Email-specific marketing segmentation techniques

Email marketing gives new options for list segmentation in addition to classic segmentation methods such as demographic and psychographic segmentations. This Q&A, with Lucy Conlan of cScape reviews these options and also includes discussion of how to treat the "emotionally unsubscribed" list members who are a natural part of every email list.

Q1. How important do you think it is to segment your Email list?

Lucy Conlan, cScape: The very size of an organisation"€™s email list can be a political minefield. Senior management love to hear that there is a 6 or 7 figure email list. In the pressure for more sales, the cries of "€œemail everyone"€ can be heard in many companies. But a large, general, email list is often just ineffective.

It takes a brave and robust email marketer to assess and address poor performance. So what are the traits of disengagement, how do you identify the signs?

Q2. What additional segmentation options do you recommend for email marketing?

Lucy Conlan, cScape: It"€™s worth creating email specific segmentation. First assess the overall performance of your list and then look at the pattern of the worst 5%.

Your first metric should be the number of people that open the email. As the parameters will vary according to the frequency of your emails, look at volumes by identifying how much of the file has never been opened at all, then how much that hasn"€™t been opened in a month, then in a week etc.

Editors note - the emotionally unsubscribed. The inactive members of on an email list are often called the "emotionally unsubscribed". Unsubscribe rates are usually low c <0.1% per campaign but there can be upwards of 50% of a list who are "emotionally unsubscribed" and rarely open or click. View this excellent summary on how to measure and treat the emotionally unsubscribed on an email list

Q3. Why do the unresponsive customers need to be treated differently?

Lucy Conlan, cScape: In fact, there are several problems with ignoring unresponsive customers. For instance, it makes it difficult to measure statistics accurately as volumes are swollen with unresponsive segments. Isn"€™t ignoring unresponsive customers the marketing equivalent of bad manners? Maybe these customers are giving you a clue by not responding. Bad manners in this context could lead to the dreaded scourge of your customers hitting the "€œspam"€ button.

Q4. How should you treat these email list members with different activity levels?

Lucy Conlan, cScape: Talk differently to the people within the varying segments. If you email them twice a week, try reducing it to once. Throw in a special offer, a prize draw or a survey as alternative subject lines to entice them to open the email.

If this doesn"€™t work, humour can often re-engage the shy ones. I have seen subject lines such as "€œWe haven"€™t heard from you"€, "€œWe still haven"€™t heard from you"€, "€œWas it something we said?"€ generate significant open rates from dormant recipients.

Remind customers that they have different choices open to them. Give them the opportunity to change their communication preferences. If you identify dormant customers who you believe it could be profitable for you to stay in touch with, try sending them a direct mail or give them a call "€“ it could be that they have just changed email accounts "€“ at the very least talking should allow them to tell you why they"€™re not engaged.

Q5. What can you do if these options don't work?

Lucy Conlan, cScape: If you have tried a variety of approaches, then relax and put them with all the other sleeping partners "€“ group the dormant together and keep them in the loop at an increasingly low frequency.

Exclude them from all other activities, and do not include their number when asked for list size. Your list will grow again, and in the meantime just sit back and take the credit for the higher levels of open and clickthrough rates in your results.