Why Email Marketing Segmentation is Important
When it comes to email marketing, there has been an increased importance on ensuring personalisation. To effectively capture audience attention, email marketing continues to be a powerful tool. Tailoring marketing messages to resonate with audience needs, wants, and behaviour greatly boosts email campaign effectiveness, diverging from a one-size-fits-all approach.
In this blog post, we’ll explore why segmentation plays a crucial role in delivering B2B lead generation success.
What is Email Marketing Segmentation?
Email segmentation involves dividing and categorising your email list into more, targeted segments based on specific criteria. Such criteria’s could be industries, job titles, demographics and past engagement status – to name a few. Here, segmentation enables tailored content, offers, and timing for different audience groups, shifting from sending generic messages to your entire contact list.
Personalised Content for Targeted Audiences
Think about the last time you received a marketing email, did it feel generic, too broad, and the timing was way off? Chances are it wasn’t segmented properly, or at all! According to Campaign Monitor, email subject lines that are personalised are 26 times more likely to be opened. By understanding the preferences and behaviours of each segment, you can craft messages that resonate with their specific needs. This level of personalisation opens the door to significantly boost engagement and entice your prospects to interact with your emails.
Improved Relevance and Engagement
Sending relevant content to your audience should always be the first priority. It’s important that your potential customers aren’t just numbers – they’re people. According to OptinMonster, 43% of people who unsubscribe from emails say it’s down to their content offering any relevance to them. When recipients receive content that aligns with their interests, they are more likely to engage, click through, and convert. Additionally, it can build trust and strengthen relationships in the future.
Enhanced Open and Click-Through Rates
Here’s a quick question, how’s your email campaign’s open and click through rate compared to your industry benchmarks? It’s an important question to ask because if your campaign isn’t meeting or exceeding such benchmarks – there is room for improvement. HubSpot provides a clear breakdown on industry benchmarks such as; open rates, click through rates, bounce rates, and unsubscribe rates, per industry.
Incorporating a more personalised approach can significantly improve your open and click-through rates compared to non-segmented ones. According to a study conducted by Experian, they found that personalised emails received an average open rate of 29% compared to 18% for non-personalised emails. This clearly suggests that if you take the time and effort to address a prospects needs, they will return the favour, and ultimately increase the likelihood of driving them further into the sales funnel.
Behaviour-Based Segmentation
Regularly reviewing behavioural trends from your audience is crucial data that can be used to further improve the effectiveness of your email campaigns. For example, are they prospects within a particular who are more engaged with your emails? Such examples could be; website visits, downloads, or interactions with previous emails. The more they engage with your emails, the warmer they’re becoming. Furthermore, it highlights that your personalised approach is relevant to them.
This is reinforced by a study conducted by MailChimp who found that by appropriately segmenting your audience, can indeed, prove to be extremely effective. Understanding lead interaction with content enables the creation of targeted campaigns that effectively nurture them through the sales funnel.
Customer Lifecycle Messaging
It’s one thing to understand the behaviours of your potential customers, but what about your existing customers? Customer retention is vital for any business, and no wonder, the longer you retain a customer the more income you generate. This is echoed by Bain & Company, who found that a 5% increase in customer retention could increase profits from between 25%-95% for B2B companies.
When it comes to personalising and segmenting your campaign, understanding where your prospects are in the sales funnel is pivotal. Sending product setup instructions to someone new to your company, or vice versa, wouldn’t be appropriate.
Improved Deliverability With DMARC Authentication
With the recent email marketing DMARC, SPF, and DKIM authentication now in full swing, email marketers must review their current setup to ensure they can maximise the chances of email deliverability. This recent protocol is to ensure that your domain is legitimate and protected against spoof or phishing risks. Ensuring proper domain authentication increases email deliverability, moving messages from spam to recipients’ inboxes.
A/B Testing Effectiveness
When it comes to email marketing; testing, testing, and more testing is key. By segmenting your audience can greatly enhance the effectiveness of A/B testing efforts.. When you test different elements within specific segments, you gain insights into what works best for each group.
For instance, testing subject lines, body copy lengths, imagery, and calls to action gives detailed insights into audience responses. As a result, you can refine and optimise your email marketing campaigns to improve its effectiveness.
Conclusion
Email marketing segmentation is not just a tactic; it’s a strategic move. Understanding, categorising, and engaging with audience segments transforms campaigns from generic blasts into personalised interactions.
By refining your email marketing approach, you can significantly increase the chances of generating the volume and quality of leads. By embracing segmentation in your email marketing strategy, you’ll find that the increased relevance and engagement translate into tangible results.
To find out more about our B2B telemarketing and lead generation services, contact us today at 0330 808 0866 or head to our website to get in touch.
Ryan Whyte is a Director of The Lead Generation Company where he leads a team of B2B telemarketers to deliver high-quality leads for clients. With a strong background in campaign management and a focus on driving results, Ryan is dedicated to optimising strategies that maximise client success in B2B lead generation.
