Pamela Smith owns Pam’s Pies. Every season she serves a broad customer base from tourists and regulars, local businesses who cater, and loyal families who select several pies for their holiday gatherings. She offers over thirty varieties of pies along with other pastries and catering services.
It would be ideal if Pam knew every customer’s quantity needs, pie preferences, and tastes when they walked in the door so she could provide great customer service. Menus of seasonal pie offerings for holiday customers, a “top ten” menu for new pie enthusiasts, free coffee coupons for her regulars, etc.
Unfortunately this process would be very difficult for Pam to initiate and also continue to operate her business efficiently. But in email marketing, fine tuning your customers’ experiences according to their needs and preferences is really quite simple, easy and effective.
If you are currently sending your monthly Enewsletter to one mailing list, consider list segmentation with personalization as the purpose. You can divide your email list into segments based on what you know about each customer or client—like their buying patterns, longevity with your company, and preferences—then you send each segment of people personalized information.
Lists can be segmented in to many different categories based your client base.
- Contact Details. Use zip code, state, etc.
- Survey Responses. Save contacts who select the same answer to a survey question, or who responded during the same month, into new lists.
- Email reports. Save contacts into lists based on how they interacted with your email (such as contacts who clicked a specific link or opened your email).
- Tags. Adding a tag to a contact allows you to record important insights that help you know the customer better.
- Purchasing habits. Create lists based on order history.
- Premiere clients. Target a list with special offers or information for your “A” list customers.
- Members. Clients that attend special events or belong to clubs or groups within your organization
Another advantage to list segmentation is to retain your audience by tailoring the information clients receive to their needs and likes. Avoid the risk of alienating your clients by having them unsubscribe because they are receiving irrelevant information. Our Email marketing partner Constant Contact shared a great blog post about collecting insight from clients to create relevant content. Read more here.
You will also want to do regular maintenance to keep your lists in order as the grow. Update your web sign-up forms to reflect new options for those who join your mailing list. Remind your contacts to update their profiles occasionally, or add a link to “Tell me about your interests and preferences”.
Action Item: Pam’s first small step to building one segmenting list could be a sign-up on her front counter for “Chocolate Lovers”. What one small step could you do to start a list for your customers?
At Vivid Image we absolutely love seeing our clients use Enewsletters to grow and achieve goals. We are here to help, answer questions, and do what we can to make little details have a big impact!
At Vivid Image we are proud to partner with Constant Contact and are ready to help you find the right fit for your Email Marketing strategy. From Newsletters and Publications to Surveys and Social Campaigns we are here to help you get started, achieve better results and find the perfect fit. Contact your Account Director or (320) 587-8974 with your Email Marketing or Constant Contact questions or visit Constant Contact for a FREE Trial.
