by Sean Hargrave, Staff Writer, August 1, 2016
Nobody likes to think of themselves as a generic member of some marketing “tribe” or demographic dreamed up at a marketing convention. Not only is every person an individual, but they can object to brands assuming they are just like everyone else of their age who lives in their area.
Thus, it’s probably not too surprising to hear that two in three email marketers have segmentation at the top of their to-do lists. It’s not the end of the personalisation journey, but it’s a pretty good start. What may well be surprising to some is the huge strides claimed by some brands that have put these segmentation plans into effect. In fact, the DMA has gone as far as to say that brands report back that segmented and targeted emails account for 58% of revenue from the channel.
That may sound pretty obvious, and makes even more sense when you consider that four in five consumers feel misunderstood by generic email, which more than nine times in ten contain offers that are not relevant to them. One retailer quoted recently managed to boost revenue sevenfold by segmenting content and offers around the types of goods, such as gloves and shoes, that a prospect had been browsing for on their site.
A toy retailer in the UK I recently spoke to did much the same, simply by honing down lists to specific stores and particular types of toys as well as spinning out lists for “gifters” based around a child’s birthday. In one simple exercise the retailer has split up its lists so it knows whom to email about specific in-store events as well as when a particular type of toy is going to be launched. It’s such a simple step forward, but albeit from a self-confessed low level, email revenue tripled in just months.
So if two in three email marketers have greater segmentation on their radar, hopefully examples such as these will serve as a prompt to hone down those huge lists in to highly targetted subgroups that will not only find the content more engaging but appreciate the fact a brand has understood them. Showing people what you think they will be interested in is a world apart from letting them know what you’d like them to buy.
MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily
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