Sometimes Less Can Be More

Cheap email sends, endless campaigns that just made money, and the little thinking that went into email marketing, made it a shining star compared to other marketing mediums in its infancy. Those carefree days of blasting emails and calling it email marketing has come to an end. Today’s email marketers have many more obstacles and must approach each send with more thought and precision.

One approach many marketers are using is list segmentation. The thinking behind this is that less can be more, meaning that marketing to smaller targeted lists will produce more conversions, user interaction and in the end more revenue. We all know that people have different tastes, preferences and buying patterns, so why would we assume that one mass email would speak to each customer how they want to be spoken to.

List managers are now creating many cross sections of their lists, dividing them up by age, sex, region, and variety of other demographics. In addition, the list segmentation allows them to hit different regions at different times. For example, Florida and California are in much different time zones and list segmentation will allow the marketer to hit each state at the correct time.

Segmentation also creates relevancy to the consumer. In today’s email marketing world, marketers are always one click away from losing that customer forever. If the consumer is constantly being communicated to with the wrong offers, or in the incorrect way, then they will surely opt-out or even worse, report you as spam.

When the spam button is hit, it is very costly to marketers in two major ways. The first is that you lose the lifetime value of the customer. This is a hard number to calculate definitively, but for many businesses it can go well into the thousands of dollars per customer email. The second is when the consumer clicks spam, not only will you most likely lose the customer, but also it affects your overall sending score and in the end your deliverability. As all marketers know, there is a huge difference in the amount of mail read when the email is in the inbox compared to bulk.

Load the offer up and send is no longer a valid marketing plan. Marketers must have a precise plan to maximize their return and list segmentation is part of that plan. It creates a more relevant message and a better interaction between the marketer and the consumer. Segmenting the list means smaller drops, less mail out, but more overall returns.