Better target your contacts with email segmentation

A successful email marketing strategy is based on sending the right message to the right person at the right time. To be able to send this perfect email marketing campaign, you need to make sure to target your database as granularly as possible. For this, use a segmentation feature to segment your contact list and send targeted emails.

Email list segmentation consists of automatically sorting your contacts according to their properties or behavior. For example, you can segment your contacts according to socio-demographic criteria, their purchase history, their interests, or their level of interaction with your previous communications. You can easily isolate the target you want to reach and send customized messages that will really meet the expectations and needs of that specific segment of recipients.

By responding as closely as possible to the expectations of each customer and prospect, promotional emails that use contact segmentation generate much higher opening rates and improve the return on investment of your emailing campaigns. But marketers need to be smart when segmenting by first considering the objective they hope to achieve. That will help them define the right audience segment and send the right messaging. 

How to create an email segment

Select an Email Service Provider (ESP) that offers an advanced email marketing segmentation feature, and set up your segments:

• Create a new segment by defining one or more filters (also called conditions) that will be applied to a chosen email list. Filters are based on your contact properties (name, city, gender, etc.) or the activity of your contacts (open, clicks, etc.) over a given period of time. 

• Once you’ve defined the filters you want to apply (based on the goal you want to achieve), calculate and test your segment on any of your contact lists. Just choose the contact list of your choice to see how many contacts your segment contains and get a preview of your segment. 

• Then, when sending a campaign, select your targeted contact list and choose the segment you created. The number of subscribers included in the segment will automatically be calculated, so you can easily estimate how many contacts your email will reach.