Customer Segmentation in Email Marketing

Email marketing is as old as the internet. It is probably the lowest cost customer acquisition and engagement tool.  Variables of interest for an email marketing campaign

1.       #emails opened – No tool today provides that with certainty. Most vendors provide a pixel open method of identifying how many emails were opened and how many were not. #Emails opened is equivalent of #Impressions in marketing parlance.

2.       #clicks – This is most obvious and probably the most important data that measures the success of any campaign.

3.       Actions on the landing page – Every email marketing campaign needs to have a landing page which will trigger a further sequence of actions to deliver the business benefits to the marketer. If you are running a Facebook Like campaign, the #likes you get is the goal. For an ecommerce company or a deals site sending out deals, Add to Shopping Cart is the goal of the landing page.

While the above metrics are most commonly used to track performance of a campaign, a smart marketer only begins with these. She can go to the next level …..

1.       Identify the customer segments you sending mails to.

2.       Repurpose the content before the mail is sent to meet the aspirations of the segment audience.  For example, subject lines for new buyers can be customized basis what they have recently bought and offers can include related products. That is, a customer who recently bought a Tablet from your electronics store is more likely to open an email with subject “Buy a matching leather case for your tablet”.

3.       As you repurpose the content of the mail, you can also provide custom landing pages for each customer segment. An existing customer will land on a page which is customized with previous profile information. If we know that she also owns a phone of the same brand, cross selling another product that goes along with that, might be a good idea.

4.       Tracking the response by customer segment, number of actions items in the email and landing page gives immense insight in customer behavior. Learn and improve the email content, landing page further…. It’s a virtuous cycle.

RoI from customer segmentation in email marketing can easily exceed 100% depending on richness of data you have on the customer. Better targeting is not only good for the marketer, but also for the consumer. It is a win-win situation.