Email Marketing Segmentation - Finding the right data

2 minute read time.

The previous post looked at setting objectives - let's now move on to data sets:

There are many ways that a database can be segmented but the best place to start is pragmatically marketing your product or service. Segmentation is driven by data and, importantly, be sure you check 'what you alreadt know' - specifically, evaluate what you already have in-house.

Current database:

What information do you currently hold? Are you using it effectively? It is important to recognise the relevant data that you hold - not just the email addresses. Once the existing & required attributes have been identified, they can be brought together within your CRM platform, so you are ready to start segmenting.

Email registration data:

There are a few questions you should ask yourself at this stage including:

  • How effectively do you collect data at subscription point?
  • What information should you collect?
  • And how much data is too much?

As well as capturing the email address, this is the opportunity to collect additional information that can be used to segment deeper / wider for future mailings. You can either do this at the initial signup stage, or you can gather basic information & then follow up with a welcome email taking them to an incentive-based landing page. Here the user can specify further information and interests, which can be used for more sophisticated segmentation. You also need to bear in mind local regulations around opt-in/double opt-in in terms of what information can be requested at this point.

Identifying prospects from customers:

Are you currently able to separate your prospects & customers from sales information, whether online or offline? This is a key area of segmentation that can allow for strong marketing strategies for each segment.

Other marketing systems:

Taking advantage of other means of data capture is also vital for successful segmentation. This includes the following sources:

  • Website shop
  • Web analytics
  • Competitions & surveys

Other areas of data procurement as described above can easily be designed and set up to increase the ease of the collection process.

Email response data:

By reviewing the statistics from your current messages, you can obtain valuable information regarding the popular links that have been clicked in your previous messages and who did the clicking. This can be used to identify your most popular product areas as well as help to begin segmentation of the database based on these products. All of this comes as standard in Sage E-marketing for Sage CRM.

If you're keen to target based on a broader prospective, it is also possible to mark users based on those who open a specific message or those who click across a range of links in a message.

The next post drills in further to profiling

-= David

CRM Principal