What you Need to Know About Email Marketing – Part 2
In last week’s article, we brought you news of the DMA’s report that in 2013 email marketing campaigns were yielding a 2,500% return on investment. This is great news for anyone’s marketing efforts! This week, let’s dig a bit deeper into what makes for such an effective email campaign.
If it’s not relevant, it’s junk
As we all know, the point of email marketing is to build a relationship with your customer/client, engage with them and ultimately sell to them. This can only happen if what you are sending is of interest enough to them to open your email. Nobody is going to open your email, let alone read it if it’s not relevant to them. If you repeat this process you will lose them as a contact and perhaps be marked as a spammer, the consequence of which is not very good for your business reputation. To avoid this it is important to use reliable data and craft targeted direct marketing campaigns.
How to target your message to your audience
More and more marketers are using a process called list segmentation to help them target their marketing message and remain relevant to their readers. List segmentation is a way to organise your data list into smaller categories by ‘trends’ in order to only send content that is relevant and engaging to them.
How to categorise your data list
The way you categorise your contact will vary vastly from business to business but here are some possible ‘trends’ to consider:
Geographical location – one of the most popular ways to segment a list. It can help you to target and ‘localise’ the content of your email. Or, it could be that a certain product/service works very well in a particular location and you can use the information to target other specific areas.
Purchasing history – what did your customer buy from you before? You can use this information to target your message better. Can you offer products or services that complement their previous purchases?
Buying frequency – generous special offers to those who only seldom purchase can help to increase shopping frequency. Frequent purchasers could be offered some kind of loyalty reward.
Sales cycle stages – To help keep your content relevant, the message to those who are on your list but haven’t bought from you before needs to be different from the content sent to an established customer.
Industry – If you sell to other businesses you can segment your list depending on the type of industry perhaps, or the seniority levels of your contacts. Or perhaps your product or service is very popular with plumbers, for example, so you can use this to create content that will generate leads from plumbers in neighbouring areas.
Personal profiles – What age bracket? Male or female? Do they have children? Do they drive? Analysing this type of data can help you hone in on the right message.
These are but a few examples of the most popular methods in categorising your data list. The type of list segmentation that will work best really does depend on your type of business and your customers.
It can be a laborious task to set up but is well worth the doing. Effectively analysing your data as the report from the DMA report proves, can radically improve your bottom line.
If you want help with a campaign, why not download some of our FREE direct marketing tips brochures
Alternatively, if the thought of data analysis makes your blood run cold, never fear! We are well versed in all things analytical and would be happy to advise on the best way to build targeted marketing campaigns for your business which will attract the maximum engagement and return on investment. Call us on 01274 483936 for a chat.
We always welcome feedback, good or bad, do please feel free to post a comment or contact us directly on 01274 483936.
By Joanne Clayton
