

Depending on the e-mail list automation software you’re using, you should be able to automatically detect this. Regardless, your squeeze page must be mobile ready. In other words, it doesn’t really matter what device visitors use to view your squeeze page, your page would look really good. It would look its best.

Optimize your squeeze page for all environments. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re a person is viewing your squeeze page through a mobile phone, a desktop or a tablet.